HELMSLEY Arts Centre artistic director Natasha Jones and musical partner Florrie Stockbridge take to the stage this weekend in Ryedale company Clap Trap Theatre’s production of Lucy Roslyn’s Pennyroyal.
Premiered in 2022 at the Finborough Theatre, London, this heartrending play about sisterhood and motherhood, enduring love and regrets many years in the making explores the things expected of women and what happens if life does not go to plan.
When Daphne (played by Stockbridge) is diagnosed with Premature Ovarian Insufficiency at 19, her sister Christine (Jones) steps in to help in the only way she knows how: by donating her eggs. For a while, the world seems corrected. However, as the years go by – and Daphne sets out on the long road of IVF – the sisters’ relationship begins to twist.
Clap Trap Theatre’s montage of Pennyroyal pictures featuring Florrie Stockbridge and Natasha Jones
“I think of my body sometimes like it’s stubborn,” says Daphne. “We’re not good friends. Like it’s a spooky hotel, and I’m just a ghost haunting it. ’Cause you don’t live in a hotel, you just pass through.”
Pennyroyal was inspired by Edith Wharton’s The Old Maid, a 1922 novella adapted ten years later into a Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Zoe Akins. One hundred years on, the story is re-imagined by Roslyn, a Coventry-born, award-winning performer and writer.
Her most recent work includes Orlando, a previous collaboration with director Josh Roche and Jessie Anand Productions that won the Origins Award at VAULT Festival before transferring to the Pleasance, Edinburgh.
Other work includes Showmanship (Theatre503) and Goody (Pleasance, Edinburgh and Greenwich Theatre – Les Enfants Terribles’ Greenwich Partnership Award 2017). Her debut play, The State vs. John Hayes, started life at the Edinburgh Fringe, before touring to Theatre Royal Bath, The Lowry, Salford, the King’s Head Theatre, London, and OSH Brooklyn, New York.
Jones and Stockbridge have received directing and production support from Libby Pearson. Roslyn’s 80-minute play contains strong language and discussion of infertility and domestic violence.
Clap Trap Theatre in Pennyroyal, Helmsley Arts Centre, July 19 and 20, 7.30pm. Box office: 01439 771700 or helmsleyarts.co.uk. Watch the trailer at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alYKAml0ffQ&t=4s