Lucy Ellinson is currently starring in Grounded which has returned to the Gate Theatre for a limited season ahead of its transfer to the Studio Theatre in Washington DC.
Artistic Director Christopher Haydon’s production of George Brant’s one-woman play has proved a critical and commercial hit following its premiere at the Edinburgh Festival before its first extended, sell-out run at the Gate.
She’s a hot-rod F16 fighter pilot. She’s pregnant. Her career in the sky is over. Now, she sits in an air-conditioned trailer in Las Vegas flying remote-controlled drones over Pakistan. She struggles through surreal 12 hour shifts far from the battlefield hunting terrorists by day and being a wife and mother by night.
Lucy Ellinson has previously appeared at the Gate in Trojan Women and Tenet. Her other theatre credits include: Money: The Game Show (Unlimited Theatre/Bush), Oh the Humanity! and other good intentions (Northern Stage/Soho), A Thousand Shards of Glass (Jane Packman Co), and Monsters (Arcola). Lucy is an associate artist with Third Angel and Forest Fringe. Her solo work includes One Minute Manifesto, Kaidan and #TORYCORE.
I recently spoke to Lucy about reprising her performance in Grounded, the huge journey the play has taken her on as well as why she’s so excited about the Washington transfer…
Your journey with Grounded has been huge. Have you had time to take in its huge success and the epic journey it has taken you on?
Certainly the play has a lot of work to do. It’s one of those shows that seems to be slightly ahead of the public consciousness on this particular issue. We do the show and then people come up to us afterwards and ask if drones are real, is this really happening? So it’s really exciting to be part of a play which is full of insight into a very serious and very real transformation of how our armed forces work. I guess that’s kind of epitomised by being back at the Gate and we’re about to go off to Washington as well. It’s interesting to go from the UK, where we have drones, to America - that’s really exciting and where my main focus is.
It will be interesting for you to discover how audiences in Washington compare to audiences in Britain!
Very much so, I’m really looking forward to meeting our American audience and doing the events and talks and so on, just like the Gate do here. It will be a good chance to experience the piece and then respond to it with experts who know so much about this quite secretive issue.
So many actors crave to go on a big creative journey. Is that what appealed to you when Grounded first came to your attention?
I think most actors enjoy being pushed and given new challenges. I have a background in experimental performance, devised and contemporary performance although I have worked on new writing on and off for a number of years. This was a real chance for me to work within a team with so many elements – the design is amazing and beautifully puts the text in the centre. It’s also a great chance to play quite a formidable female character, really strong, very powerful and unapologetic. It has been a fantastic challenge for me as a performer.
Is it still developing now?
Definitely. I don’t know about anybody else, but I always find that a few weeks after finishing a play I might be walking down the street and I think, “oh, that’s what I could have done!” These ideas just pop into your head after the show has closed so I’m lucky to have the opportunity to come back to it and continue to finesse the work. The thing about George Brandt’s text is that it is so in the present, so alive, so on the front foot; the pilot character never looks back, apologises or becomes introspective, so we have to keep that freshness and that aliveness in the performance every single night.
It’s described as this gripping, compulsive, huge story but, as you’ve said, most people come not knowing much about it. What do you think audiences can expect to feel and go through whilst watching the piece?
It’s all about the relationship with this pilot. The responses we’ve had show there’s a very strong sense of admiration for this woman, but at the same time she does and says things which people don’t always agree with. She’s actually very objectionable, but there’s something about her wholehearted commitment to her job and to her family that I think people really connect to. Also, the energy she gives out, she’s a pilot through and through, and when she becomes a drone pilot, when her role has changed in the US airforce, she struggles with that because her identity is that of a pilot.
How do you find going on that journey every night? It must be quite draining!
Well, I’ll be honest, I have an enormous amount of adrenaline racing through my system after the show which makes it difficult to sleep [laughs], but I need to keep focused and keep my mind on the job – it’s a fantastic piece of work which I’m really proud to be in. My main focus is getting enough rest and preparing enough to ensure I can deliver the best performance I can.
Is starring in a one-woman show nerve wracking?
This is the third solo show I have done. The first one was very nerve wracking for that reason, not having people to lean on when on stage, but what I really enjoy about solo performances is your relationship with the audience is really intimate, very immediate. I’m actually working inside a gauze box and I can’t see anybody, but I can feel the presence of these people all around me while performing inside this wonderful box designed by Oliver Townsend. I can’t see a thing! So I draw strength out of the audience, I find them really supportive. It’s a very different condition to work in rather than being in an ensemble cast. So intimate and very direct is how I would describe it.
The Gate is such an exciting place to be working at, can you feel the buzz?
Yes! It’s a theatre that punches well above its weight I think. There’s a small but extremely dedicated team of people who run the theatre, their programming and ambition for the work presented is just fantastic! When you are in the office or the space itself, you can feel just how much everybody cares about the work. They want to engage and excite people in Notting Hill as well as people around the UK – and obviously we’re about to present this piece overseas in Washington.
You’ve touched on people’s responses to the piece, and that immediate reaction is the beauty of theatre. How do you find that?
I think I probably frustrate many bar managers [laughs] because I’m always the one yapping until closing time. I really enjoy having that chance to speak with people afterwards whether it’s in a Q&A or in the pub. For me, that is why theatre is such an enjoyable and important medium – because cause you spend time together in that live experience of performance, and then afterwards you can spend time together taking it apart, discussing it, working out things you loved or things you weren’t sure about. I think the conversation it provokes is really exciting and we are hoping this play can be a part of a wider debate on drone technology and what the UK government is taking us into as it slowly transforms our armed forces into something unimaginably different.
Interviewed by Andrew Tomlins (Editor)
Grounded runs at the Gate Theatre until Friday 30th May 2014.
Please visit www.gatetheatre.co.uk for further information and tickets.
Photo Credit: Iona Firouzabadi
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