Interviews

In Chalk Farm, Kieran Hurley and AJ Taudevin Bring the London Riots of 2011 to Life

The drama at 59E59 Theaters tells the story of a mother and son against the backdrop of one of the defining events in recent European history.

August 4, 2011: Police shoot and kill Mark Duggan, a 29-year-old resident of Tottenham, North London, who was under investigation by the Metropolitan Police as part of a watch on gun crimes within the black British community.

August 6: Duggan's relatives and others march to the Tottenham Police Station demanding answers. A 16-year-old woman is restrained with force after allegedly attacking an officer. Crowds attack police cars and other vehicles. Tottenham's post office is burned.

August 7-10: Violence breaks out elsewhere in London.

Nearly three thousand people were arrested during the five-day span, which has now come to be known as the London Riots of 2011. It was a defining event in recent European history, one that playwrights Kieran Hurley and AJ Taudevin use as the backdrop of their new drama, Chalk Farm, at 59E59 Theaters. TheaterMania chatted with the authors about the development of this new two-character play and the surprising impact it has on audiences.

Julia Taudevin and Thomas Dennis in Chalk Farm by Kieran Hurley and AJ Taudevin, at 59E59 Theaters.
Julia Taudevin and Thomas Dennis in Kieran Hurley and AJ Taudevin's Chalk Farm, directed by Neil Bettles, at 59E59 Theaters.
(© Carol Rosegg)

How did a New York production of Chalk Farm come about?
Kieran Hurley: We presented it at the Edinburgh Fringe, and it was part of a program called Made in Scotland, which helps Scottish theater artists gain a bit of a platform for international promoters. That gave us a head start, and the guys at 59E59 had previously done work with [producers] Thick Skin. They came to see it and liked it.

Tell me about the play.
AJ Taudevin: It's a mother-and-son story, and it's set against the backdrop of the London Riots.
Kieran Hurley: Julia [who writes under the pen name AJ], cowrote the play and performs as the mother, Maggie. [In the play] her son, Jamie, fourteen years old, gets caught up in the events of August 2011 in London.
AJ Taudevin: It's about responsibility and letting go. When the English riots were happening — we live in Scotland — all of that stuff was happening next door. We really wanted to protest the social and media response to the riots, which was a negative response.
Kieran Hurley: There was a tendency to blame young working-class youths and their single mums. On a slightly more human angle, it's just a story about their relationship, and all that hinges on it in that particular moment.

Is there much theater being written about the London Riots in Europe?
Kieran Hurley: The Tricycle Theater was the first to properly respond to it. They have a reputation for doing in-the-moment theater, and they made a show called The Riots. Other than that, there's not a huge amount. There have been a couple of other fringe shows, for sure. This is one of the only dramas that I know of.
AJ Taudevin: When we opened it last year, there was a sense of it being quite soon after the riots. It was interesting, just a few months after [Scotland], we performed it in London and even that short space in time felt significant. It's a fictional drama, which is important to point out.

Are New York audiences living up to your expectations?
AJ Taudevin: I had no idea how the audience was going to take it. We had just come from São Paolo, Brazil, which was having riots of the moment, and they were really supportive of the Jamie character and his decision to get involved. Last night [in New York], it felt like the audience was empathetic toward the mother character, a connection I had not experienced before.
Kieran Hurley: Even though the action of the play happens against the context of this sociopolitical moment, it doesn't have an active political [bent]. There are a lot of questions, a lot of invitations to dialogue, and people connect with the play on the level of empathizing with this mother and her teenage son who's trying to make sense of the world. In terms of what conversation we hope to have with a New York audience, we're not coming here to tell them about British politics, we're here to share our story with them and hope it resonates.

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Chalk Farm

Closed: June 8, 2014