Inside The Wire: Malion
With only two weeks to go until Malion begins its mini north-west tour, it’s safe to say we are all absolutely BUZZING with excitement to show our Chester and Liverpool audiences our retelling of this classic Greek myth!
Malion is Tired Horses Theatre’s (THT) first original production, written by our Artistic Director Joseph Meardon who reimagines the myth of Pygmalion, a sculpture who falls in love with his own creation which is brought to life by the goddess Aphrodite for him to love, it is a tale of devotion and true love. However, there is a much darker and unsettling reding of this myth which Meardon highlights, focusing on harmful masculine behaviours and how they harm women today.
This is a play which offers a different perspective to the feminist canon and inspires our male identifying audience to reflect on their own possible behaviours & the behaviours of their friends, whilst respectfully portraying the real experiences of our female identifying audience.
In rehearsals, we have been constantly discussing and critiquing the aims of our production and how we can relay this to our audience. As such, we naturally adapted a more collaborative approach in the rehearsal room, where everyone has offered their own little nugget to the show. It has been an exciting, fun, and sometimes challenging process, but what has come out of it is a passion project we are all proud to be part of. The amount of care, love, and support everyone has poured into Malion has been inspiring. I have never been part of a project with such consideration for its impact before and I can’t wait for people to see what we have been working on!
The THT team is small but diverse, but it was important to us that we included as many female identifying voices to the creation and production of Malion as possible. We wanted to make sure that although we are highlighting harmful male identifying behaviours, we were also authentically and respectfully portraying the affects these behaviours have on female identifying people.
As such, we carried out extensive research & development sessions throughout the past six months; from surveys to discussion sessions, to rehearsed readings, to peer development and having industry professionals feedback on our work. It has been vital for us to make sure we weren’t causing more harm than good with our production.
Preparing for tour is always a stressful process, but the entire company have been hugely supportive & caring of one-another which has been fundamental to every aspect of this production. As a new company embarking on this huge challenge for the first time, I am in constant awe of our team and think we have made something truly magical together. Malion will be performed at the Live Rooms in Chester on the 11th of April, and in the Liverpool Arts Bar (Studio Three) on the 12th & 13th of April 2024 before heading to this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival for a three-week run!
As Artistic Producer for THT, I have been responsible for a lot of the usual producey things, but I have also been working as a dramaturg on Malion by researching, criticising, and questioning the script & bringing us back to our intentions throughout
the process. Bringing an ancient tale into the contemporary canon has its challenges, but a good starting ground is approaching it with a contemporary lense and thinking about how an audience would perceive it today. Like in Malion, a tale traditionally about love and devotion, however, when we consider Galatea’s own autonomy and how she is brought to life by Aphrodite to serve a man's desire, we start to see the cracks within the story.
There are great plays which place male identifying people in the feminist canon, such as Young Jean Lee’s Straight White Men & Untitled Feminist Show: two plays (a great read btw) which has its characters consider their own behaviours and confront their own identities, our play looks to its audience rather than its characters. We are holding a mirror up to our audience, reflecting the harmful and unsettling masculine behaviours, focusing on the impact this has on female identifying people and the danger such behaviours seed within male identifying people.
Our hope is that our male identifying audience will reflect on how they may behave and how their masculine friends may encourage such behaviours within one another, whilst serving as a respectful and accurate representation of the feminine experience and how these behaviours impact female identifying lives. We hope our Malion encourages all of our audiences to reflect upon their own identities & experiences and exists to serve the feminist canon.