Fleas fall in love and dead seagulls come to life in Marine Snow, a new play about love and the search for connection that's premiering at BATS Theatre from 16 – 25 November. Cassandra Tse spoke to playwright Finnius Teppett and director Lori Leigh about their triumphs, challenges and discoveries as they work together to bring this piece to life for the first time.

What do you both find exciting about collaborating with a writer, or with a director, on a new project? What do you find scares you about it?

Lori Leigh [LL]: I love collaboration.

Finnius Teppett [FT]: [What's exciting is] having another perspective to tackle the script with. Directors point out stuff I had NO idea about. When they’re good things, I point out that it was completely intentional, and when they’re bad things, we figure out how to sort it out.

LL: It’s scary because I feel an immense responsibility to the writer when I am directing a new work. A first production often defines a new play. Not a perfect analogy, but it is a bit like being the delivery doctor or midwife in a birth. [I] don’t want to screw it up.

Lori, you've spoken in the past about having a particular interest in directing new work. Why do you think you are so drawn to it?

LL: I love being able to approach a project “untouched,” so to speak. When I am doing new work, I feel as though I am not responding to a “play with a past” but instead creating a future. I love the unknowns, the risk, and the idea that we are truly making something from scratch.

There’s something immediate about new work. It’s alive. I am in theatre for the aliveness, for the now.

Has working with collaborators changed your practice as an artist?

FT: Yes. I’ve stopped trying to cover every part of the show in the script. For this play in particular, I left as much room as I could for the visual and performance elements. Directors and designers are way better at their jobs than me, so I thought I’d just give them something weird and hard to figure out and leave it at that. Sarah Kane wrote plays that had like, corpses being carried off by swarms of rats. It’s not the writer’s job to figure out how to get a swarm of rats to carry a corpse off stage. It’s really freeing. Everyone’s just doing what they’re best at.

LL: I am always learning from my collaborators. I love to learn and grow. It’s also why I teach. I feel life is about relationships and other people, ultimately. My collaborators in theatre have taught me lots - community, kindness, creativity, hard-work, loyalty, vision . . . the list goes on and on.

Finn, have you ever considered directing your own work?

FT: I have only directed a bit of my own theatre before... I find directing really productive and fun when it's an extension of the writing process—making and honing visual jokes. I really like working visually, and playing with all the opportunities of the space and the actors, making theatrical moments. For a full length tragedy with a big cast like Marine Snow, though, someone with more experience and training needs to be at the helm.

From my understanding, you wrote this play with Lori in mind as director from the start; how did going into it with that knowledge change the way you wrote Marine Snow?

FT: It was good having someone signed up already. I didn’t have to sell the play again. I could just write the bits I thought would be cool, without worrying whether someone else would like it. Lori already liked the weirdness, so I didn’t have to justify getting weirder.

LL: I first met Finn when I directed Short Sharp Scripts as part of the IIML’s Writers on Mondays series. Finn was a MA student in Ken Duncum’s scriptwriting programme. [His] work really stood out for me, and I connected with it personally and artistically... Finn’s work is pure imagination, poetic worlds (both visual and verbal), transformation, and metaphor. 

Lori, what have you found to be the particular challenges that you've come up against in the process of directing new work?

LL: I always tell writers (when I am teaching writing) that they should write one impossible stage direction. I often find myself attracted to work that has several “impossible” stage directions and is challenging from a directorial point-of-view. Collaborating with designers and actors to meet these challenges – which often open up new theatrical languages – is what I love.

From a more pragmatic point-of-view, new work usually is done with many constraints – venues that are up against intricate programming so often you are sharing the space and have restrictions around time (meaning you have to cut the play to fit the time rather than letting the play be as long as it needs to be) or design ideas. Luckily for Marine Snow, we have the Dome to ourselves and have had flexibility in terms of our set. The other constraint is usually funding. Funding bodies often don’t want to get behind new work. They want some sort of “proof,” which means that you are working on a shoe-string budget while at the same time wanting to let the new work be realized to its full potential. Very difficult.

You've both been working on Marine Snow for a little while now, and the play is set to open later this week [Thursday 16th November]. What discoveries have you made during the process?

LL: I’ve discovered joyful, meaningful play is not defined by fancy toys.... I’ve discovered I love the people I am working with on this project.

FT: Actors are even more genius than I thought. I look forward to writing stuff that’s way harder for them.

LL: And I will never look at fleas the same way again. But my dog is still wearing a flea collar.

And finally – why do you make theatre?

FT: I like writing, but what I like even more is watching people watch my writing.

LL: I make theatre because it reminds me of my pulse – my breathing, my body, other people, connection. Good theatre (and I include the process of making it) involves humans coming together in space, breathing, connecting, questioning, sitting in ambiguity, exploring what it means to be human. And play. The play aspect is really important for me. I want play to be a big part of my life.

Marine Snow plays at BATS Theatre, 16-25 November ($20/$15/$14)