X Marks the Spot

 

The impetus behind Girl X was the real case of Ashley X, a girl from Washington state in the US who’s parents, after giving their daughter a hysterectomy, breast removal and hormone treatment to attenuate her growth, became strong advocates for this kind of medical treatment for severely disabled people. Her story emerged in January 2007 and I subsequently became heavily involved in internet forums, debating with many people who thought the parents must know what’s best for their child and that society shouldn’t interfere. A case in the UK – Katie Thorpe – then came to light as her mother was seeking legal approval to carry out a similar procedure. She wasn’t given this. Our ‘Girl X’ is therefore a combination of real girls and real situations, but doesn’t specifically represent one story.

In the context of the rest of my work, Girl X is probably only the second time I’ve explicitly put ‘disability’ on to the stage. It’s inevitable every time I perform, being disabled, that the audience reads layers in to the work that wouldn’t be there with a non-disabled performer but I usually focus on other issues. My previous work has always tended towards the overtly political – I guess at the core of what I want to do is engage with people and then challenge them to change their preconceptions of the world around them. Girl X fits in with this – although I hope audiences are also entertained while they’re being challenged – there’re quite a few laughs here too!

During 2007, I’d been talking with NTS about possible ideas to take forward in to a project – the first idea I went with didn’t grab them but this one definitely did! I originally sent them transcripts of the internet forums and was upfront in saying that I thought it’d make great theatre but didn’t have a sense of how to take it forward. NTS hooked me up with Pol Heyvaert, who had just finished Aalst, and was intrigued by the idea – Pol always tells of the first time we met and he had no idea that I was a wheelchair user – he just liked the idea!

Pol and I then worked together on a Diaspora project in which we spent two weeks teaching drama students to ‘act Cerebral Palsy’ – all very controversial stuff! We started developing the show – getting together for week-long stints during 08, 09 and 2010 – we had one week of interviewing ‘experts’ (a medical ethics specialist, a priest who advises the Scottish government on ethics, etc) to get their perspective on the issue. We then did some further development with students and wrote the text from home, emailing it back and forth.

I guess, given the process by which the production has come together, NTS felt it would be ideal for Reveal. The way in which it came together – me instigating the idea, Pol coming up with the premise and structure, us both writing text – is something that very few companies could afford to invest in. It seems appropriate that NTS ‘reveal’ this way of getting to a finished production.

The real-life cases on which Girl X is based made me angry in all sorts of ways – not just that the parents thought this was a good thing (Ashley’s parents trademarked the term ‘Pillow Angel’ – it was as though they were selling this treatment) but also that a large proportion of the wider public wanted to step back and say that ‘parents know best’ and ‘society shouldn’t interfere’. The implications for how we see disabled people in society are huge – we’re still so obsessed with the medical model of disability and want to find ways of ‘fixing’ disabled people to make them easier to care for. This is also about everyone – how we value each other and when do we deem someone else as a useful member of society or a burden. Nazis?

So, clearly, I have a deep, passionate response - one of my biggest fears with the issue was that it’s too emotive. It would’ve been so easy to create a piece of theatre that pulled at everyone’s heartstrings but that would not have been very satisfying – for me or an audience. Having seen Aalst and knowing that it avoided the sentimental trap, I was really excited when NTS hooked me up with Pol – I knew at that point that my fears were needless.

The irony of the whole situation has struck me time and again – Ashley, Katie and the other girls were in their situation because they couldn’t have an active say in the treatment of their own bodies. I, on the other hand, have the resources of a national arts company at my disposal to tell people all over the country/world what I think about their situation. I feel really privileged to be in such a situation and only hope I can do them justice.