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- [00:00]
Mickey Jo
Oh, my God.
- [00:01]
Virginia Gay
Hey.
- [00:01]
Mickey Jo
Earlier this week, I had the extraordinary privilege of getting to sit down for a discussion with the brilliant, multi hyphenate theater maker Virginia Gay, who was the writer and star of my favorite show at this year's Edinburgh Fringe, Cyrano. This was damn near a perfect theatrical experience. The language of this, the performances of this, the staging. Virginia is already an established and beloved personality in Australia, and I am so excited that London audiences are going to get to enjoy her new queer contemporary retelling of Cyrano when it opens at the Park Theater on the 11th of December, where it runs until the 11th of January. Now, I was so deeply inspired by this show at the Fringe, and it's not often that you get to meet the wonderful people behind works that have inspired you to such an extent. So I hope you enjoy this conversation where we discuss all sorts of different facets of this bold, exciting new production. And please, please go and check it out at the Park Theatre. Here is my conversation with remarkable Virginia Gay.
- [01:03]
Virginia Gay
Oh, my God. Hey, Virginia Gay.
- [01:04]
Mickey Jo
Hello, Mickey Jo. How are you?
- [01:06]
Virginia Gay
I'm very well. I'm very excited to be getting to meet you.
- [01:09]
Mickey Jo
I feel so honored. I feel so honored. There was such a ripple that went through our cast when you were so kind to us in Edinburgh. Everybody's like, mickey, Joe, Mickey, Joe. Mickey Jo loved it. Mickey Jo loved it.
- [01:20]
Virginia Gay
It was this wonderful thing because I saw, I kind of remember in the end, just over 60 shows during two weeks at the Fringe. Not only was Cyrano my favorite thing I saw, but it came at the perfect time when you're starting to get a bit fatigued and you're like, okay, and this one's. And that's that topic. And sure. And then. And yep. And you're. And everything's doing the same sort of groundbreaking stuff. And then something that just so perfectly encapsulates what I love about theater, which is what your show does. It restored me and I was giddy after I saw it.
- [01:52]
Mickey Jo
Giddy is a wonderful word. You're in the right space, too, to be throwing incredible words around. We're like, wonderful word. That's exactly how I think of the show. I think of it as a love letter to theatre, because that's what you do when you write a play. You sit at home and you write wonderful scenes for a more attractive version of you to play out. Like, that's the feeling of it. You go, I'll give it to somebody else. And the feeling of, like, every time you enter a rehearsal room for a new play, everybody goes what is it? How does it start? What do we do? What is it? What's important about it? What are the famous bits? So I just wanted to, like. Because I think it is about the process of making theatre. I was like. I wanted to make it really consciously about the process of making theatre. And Cyrano's relationship to the audience is so theatrically aware, so electric, and so informed by things like stand up too, you know.
- [02:42]
Virginia Gay
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We should acknowledge the nature of this particular production being. It's described as gender flipped, but it's so much more than that as well. It's this queer exploration of it that uses the classic story as a jumping off point and then goes wonderfully off Piste. I think it's exactly that.
- [03:01]
Mickey Jo
Because how can you tell this story, this classic story, this grand romantic gesture, if you're telling it now to a modern audience with a modern cast speaking their own language? You've got to acknowledge that it's catfishing. You've got to acknowledge that it's a very flawed sense of love and romance. So you have to investigate that. And again, that's what we do with classics. That's we. When we. Even when we put on shows as they once were, still every piece of casting, every. Every way you deliver a line, every audience that you play to asks you to go, what relevance now? Why now? Why this now? And so then to just be really explicit about that and to go, okay, so we're putting on a version of Cyrano. We're kind of making it as we go to be very in and out of it and to not let the metterness release any of the tension, but just actually to continue to inform the conversation, basically. It always sounds so worthy when I describe it. It's not worthy. I just want to be really clear. It's like it's filled with really important ideas, I think big ideas. But it is silly and deeply funny and my favorite way to think about how to change the world. Make it funny and make it hot.
- [04:14]
Virginia Gay
Nice. Nice.
- [04:15]
Mickey Jo
It is.
- [04:15]
Virginia Gay
I think, aside from anything else, it's probably the most accessible version of Cyrano, both because of the nature of the tone and the language, but also because you turn it over so many different ways, more so than the original does, really. And the conversation that Cyrano has with the players and then with Roxanne afterwards, and the reconsideration of everything that's come before, I was so struck that it had never occurred to me, the queer implications of Cyrano, because you have this person who, in every other way is perfectly suited to the object of their desire. But in the original, it's the nose, it's. He doesn't look right. And the implications of that resonate so much with queer people.
