MARYLAND

By Lucy Kirkwood

A SCRIPT-IN-HAND PERFORMANCE

Performed on Sunday 21st November 2021 at The Aphra Theatre, the University of Kent

All proceeds went to East Kent Rape Crisis Centre.

Presented by Portrait Theatre & The School of Arts, University of Kent

Directed by Isabelle Defaut

Produced by Molly Young

With thanks to: Royal Court Theatre for granting us access to the script for Maryland, Esme Friel from EKRCC, Jayne Thompson, the School of Arts, Adam Glen, and all the cast.

Although Maryland is not a verbatim piece, as a female led theatre company and given our position at the University, we felt a responsibility to act on the Royal Court’s offer for any UK based theatre company to present a rehearsed reading of Lucy Kirkwood’s play, Maryland. We took part of this theatrical movement out of respect for Sarah Everard, Sabina Nessa and the many others who are victims of violence against women.

ABOUT MARYLAND

Maryland was originally performed at the Royal Court Theatre in the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs from Thursday 07 October 2021 – Saturday 23 October 2021. It was co-directed by Royal Court Theatre Artistic Director Vicky Featherstone and Royal Court Associate Directors Milli Bhatia and Lucy Morrison.

“This play was for many years a private conversation with myself. The horrific murders of Sarah Everard and Sabina Nessa this year has galvanised me into making it public. I hesitate to even call it a play when it is simply a howl, a way of expressing what I feel about a culture of violence against women, but I am sharing it because I wonder if it might express a little of what other people feel about it too. It was written very quickly, and I am grateful to the Royal Court for snatching up a gauntlet thrown down last Friday night with such energy, care and seriousness.” – Playwright Lucy Kirkwood

"Sometimes you don't know what you need until it arrives like a bolt from the blue and things are turned upside down. This is what happened to us at the Royal Court when Lucy Kirkwood's play Maryland arrived in our inboxes on Friday night. Since then we have all stepped up to her extraordinary rallying cry and are able to give her voice our space in search of some kind of understanding, howl, communal event in light of the horrific actions still being committed against all women and victims of gendered violence. We all live in the same world, hear the same news, share the same existential fears and longings. Some people specialise in tending to our health, and some people tend to our roads and buildings, and some people tend to the food we eat and some people teach us to read and write and some people move important things from a to b. And then there are some other people who sit in the same world as us but with their pattern of words and ideas show that world back to us in a way which momentarily stops us feeling so alone, so fearful, so lost. There is order. There is hope. This is what this tiny enormous play does. This is what the Royal Court is for. This is what art is for. We are so proud to be stepping up. We are devastated, we still have to." - Vicky Featherstone