Jake Mace
Accosted by a more imaginative version of herself while trying to write her mother’s eulogy at a bus stop – Jay, the central character of Hoo Hah House’s upcoming piece j (a working title) faces an existential examination of her own self-perception. It’s a situation I’m sure all of our readers will have found themselves in before.
We caught up with the show’s creators Maria Cristina Petitti and Everleigh Brenner ahead of the show’s arrival at The Space in London next month. Join us for a pixelated pint in the Binge Fringe Virtual Pub.
You can catch j (a working title) between February 11th and 15th at various times (70 mins). Tickets are available through the Venue’s Online Box Office.
Jake: Hi Maria & Everleigh! Let’s start with some background about your company Hoo Hah House – you founded it to platform stories through the lens of the female gaze. Tell us about what that lens means to you, and what led you to focus on it.
Everleigh: We joined artistic forces in 2021 with a piece called BRAVE FACE which was a response to the male fragility that surfaced during the “Me Too” movement. My intent for this piece was to exploit the male gaze in order to challenge the patterns in which society interacts with content. Whilst developing the play as a pair we discovered our personal biases and believed that we all could work on unlearning misogynistic behavior, therefore focusing on narratives through a female/enby/gender non-forming gaze became not only important for our work but necessary for our development personally.
Maria: That’s my girl, there, I couldn’t have said it better, honestly. Hoo Hah House is our gut baby, our desperate mean to unlearn the patriarchal system and reveal what stories are hiding beneath that biased veil. The best part of HHHP is the playfulness, though, that child-like desire to explore emotions, discover, wander and wonder all while wearing candy-shaped glasses.
Jake: Your show j [a working title] follows Jay, a character struggling to write the eulogy for her Mother’s funeral. Tell us about Jay, how you developed her, and what the audience can expect from the story.
Everleigh: Jay is disgustingly personal, in a way nobody will care about except for my mom, hopefully, yikes. This play was not written linearly, or literally at first, it began as notes about patterns I was noticing in my life. Then one day, on this pattern train, a little over a year ago, I realized that I didn’t have control over the things I thought I did, and simultaneously had a lot more control over the things I thought I didn’t. I brought these notes to Maria and a couple other very close friends of mine and was assured that this discovery I had wasn’t solely selfish, but something that had universal charm… and now it’s J.
Maria: Everleigh has the ability to bring a rawness of emotion in her scripts that makes you shiver and smile at the same time. Being human is so painful yet so ridiculous, you know, and she captures that dangerous edge so beautifully. j [a working title] travels maniacally between the emotional and logical planes of grief and abandonment. The audience can expect to release that deep belly-breath they have been sucking up growing up as they glance at that universal and familiar pain.
Jake: What are you hoping the audience might take away from the experience of j [a working title], if anything?
Everleigh: I think it would be dope if even one person in the audience walks away feeling a little less lost, maybe a little more lost, or even just a little more okay hanging out in their gray area. And maybe if someone feels like texting their mom afterwards and asking her how she is, that would be sick.
Maria: Yeah, it would be lovely if people left feeling less lonely, standing a bit taller and with their heart a tad warmer.
Jake: Tell us about your relationship with the cast and crew of the show, and how the show has developed into being performed at The Space.
Everleigh: Chicca (Maria Cristina) is my partner in this creative life. I’m blessed. Per I’ve known for ages as well, we met in 2016 at Drama Centre and I’m so freaking fortunate to be working with him on this. We developed this as a workshop with two other Drama Centre classmates of mine Mary and Vincent (shout out to those cherubs). Then I met the artist who did all the beautiful doodles on our posters through super heavy hitting means that are TMI. Honestly the fact that this is all happening blows my stinky socks off.
Maria: We are a small but mighty team. For a show all about ‘effort’, god, do we pull our weight, wearing a dozen hats each. Ev & I have a matrix-like brain wavelength we tune in with each other, at times it gets almost freaky, really. Per is a blessing, an incredibly talented and curious actor with a lightness and generosity in his approach that makes every rehearsal so freaking fun.
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?
Everleigh: Whole Milk but I can’t expand on that without giving too much away. Actually that’s a lie. Whole Milk because that’s what my mom’s mom would serve at the dinner table and now everyone is lactose intolerant nowadays because we’re all scared of farting in public. Does that make sense?
Maria: 100% amore, yes! Or a very thick shot of fondue.
You can catch j (a working title) between February 11th and 15th at various times (70 mins). Tickets are available through the Venue’s Online Box Office.
Moss Meunier