- [05:00]
Mickey Jo
It's exactly right. This feeling of just being one chance. Being born in just slightly the wrong body. And I think it's true of the original, too, with the original genders. This idea that these beautiful, godlike man. I could never be like Christiane, you know, it's almost. Almost doesn't matter the. The gender of the first of Cyrano. It's about like this idealization of this other body. Right? Yeah. I love the feeling of as soon as we took the nose away, then it became about the body. It just is so clearly about. There is something about this body that I know makes me unlovable. And I really agree with you that this feeling of like, I'll make myself the most interesting person in the room. I'll be so interested. I'll be yourself best friend. I will give you the best conversation of your life, and I'll survive on scraps of your love. Is a queer story. It's like the queerest. Right? We're always the most interesting people in the room. But there's certainly. I had to learn to get over the sense of like, don't come near me, though, because you'll realize that this is all a facade and that there's something inside me that is going, oh, God, sorry about this, you know.
- [06:09]
No, yeah.
- [06:10]
Virginia Gay
Which comes through beautifully in the play. Was it clear to you from conception, from writing it? I'm always going to do this. This is for me.
- [06:18]
Mickey Jo
Yeah, I saw it. So I saw the James McAvoy, Jamie Lloyd.
- [06:21]
Virginia Gay
I was going to ask you this.
- [06:22]
Mickey Jo
Yeah, I saw it. I saw it on a Thursday afternoon, 2pm, while I was doing Leclique in the evening just before the apocalypse. And I was like, oh, God, don't want to drag myself to the theater. Thank God I did. Changed my life as soon as it started. I got about a scene and a half in, and I was like, I have to play this role. I have to play this role. I've never seen a role that speaks more to me because it requires such verbal dexterity, it requires such physical acuity. Like, it asks everything of you as a performer. And I was like, where are roles like this for women in the canon? They simply don't exist. And in fact, I would say that they don't exist a lot in modern writing, too. I'm like, where are these roles for women? For Smart women. And so I went at interval and I got two copies of the script of that translation, and I was like, I will take this translation back to the mtc. I was doing it in my head through the show. I was like, I'll take it to the mtc. We'll do that. And I went back in after interval and I forgot. I forgot that because it's French, everybody dies. They go after war. Love is impossible. It's a noble sacrifice. You know, they were surrounded by war at that point. France, you know, they'd just come out of wars, they had more wars. So, like, they had to make the logical point. Like, sacrifice is noble, but that's not the world that we are living in right now. And if you. If you have a queer female Cyrano, then I cannot be a part of storytelling that says that queer love is impossible. Cannot be a part of storytelling that says, kill your gaze. Okay, so then knowing that, how then do you jump the tracks of the old narrative? But yes, to answer your question, yes, I have always. I wrote it because I was like, I want to challenge myself with this. I want to give all of the great bits of Cyrano to see if they could come out of my voice. And now I'm really interested to see if somebody else can do it. I'd be thrilled to see someone else do it. I want to see Emma Darcy do it. I want to see the next version of this. I long to see it in other bodies, in other voices. It's really exciting.
- [08:20]
Virginia Gay
One of the many interesting things about your adaptation of it is you sort of. It's directly in conference with the classic and with the traditional. By way of one of the characters on stage who speaks to. This is the usual version. And this is what would normally happen. And so sort of acknowledging that as well. And there's always inevitably this conversation around, like, should we be tampering with classics? What are your thoughts on that?
- [08:43]
Mickey Jo
Yeah, listen, I think I get asked that quite a bit, like, you know, would you change the ending to Hamlet? And I'd say, no, I personally am not going to go around changing the ending to Hamlet because I think Hamlet is. Everybody holds on to the tragic nature of Hamlet. Everybody keeps that in their head. But there've been so many versions of Cyrano since the original that have taken the Rom com setup and taken it towards a Rom com. Obviously, Steve Martin's Roxanne is a very good example. The Truth About Cats and Dogs, an incredible Janine Garofalo film from the mid-90s. That rom com setup of, like, I've got the words, he's got the body, she's got both and wants both. What do we do Is a very kind of exciting and edgy and super queer, like, setup. So I really firmly believe that you can't tell old stories without acknowledging that we are in a new world, that we are talking to a new audience. And they have different morals and they have different expectations for their characters. I think you take what is useful from the past and you give it to new voices and you say, run with that as far as you can towards the future. Leave what drags you behind. Leave what drags you down, and take us somewhere new. I find that really exciting.
