Grace Joy Howarth is the playwright of upcoming stage adaptation of Simone de Beauvoir’s semi-autobiographical and recently rediscovered novel The Inseparables. The show tells the true story of an intimate female friendship that shaped one of the most important thinkers and feminists of the 20th century, De Beauvoir, shrouded in her own life on the advice of her long-time partner Jean-Paul Sartre.

The premiere of Howarth’s stage adaptation takes place next Tuesday 15th April, starring Ayesha Otler (pictured left) as Sylvie and Lara Manela (right) as Andrée, directed by Anastasia Bunce. We caught up with Grace ahead of the first performance to find out more about bringing de Beauvoir’s story to the stage. Join us for a pixelated pint.

You can catch The Inseparables at the Finborough Theatre from next Tuesday 15th April until Sunday 20th April at 7:30pm (plus Saturday & Sunday matinees at 3pm) (2hrs, 15min interval). Tickets are available through the Venue’s Online Box Office.

Jake: Hi Grace, your show The Inseperables is a stage adaptation of a recently rediscovered Simone de Beauvoir text that was published. Tell us about de Beauvoir and your relationship to her.

Grace: Hi Jake! I was first introduced to The Inseparables by the director of the show, and my co-artistic director, Anastasia Bunce. After we worked together on a play I wrote called Blood on Your Hands last year at the Southwark Playhouse, we were both eager to find a new project to sink our teeth into.

On Anastasia’s recommendation, I went to the library and read the entire novella in one go, astounded that this beautiful story centering female friendship had been written over half a century ago, but was only published in 2020. Before reading The Inseparables, Simone de Beauvoir had always felt like a towering feminist figure to me—someone I respected from afar. Through reading her semi-autobiographical novella, I felt like I started to understand her on a more human level, and it has been such a joy to immerse myself in her other work.

Jake: And what made you decide to bring that story on stage, and how did you go about adapting it?

Grace: The lead characters of the novella, Sylvie and Andrée, just felt so alive to me—two young girls growing up in bourgeois Paris after WW1, both sharply intelligent and interesting, pushing up against what it meant to be a young woman within the restraints of a repressed, religious society. At its core, The Inseparables is a love story between these two friends and how they shaped one another.

It’s also a semi-autobiographical account of Simone de Beauvoir and her intense girlhood friendship with Elizabeth ‘Zaza’ Lacoin, so I felt an extra layer of pressure when adapting the piece to honour Beauvoir’s work and portray her story as truthfully as possible. It took a little time to allow myself the freedom to find what worked dramatically, and what was beautiful on the page but didn’t translate to the stage. I think I’m usually quite good at killing my darlings, but killing someone else’s darlings felt a bit devastating at first!

Jake: What are you hoping the audience might take away from the experience, if anything?

Grace: Though Simone and Zaza’s story occurred over a century ago, the struggle they faced as young women fighting for their independence feels so contemporary. It struck me so deeply that both of these young women were immortalised through Beauvoir’s novel, and are now being brought to the stage to breathe in front of an audience, speaking the same words that were spoken 100 years ago.

So much of this play is about striving to live your free, authentic life even when society’s pressures hold you back. When struggling with her faith Andrée despairs “there has to be another life,” and The Inseparables and Simone de Beauvoir’s lifetime of work suggests that it is not a higher power that eternalizes our loved ones, it is art.

Jake: Tell us about how the show has ended up being performed at the Finborough Theatre and about your relationships with the other creatives involved.

Grace: I started working with the incredibly talented Anastasia Bunce in 2021 through her theatre company Patch Plays, a company dedicated to staging stories about the environment and animal ethics. This is our third show together, and our first as co-artistic directors of Inseparable Productions. She has worked on multiple shows at the Finborough Theatre before, and we thought this hidden gem of a novella would align perfectly with the Finborough’s ethos and programming. The support from the theatre’s Artistic Director Neil McPherson has been so helpful as a writer and producer.

Some of our production team, including Hazel Poole Zane, Abraham Walkling-Lea, and Flick Isaac-Chilton, have worked with us on multiple projects before and it is always such a treat to work with such a lovely, immensely talented team. We’re also very excited to work with some new creatives too!

Jake: Given the themes of Binge Fringe, if your show was a beverage of any kind (alcoholic, non-alcoholic – be as creative as you like!), what would it be and why?

Grace: Andrée’s favourite—cherries soaked in eau de vie! The perfect beverage to accompany spilling your innermost secrets.

A reminder – you can catch The Inseparables at the Finborough Theatre from next Tuesday 15th April until Sunday 20th April at 7:30pm (plus Saturday & Sunday matinees at 3pm) (2hrs, 15min interval). Tickets are available through the Venue’s Online Box Office.

Main Image Credit: Stuart Ray