A story about broken women finding the resilience to tell their own stories and claim back their power.
Meet Bianca Butler Reynolds, playwright, actor and Co-Artistic Director of Minola Theatre. For Begotten, Minola Theatre’s 2021 Anywhere Festival offering, Bianca serves as playwright and sole performer, playing five distinct characters over 90 minutes.
Tell us about the show in 100 words or less
Begotten is the 100-year history of a family, told through the eyes of five generations of women. Playwright and performer Bianca Butler Reynolds transforms from cynical millennial Alice to paranoid 90s housewife Eileen, vengeful Vietnam War-era Clea, disillusioned World War II migrant Hazel, and – finally – wild, earthy and mysteriously ‘gifted’ Irish matriarch Laoise. Played to an intimate, in-the-round audience, this 90-minute drama transports its viewers through time and space, exploring motherhood, sanity, war, loss, revenge, love and the indelible imprint of family legacy.
Anywhere Festival takes place anywhere but a theatre. Tell us about your venue. What is it about your space that adds to your audience experience?
Our Anywhere Festival production of Begotten represents our first time as Minola Theatre creating theatre in the round. As we are touring the show across different regions, our show packs down into a single suitcase and travels with us. We are performing in diverse venues – a rooftop terrace, a black box and an old church – but what’s consistent across these spaces is the intimate relationship between performer and audience. With only 40 viewers per show, Begotten welcomes the audience into an inclusive circle, in the centre of which I (Bianca) tell my five interconnected stories to friends on all sides. It’s like a modern-day fireside storytelling, except myself and my suitcase full of props are the flame.
What is your creative process like?
Minola Theatre is a tad unusual in that it’s a company made up of only two people. Kat Dekker is a director, I am an actor and playwright, and we’re both hands-on producers and teaching artists. We do sometimes invite other artists to work on projects with us, but on a show like Begotten it really is the two of us doing everything. I write the words, Kat digests them and comes up with a directorial vision, and then I speak the dialogue while Kat helps me find the physical language for bringing the characters to life on stage. Then we leave the rehearsal room, write ad copy, liaise with venues, manage finances, buy props, sell tickets, et cetera et cetera. It’s a full-on process, juggling the creativity and the business of theatre-making, but we have complementary skill sets and thrive on telling rich stories together.
Images: Bianca Butler Reynolds
Tell us your origin story. How did your company/show/collaboration start?
My postgrad studies were done in the field of playwriting, and in 2015 I was fortunate to develop one of my plays, Love you hate you drive you wild, through Playlab Theatre’s Alpha Processing script development program. I came out of that process with a production-ready script, and was eager to stage it, but needed a director. A mutual friend, James Elliott, introduced Kat and I to one another in 2016, and I had the instinctive sense that this was someone who would understand my vision for the play. I gave Kat the script of LYHYDYW, she fell in love with it, and in July 2017 we staged it independently at Metro Arts. We received overwhelmingly positive feedback and had such a blast, we decided to found Minola Theatre so we could do it all again. And again. And again.
Who is your perfect audience member? Who is going to LOVE this event?
Begotten is a drama that foregrounds the experiences of women over the past 100 years. It’s sometimes funny, often dark, and explores some confronting territory – mental illness, domestic violence, war, trauma, revenge. It’s not material for the faint-hearted. That being said, there are sparks of light to balance the darkness, and there is a real thread of optimism that emerges by the end of the play. Begotten is a story about broken women finding the resilience to tell their own stories and claim back their power. It offers resonance for women who are tired of being marginalised and silenced. It’s also a play that celebrates the beauty of language and the transporting power of storytelling. Anyone who loves powerful new writing – not to mention a versatile and challenging actor’s piece – will be enriched by the viewing experience.
Is there anything else we simply MUST know about the show?
Begotten was written in 2020 as a one-woman show, specifically aimed at the festival and touring circuit. It was scheduled for performance at BackDock Arts in April/May that year, but was unable to proceed due to the onset of the Covid pandemic. In response, we reworked the play as an audio drama, which was released via the Minola Theatre website and episodically via the That’s Not Canon podcast network. It subsequently played to a sold-out audience for one night only at the inaugural Wynnum Fringe in November 2020, featuring a cast of five talented Brisbane actors. Anywhere Festival 2021 is when the show returns to its roots, making its on-stage debut as a solo performer piece as originally envisioned.
‘Begotten’ plays as a part of the 2021 Anywhere Festival on from 8 - 23 May at Caboolture Hub (8 May); Elements Collective, Fortitude Valley (14, 21, 23 May); Studio 188, Ipswich (22 May).
