Theatre

Many of us walk round London surrounded by an impenetrable bubble. On the one hand, you want to protect yourself from hostile forces outside. On the other, it’s neither good for our psyche nor makes for a warm and responsive city. Within the bubble, we obsess about money and lifestyle and looks. The rich, in particular, are able to protect themselves from any contact with those less fortunate than themselves, although, given the times, some may have to climb out of their cars and onto the streets in the future.

That sense of parallel universes is what first inspired Polly Teale’s new play ‘Mine’. Teale, one of the co-directors of the popular theatre company Shared Experience, is used to directing expressionist versions of Victorian novels, most famously in the case of ‘Jane Eyre’. Even her own previous play, ‘After Mrs Rochester’, was based on Jean Rhys’s prequel to ‘Jane Eyre’, ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’, as well as Rhys’s own life. Feature continues

Teale was searching around for a contemporary subject that would respond to the Shared Experience treatment, when two friends of hers embarked on the arduous and often heartbreaking business of adoption. Both couples wanted a newborn baby, which meant that they had to agree to foster the child for nine months while the birth mother, from whom the baby was being removed against her will, was given a chance to sort her life out. If she managed to stay clean and find suitable ways of earning a living, then there was the possibility that she could take her child back. If not, the adoptive parents hit the jackpot. It would be hard to think of a more stressful process for either side. The 46-year-old director found inspiration in the way that two very different worlds were brought together: ‘What was potent about the situation was that it allowed me to entangle the lives of a couple who are very wealthy and privileged with somebody whose life is in freefall.’

The pair in ‘Mine’, known only as Woman and Man, put a high value on their cool, minimal lifestyle. The only thing they lack is a child. The Woman wants a baby more than anything else. And yet, once she is given one, she is riven with guilt as she observes Rose’s disastrous, drug-dependent life, in which she earns the money to pay for her addiction by the most dangerous kind of prostitution. Ideally, Rose would be helped to keep her baby. ‘We had someone along from The Priory to rehearsals,’ says Teale, ‘and their rates of success at getting people to give up drugs are very much higher than those of the usual rehab centre. They have the time to concentrate on their patients. It would make economic as well as emotional sense for Rose to be given the same level of treatment. The chances are that otherwise she will go on to have more children and will need even more help.’

Many of us are conflicted on the subject of adoption. Wanting a baby is a primeval need for many women and infertility causes great distress. At the same time, we flinch at the sight of wealthy westerners, like Madonna, descending on poorer countries and benefiting from a family’s poverty. But the experience of bringing up an adopted child can be tough. The Woman feels as if her negative feelings are not allowed. She is also struck by the natural way in which Rose is able to be with the baby in a way that she can’t. ‘For all that Rose is very damaged,’ says her creator, ‘she’s actually still in touch with a primal part of herself. Whereas the Woman has lost touch with real feeling.’

It wouldn’t be a Shared Experience show if the story was told naturalistically. In ‘Mine’, there’s a doll's house and a fantasy child on stage who is both the Woman and a projection of who her baby may become. ‘I was really keen that you should be able to see the inner life of the character – the real world and the interior world at the same time. One of the things that really fascinates me is when people as adults are compelled to behave in a way they don’t understand and are not entirely in control of. What’s exciting about using the Shared Experience language for this is that both the past and the present can be visible at the same moment. It’s something that you can do in theatre that you can’t do anywhere else.’

‘Mine’ is playing at the Hampstead Theatre.