- [09:59]
Virginia Gay
There's something about pulling the rug from underneath Cyrano as a character who knows everything and who almost sort of believes that they are existing within Cyrano, as the traditional narrative would be. And then there's more agency than ever, I think, to Roxanne, who says, well, Cyrano does not write her story.
- [10:17]
Mickey Jo
And how dare you? How dare you partake in these old stories when we are. When it feels like we're existing in the modern world. Yeah. I'm a firm believer that a Cyrano lives or dies on the strength of its Roxane. And we are so lucky to have Jess Whitehurst. She is so incredible. And I worked as hard as I could to write for Roxanne. I wrote speeches that equal Cyrano. I wrote. I was like, when in the original, we hear about her first we hear her described. She's a beautiful, sparkling object. They occasionally say she's a scholar as well. But, like, that's literally objectifying, you know? So we meet her at the same time as Cyrano meets her. We fall in love with her in the same time that Cyrano falls in love with her. And it's because of her sparkling brain. It's because of the way she thinks outside the box. You know, Cyrano can't follow some of her passes. That's how swift she is. And that makes the betrayal, of course, all the more dreadful. Yeah. But a Roxanne who also is like, how do you write the balcony scene when, you know, as a grown woman in the world, you know what you're doing is wrong. Right. So how do you write the balcony scene? I tried to give her as much agency as possible in every point. She is. She is. She knows her body. She has sexual agency. She knows her body. She knows what she's asking for, and she's not afraid to ask for it. Fantastic. Great. There is still betrayal in there. But the sense of, like, this is she is living life as much as she possibly can on her terms. And I find that really, really, really exciting and really, really complicated.
- [11:55]
Virginia Gay
I want to pivot back to how fun it is in the show and the community building that happens within the audience. I sat down to watch this. You came over and handed me a piece of particularly dirty lesbian poetry.
- [12:07]
Mickey Jo
Yes. I'm glad you got the oh, so great. Yeah, we give out poetry at the beginning. It's one of the most beautiful. It's truly one of my favourite parts of the show. The feeling of it feels like we're starting a flirt with the audience is what it feels like. We're going like, hey, I see you. We're in this together. I'd like to make a little connection with you. I will tell you, too, that it also serves a very specific dramatic purpose. It's not only about welcoming people to the space and saying, we are all in this together, but so cheeky. It gets you on side with me and it keeps you on side with me much longer than you should be on side with me. Because it's about a personal connection. It's about, like, hey, we're just. We're just chatting. We're just building some bonds here because I do some really bad things. Cyrano does some really bad things, and I need. It's like I need every thread that I possibly can to hold you close to me in my decision making. It's a lovely way to start. We also give you streamers, of course. And what is, I think, very charming is that this. Like, that's how I think about theater. I think about theater as, like. As a welcome. And we're all in the space together. Of course, we. You know, I haven't existed in a British world before, and, oh, my goodness, Sometimes the sense of, like, no, no, not for us. No, thank you. That we sometimes got was truly. We were like, that's absolutely fine. Absolutely fine. You know, we're not asking you to do audience participation or anything. Fine. To drive, but the feeling of, like, absolutely fine. What's glorious and what has been beautiful is seeing that by the end of the show, those people are also throwing their streamers. Those people are also, like, involved in the experience of the show. But what a way to start. Just. We're just helping people sit down. In fact, theatre is an act of service. This engagement is an act of service. Hello. Thank you for coming. We can't do this without you. Please come be welcome. What do you need? How can I Help host this party for you.
- [14:14]
Virginia Gay
Yeah, Yeah, I love that. How was the Edinburgh experience? Because Traverse, one of my favorite places where the show was, has this thing. Unlike a lot of other venues where it would be different performance times every day. How was doing like the 10:00am versus the 6:00.
- [14:30]
Mickey Jo
We all, we were all ready to dread the 10am because we also did the 7pm show the night before. So you do the last show the night before and then you do the first show the next day. And we were always like, this will be terrible before the first 10am Turns out 10am our favorite shows, because everybody who comes to a 10am show really wants to be there. Absolutely. Lots of performers too, who couldn't make, you know, shows that clashed at their time. But the feeling of. Also the subscribers of the Travis, they're there, it's early in the morning, they've just had their coffee and their porridge, you know, they're ready, they're ready to listen and to watch at 10am In a way that often at 7pm after, sometimes people have seen two or three shows, they're like, no, no, no, no, no. Just please don't engage with us. 10am shows turned out incredible and then you had your whole day free to go out and see incredible pieces of mad, scrappy theater. I mean, I love Edinburgh and I've done so many Edinburghs and I didn't know you could have a good one. I didn't know it existed. I had no idea. I've so many times I've played to fewer people in the audience than there are on stage and they're like, oh, well, here we go again. But the feeling of when Edinburgh is an incredible experience, the feeling of the eyes on you and the feeling of being the talk of the like. Actually, when you. When you were like number one, we were like, what? This is incredible. Oh, my God. The feeling of being a hit in Edinburgh was truly, truly extraordinary. People come from all over the world to see things there. It's a mecca. It's a cultural mecca. As well as being a cultural marathon. There were some nights, my God, if you ever need to go and see a Ruben K show, which you absolutely do, just to be clear, like, then you're dragging into sort of 1:00am, 2:00am And I was like, I got a show to do tomorrow, Ruby, come on. But you can't tear your eyes off him. So what are you gonna do?
