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Why I Made is a fortnightly feature in which artists and writers share with listener.co.nz the behind-the-scenes stories of their creations. Here, playwright Matthew Seager talks about In Other Words, a drama school project which has become a theatrical success around the world.
The last time Jennifer Ward-Lealand and Michael Hurst played husband and wife on stage was nearly 20 years ago.
Now, the real-life couple – together since their 20s – are starring in In Other Words, a love story that looks at the effects of Alzheimer’s disease and the transformative power of music. Its British playwright Matthew Seager says it’s about falling in love, wanting to spend your life with someone else, and the highs and the lows of that.
“Then, ultimately, there is this one big obstacle – dementia – and this couple, Arthur and Jane, must navigate that. We’re looking at 50 years of their relationship, which is connected to Frank Sinatra’s music. It’s also about how music can serve as a lifeline, help people hold onto their memories.”
Writing In Other Words has made Seager acutely aware of, and interested in, the power of music to help those living with dementia. Here, he explains why he wrote the play and its journey from a care home to theatres around the world.
Why did you write In Other Words?
MS: I was 19 and in my last year at the University of Leeds. I worked in a dementia care home facilitating sensory stimulation workshops as part of an Applied Theatre module. At the end of the session, we decided to play music that might connect to when the residents were younger. We picked Frank Sinatra, and the reaction was just amazing because many of them seemed to be completely cognitively unaware but stood up and sung along. We’d tried other things to stimulate memory, like massaging essential oils into the hands of residents but nothing worked like music.
Why Frank Sinatra?
MS: I did a quick calculation in my head and worked out that if the average age of the residents was mid-80s, then Frank Sinatra would be a good bet. I remember arriving and being in a room full of about 30 residents, all with different types of dementia. Depending on which type you’ve got, the symptoms can be very different, so there were people who were hallucinating, some were angry, others were sad. I remember shuffling to the back of the room and thinking, “we’ve made a mistake here.”
But we played the music and almost instantly, almost every single person in the room stood up. It was like they were possessed; they knew almost every single word. I’d never seen anything like that before and there we were – me at 19 and my three friends about the same age – all in tears. It was incredibly moving, very powerful.
So, how did you go from that to an award-winning play?
MS: I was doing an MA at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow, where the On the Verge Festival was created. It was an opportunity for people to submit an idea and put on a show for two or three nights in one of their spaces. You don’t often get to put on a professional production without any financial risk, so I wrote In Other Words. That was around 2013.
What was the reaction to that first performance?
MS: I remember sitting at the back of this little room and noticing one of the stewards left and returned with a bunch of tissues! There were only about 30 people in the audience – it was a small room – but they seemed to be profoundly moved by it. A lot of them were crying. So, I was sitting there chewing my fingernails, closing my eyes, and hoping that meant they liked it. I was young, and that’s an age when you don’t really have a lot of self-confidence.
After the response and positive comments, I felt compelled to take it further. It’s not often, I think, that you feel really confident in something that you’re doing. I finished drama school, moved to London, got an agent, and got acting jobs but there was an opportunity to perform in a theatre in Hammersmith called The Lyric.
I pitched the show to them – with me playing Arthur – and it went from there. That was in 2017. We performed at a small pub theatre in London called The Hope Theatre and then it sort of snowballed so we toured it, brought it back to London and found theatres in other countries were interested.
Where has it been performed?
MS: It started with France. It’s been in Paris for two years and won has won four Moliere Awards, which are the equivalent to the UK’s Laurence Olivier [theatre] Awards. It’s about to open in Kenya, Germany, Turkey and, of course, New Zealand. It really has been the most constant part of my career.
How did it get to New Zealand?
MS: My first job out of drama school was with a Shakespeare company called The HandleBards, and they’re a cycling Shakespeare company. We didn’t get paid that much money, but it was the best experience of my life. We basically started in the south of England, with all our set props and costumes on the back of our bikes and cycled all the way through England and up to Scotland performing at theatres, castles, stately homes. It was incredible. One of the cofounders and actors was Callum Brodie, who moved to New Zealand in 2021 and started Figment Productions, which is producing the NZ season of In Other Words.
What’s different about the NZ production?
MS: Michael Hurst and Jennifer Ward-Lealand! It’s such a gift to have people like Michael and Jennifer doing the show because they’re incredible actors and have been a couple since they were in their 20s. It means there’s real history, real connection. I was in NZ earlier in the year so, having met them, I’m just so excited by what they’ll bring to the table.
Have you continued to work with people with dementia?
MS: My grandma had dementia; she died when she was in her late 90s. I’d already written the play when she was diagnosed, so her diagnosis wasn’t an inspiration to write it, but what I found was that having done some research, a bit of work [with people with dementia] and written the play, I was able to maintain the relationship I had with her. I could sort of tune into what it was that I thought that she wanted in a way I certainly wouldn’t have been able to without the show.
Through the first few years of the show, we worked with an organisation called Playlist for Life, which create personalised playlists for those with dementia. They gave us some funding, and I’ve since hosted some talks and done Q & A sessions with them.
We’re now working with the charity Music for Dementia, which has recently released the Power of Music Report. The report said this:
‘There is an urgent need to reimagine health and social care in this country (UK), and the need to do things differently is already being recognised by our health system. The Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) ‘Good for you, good for us, good for everybody’ plan, published in September 2021, recently set out a framework for reducing overprescribing to make patient care better and safer. Importantly, the report highlights the need to build upon important initiatives, such as social prescribing, to tackle the serious problem of overprescribing in health systems which has dramatically grown over the last 25 years. We know that music has been effective in this area with music therapy reducing the need for anti-psychotic medication in 67% of people living with dementia’
That’s an incredible statistic, definitely something that’s worth exploring.
In Other Words, Rangatira at Q Theatre, September 3-15.
