Sap

Product Information

While more and more plays dealing with LGBTQ+-specific issues are being commissioned and staged, Sap is rare in explicitly dealing with bisexuality and the prejudice many bi people face from within the rest of the queer community. That it does so with such engaging, occasionally distressing grace and humanity is just one part of its charm. Marcus has crafted a play which speaks on many levels, and is effective on each. Jessica Lazar’s luminous direction allows plenty of room for the performers to transform their bodies, and our imaginations”

Rafaella Marcus has produced such a beautiful and complex script, conversational, poetic, funny and emotional, all in the space of an hour. The actors are incredible at bringing it to life in a way that makes it feel a real privilege to be a part of the audience. The originality in Marcus’ exploration of bisexuality is fantastically complex. It centres on the experience of bisexual women and the fact that they are more likely to be abused by their partner than heterosexual or lesbian women – come the end, this is a fact that the play is open about starting an enlightening discussion on. RM: Yeah, because of where I am in my life. I got married recently, am thinking about having a family, and it gets to a point where you feel you love this job so much because when theatre is good there’s nothing else like it. But I do want to be able to live.

Breffni Holahan in Collapsible by Margaret Perry at the Edinburgh fringe in 2013. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/the Guardian Lazar has her kiss the soon-to-be girlfriend tenderly after having previously engaged in an intense balancing act with the man. It's a striking summary of Daphne's precarious equation. From the poetic elements of the writing and its visual allegories down to the staging and performances, Sap is a gem. Director Jessica Lazar places the audience in traverse, allowing Jessica Clark’s Daphne to narrate to one half of the audience, then turn to deliver a wry aside to the other. Her character navigates her attraction to a man she meets at a work, then to a woman she describes as a “goddess” at a lesbian bar – both played by Rebecca Banatvala. In each case, Clark’s delivery shows us a woman who is as confident in her sexuality as she is insecure about her attractiveness to other people. Performer, Rebecca Banatvala, skillfully multi-roles as work colleague, girlfriend and guy. There’s a real symbiotic energy between the two performers who can with the flex of their bodies, or a single expression convey passion, fear, disappointment or distance. Paines Plough’s Roundabout is an experience in itself. A 168-seat theatre in the round with 3 stage entrances. SAP utilises all the strengths of the theatre in the solid director hands of Jessica Lazar and the award-winning Atticist Theatre company.

Award-winning Atticist and Ellie Keel Productions return with a new play based on an old myth, about passion, power, and photosynthesis. A contemporary fast-paced thriller with ancient roots, SAP is directed by Offie-nominated Jessica Lazar ( Anna Bella Eema, Arcola Theatre; Outlying Islands, King’s Head Theatre; Dangerous Giant Animals, Edinburgh Fringe/United Solo Fest New York/Park Theatre). This debut play by Rafaella Marcus is a queer urban fable about bisexuality and what we allow people to believe. There is a tough truth with theatre and art in general that it has never been able to wash its own face, or exist as a purely commercial venture. It has actually always required more money going into it than will come out. So art must be subsidised to exist, which means that decisions to cut government funding for art are ideological. There should be more schemes into which wealthy actors, producers and directors can easily pay a percentage of their earnings, to be redistributed. If they want to have a hand in deciding where it goes, that’s fine. If not, I’ll happily run it. We need to have formalised ways of redistributing this kind of money. The other thing I would make compulsory, if I could, is that every company with profits above a certain threshold has to do some arts patronage.Rafaella Marcus’ script is bursting at the seams with beautiful imagery and metaphor. Her protagonist is instantly likable and painfully relatable in her awkwardness and charming candor as she navigates her relationships, her work and her feelings of displacement. The plot is reminiscent of its source material, but stands strong as an independent piece of writing, throwing it’s themes into present day and in the context of today’s social climate regarding the queer spectrum. Bisexuality is often dismissed or erased in theatre, so to be able to witness a piece of writing that is so honest and empathetic to its subject matter is gratifying.

Rafaella Marcus’ Sap is loosely based on the myth of Daphne and Apollo; the show centres around Daphne, a bisexual woman living in the contemporary world. Daphne meets a guy she describes as ‘exactly what you think of when you think of just a guy’, and they have a one-night stand. She then meets and falls in love with a woman and fails to tell her about her sexuality due to the opinions the woman possesses about bisexuality. There’s more to the story than this, but I’m leaving it at that, so as not to spoil the plot.Fresh from a critically acclaimed run at Edinburgh and with The Plaines Plough, Marcus’s debut is also a Soho Playhouse winner of Excellence in Theatre. Sap is an enlightening, thought provoking drama that explores with maturity the nature of trust, truth, control and cohesion as well as the complexities of contemporary relationships. I have accidentally built this lifeline of writing so it’s something that I am able to take into other mediums within a creative industry. I work other jobs so I can exist in this industry, where there are not enough jobs for the number of people who want to be in it, essentially.