- [16:25]
Virginia Gay
I think I was at the same Cyrano show as Eve Blake as well.
- [16:29]
Mickey Jo
Oi. Oh, fantastic. And Chloe Pitts.
- [16:32]
Yes.
- [16:32]
Yeah, great. Yeah, yeah. Eve and I are very dear friends. We are part of a group chat which is currently called the Vulvan, because we all wanted to talk about our vulvas all at once. You know, famously, there are, like, women over. Three women have a group chat with a completely psychotic name. You're like, yeah, it's true. That's absolutely true. Eve Blake's one of those. We started as the Coven and then we became the Vulvan. Just everybody wanted to talk about their vulvans. And this is the content that I think will really sing for your audience.
- [17:05]
Virginia Gay
I think that's your next piece of theater. I think you need.
- [17:08]
Mickey Jo
Yeah, great. Yeah. Obviously, she was over here doing fangirls. I mean, what an incredible opportunity for her, too. And the sense that, yeah, this little scrappy show that she made on Garage Band in her room, you know, she doesn't play any instruments, was at the Lyric Hammersmith. And I went, that's incredible.
- [17:27]
Virginia Gay
And we should say, we're sat here in the Park Theater because Cyrano's coming to the park from 11 December to 11 January. How's the road been from Edinburgh to here? Has it metamorphosized at all in that. In this new rehearsal process?
- [17:41]
Mickey Jo
Yes. And what's thrilling about that is that because I think Cyrano is a love letter to theatre. We're honoring all of that. We're saying to the wonderful Joseph Evans. Okay, well, what do you bring to this character of Jan? Okay, how does that ripple through everybody else? Okay, that's your instinct. Interesting. That hits me in a different way. What can I. How. How can I engage with that? And that feels so electric and alive, you know? And that's what theater should be. Each casting decision informs each. Each person that you cast brings something of themselves to the role. We're not just cookie cuttering. We're going like, what is. What. What are you. What do you bring? Do we get to play with it? Oh, my God. Amazing. And this theater is very, very, very different to an end on Pros Arch, which is what we have at Travis. And so again, we're just going, all right, so if the audience is there and they're all. They're on three sides and they're also up there. How do we. God, you're right there, aren't you? Do we go and sit with them? How do we. Don't be stressed. It won't be stressful. I promise. I won't ask you to do anything. But that feeling of like, okay, so it's also kind of in the round, too. So we've essentially reblocked the entire thing and we're just constantly excited by what can be new in it. New audience, some new performers, new. New shape. What is it now? Really thrilling. Also, because I have adhd, it's very, very pleasing to my brain that it's not just the same thing. You know, we keep the heart of it, but its expression is different and electric and alive. It's good for my brain.
- [19:24]
Virginia Gay
Yeah. And this production has affected people hugely. It was Eve who told me about the audience member in Australia who'd had a tattoo.
- [19:33]
Mickey Jo
Yes, people. There was a tattoo which was very beautiful. There was also people. People get married to. The final scene, which is kind of amazing. I did. I did the final scene as a monologue when we got shut down in Melbourne, and it got an extraordinary amount of cut through because we were all shut down from lockdown. So everybody was.
- [19:53]
Virginia Gay
We've seen this online.
- [19:54]
Mickey Jo
Yes, yes. And so that is extraordinary. Including our assistant director who said just like a month and a half ago, they went and they actually did a reading at a wedding of that. I was like, incredible. I can't believe it. And also here, on the other side of the world, really. Oh, my God. I think the feeling of queerness, especially female queerness, is this idea that you've sort of survived on scraps of storytelling that I certainly know. I'm on another group chat with another insane name that I shan't share here. We share little bits. We're like, oh, ooh, ooh. There's this bit in a film where, listen, it's off screen that there's a look. There's a look and, you know, know that something's happening between those two women. And everybody goes. And my mate calls it searching for scraps. And I think this feeling that this show can offer a full meal, can offer like a. Come and gorge yourself on this story. It's not just scraps anymore. It's the whole plate for you.
