The next interview in our stagey chat series is with Mollie Semple. Mollie is currently performing her own piece, Good For Her! at The Other Palace; a dark comedy about the complexities of being a woman and the societal pressures that come with it.
Hi Mollie, how are you doing today? Thanks so much for chatting to Stage to Page! Would you mind introducing yourself to our readers and telling us how you first got into the industry?
Hello! I am Mollie Semple, a writer-performer. I knew from a very young age that I wanted to be both and so have been pursuing that dream all through school, uni and my 20s. It’s funny that you should ask about how I “got into the industry” because it’s such a complicated industry to establish yourself in. I am absolutely still trying to let the industry know that I am here by jumping up and down and shouting very loudly. You could say that I’m getting in by my own industriousness - creating and producing my own work.
Your show, Good For Her!, is returning to The Other Palace this July. Can you tell us about the story?
Good For Her! is about Iris, a woman who is still striving to be an actress after a stint of child stardom came to an anticlimactic end. She is paralysed by the fear of failure, exhausted by the slog of trying, and bitter that success hasn’t just materialised like it does for other people. In fact, she’s completely and utterly obsessed with a girl she used to be friends with at school who seems to be getting everything right. But at the root of everything Iris does is her complicated, toxic relationship with her mother. When Iris’s mum gets sick, she has no choice but to become her carer, catalysing an unraveling that is very much overdue.
What was the inspiration behind writing this piece?
This play came from two things: The first was a need to challenge myself both as a writer and an actor by creating a deeply flawed character who the audience could still side with. The second was that I wanted this character to act as some externalised embodiment of all the ugliest feelings we can have about ourselves. Iris is not me, her life is nothing like mine (my real mum is amazing!), she is a much more troubled soul than I am, but I know that a lot of people will see just a little bit of themselves in her.
As the writer and performer of the piece, are there small parts you ad-lib or change during each performance or is it very structured?
Ultimately the performance is very structured, but the joy of performing any stage show are the new things to be found each night. Last year I only got to perform this 3 times, and I could feel myself really getting into the swing of things, finding new confidences, new elements each time but before I knew it, it was over. This time we are doing 7 shows and I am genuinely so excited to explore what each performance holds.
My blog is called Stage to Page. But if you could turn any book, from page to stage, what would it be and why?
Great question. This sent me into a spiral. What would I turn into a stage show??? Given I love shows that leave you with a funny taste in your mouth afterwards, I think I would like to give Pet Sematary a go.
Can you imagine the puppetry for the animals.... Horrifying. Fun.
And finally, why should people book tickets to see Good For Her!?
If you like darkly funny, unhinged stories with very complicated women at their centre, I think Good For Her! is for you. If you want to be surprised, uncomfortably self-reflective, and also entertained you should book a ticket. These are all the elements I want to see in a show, that’s why I wrote it. I want an audience to go in thinking they were going to watch one thing and come out with a slightly stunned feeling. Why don’t you find out for yourself?
You can book tickets to Good For Her! at the Other Palace, here.
**photo credit: Malachy Luckie**
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