- [20:56]
Virginia Gay
They survive.
- [20:57]
Mickey Jo
They survive. No more. Kill your gays. But also, what's extraordinary is that the person who came to see this show in Australia and brought it over here, it's my. It was Michael Stevens and he is not queer and he is a man and he is, you know, married and in his 40s and he, like, he was in floods of tears in the foyer afterwards. And I was like, it's all of us, right? We all think, oh, not us. No, it couldn't be us. Oh, no, this. Sorry about this. Like, everybody thinks we just gotta shake the old storytelling out of us and go. You don't have to believe that anymore.
- [21:39]
It's that.
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Virginia Gay
And I think it's also the way you talk about love and the way you capture that. It's so romantic, but it's so honest. It's so down to earth. It's huge and it's tiny. It's the Everything of it and it's the specific details and that's. And you really get that in that particular monologue that you spoke about as well. So that bit at the end.
- [21:59]
Mickey Jo
Oh, God, yes. Yeah. I think also, it was also very informed. The entire process was formed because I did write it during the pandemic. We were just working on the balcony scene today and I was like, yeah, do you remember during the pandemic when you were trying to get little scraps of connection just via text from people? I was in the pandemic totally by myself in Los Angeles. And I was like, I remember trying to help people, trying to give people information about how to seduce me. I was like, let's try and use this language, shall we? Come on. Please learn. Please learn a little hook. Oh, no, you've lost it again. There we go. There we go, There we go. So I think it's a feeling that actually, weirdly, a lot of us really know. What I thought used to be quite a niche queer feeling is actually like, we all did that. We all survived on scraps for a really long time and now we're gorging ourselves.
- [22:54]
Virginia Gay
What do you want to do with this remarkable voice of yours? Beyond the world of Cyrano? Have you given this any thought?
- [23:00]
Mickey Jo
Do you mean writing wise or do you mean my voice?
- [23:03]
Virginia Gay
Listen, either one, either one. The glorious multi hyphenate that you are.
- [23:08]
Mickey Jo
Yeah. I want to keep on writing. I love writing. Turns out I love it almost more than performing. I'm questioning that at the moment. There's something amazing about making a world and then giving it to people and going, just play in it like it's yours now. So I'm gonna see what that is. I'm gonna keep on writing if I can. I'm making another show with Claire, our wonderful director. Yeah. And they're always just funny and weird. Like, don't say just Ginny. Value your work. They're always funny and weird. I really believe in funny. I believe in the power of laughter. I believe in. In its capacity to change minds. Because you're taking off your armor. If you're laughing, you're taking off your armor and you can go anywhere then. And I believe in weird because we shouldn't. We. We're not cookie cutter cutouts. We're not. We're not replicas. And we're not all the same. I want. I want the mischief and I want the strange. I'm like, what's weird about you? My there is my favorite thing in the world is somebody who has their very own particular brand of weirdo where you're just like, that's you. Oh, it's you. It's totally you. And you've found it and you've landed in it and you've sat it. Let's celebrate. It makes me really happy.
- [24:30]
Virginia Gay
Yeah. I cannot wait for people to come and see this wonderful show at the park from the 11th of December to the 11th of January. It's going to be a wonderful run. I wish you the biggest success with it. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. It was lovely to meet you.
- [24:46]
Mickey Jo
Thank you so much.
- [24:48]
Thank you. Thank you for watching or listening to this interview. I hope that you enjoyed experiencing it as much as I did. I think Virginia Gay is the most wonderful and has the most brilliant perspective on queer stories and theater. And as inspiring as this conversation was, seeing Cyrano is ten times that experience. It's the most breathtaking piece of theater and I hope that you enjoy it. I hope that you go and see it at the Park Theater from the 11th of December to the 11th of January. Get your tickets and you might see.
- [25:20]
Virginia Gay
Me there because I am definitely going.
- [25:22]
Mickey Jo
To go and see it. Again, thank you to everyone at the park and for Virginia Gay for taking the time to speak to me. Let me know who you would like me to chat to Next here on YouTube or on a podcast platform in the comments section down below. And I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a stagey day.
- [25:38]
Virginia Gay
For 10 more seconds, I'm Mickey Joe Theater. Oh my God.
- [25:45]
Mickey Jo
Hey, thanks for watching.
- [25:46]
Virginia Gay
Have a Stagey Day. Subscribe.