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By BRUCE DENNILL
Locked Upside Down is a new, original musical revue, running from 9-26 February 2022 at Theatre On The Square. The production was conceived by and stars Sharon Spiegel-Wagner, Lorri Strauss and Cathrine Hopkins and is directed by Alan Swerdlow. The show explores the trials and tribulations of two mothers, showcasing their friendship and antics as they confront the devastating COVID-19 pandemic during lockdown.
Adversity as inspiration: lockdown now seems like a relatively normal state of being, but it’s arrival required a major paradigm shift. What sparked creativity for you in that scenario? Discomfort? Boredom, perhaps?
Lorri Strauss: I am the inspiration for everything in Sharon’s life. If I tell her something, she makes it into a song or a poem or a whole show. I now have to add a disclaimer on every voicenote: “Please don’t make this message into a show.” But theatre for us as friends is a passion; a reprieve from everything else. We had just finished a run of a show [Loving You] before lockdown and were really looking forward to putting it on again when everything closed down. So during lockdown, we realised we wanted to be ready with something new when we were able to get back into theatres. I think the inspiration for this one started when I phoned Sharon and discovered that, at the time, we were the only two people we knew who weren’t vaccinated! We also discovered a bunch of shared internalised angst, so that’s probably where this show was born.
Sharon Spiegel-Wagner: Lorri also recently became a producer – lockdown spurred that on. For a long time, she’s been a dedicated mom who has sacrificed her career to some extent, and she was looking to re-emerge at the same time as a number of projects I was really looking forward to were cancelled. And she really found a hunger to help theatre come alive. She would send me daily – hourly, sometimes – WhatsApp messages telling me how exciting this was, which inspired me to write. We discovered, I think, that what we are feeling is enough. I started writing more or less what she was sending me, filtered through my weird brain. She was, and is, driving this. And that meant no more of those annoying “Let’s maybe have lunch sometime; let’s see if we can make this work,” chats. This was happening! And when Alan came in, the play truly came alive – the right stuff at the right time.
Lorri Strauss: Yes – it was like those kids’ toys where toy have a dinosaur in an egg. Alan chiselled away all the, um, egg … to reveal what was inside.
Back during the first part of lockdown, you, Sharon, created a piece with similar themes for the 2020 National Arts Festival, an online-only production called Zoom Room. That show also dealt with women’s experiences of their changed circumstances, having their kids at home full-time, not being able to work and so on. How is Locked Upside Down different?
Sharon Spiegel-Wagner: For me, the scary difference is that Zoom Room was incredibly relevant at that time. This one is more about remembering. Had we been able to do this show then, I’m not sure if it would have been accepted. But now we’re processing: did we really go through this?
Alan Swerdlow: What was astonishing for me to discover is that other people did those things as well – the things you thought you were the only one to do.
Lorri Strauss: It’s important to get across that, as moms stuck at home with kids, and our careers taken away, we literally only survived through the support of our friends.
Sharon Spiegel-Wagner: A beautiful connection despite isolation.
Was the way this piece was developed different because you knew you were writing for the stage again – not for a computer screen?
Sharon Spiegel-Wagner: What Lorri and wrote were lovely stories and concepts. When Alan came in, he made it into theatre.
Lorri Strauss: Sharon wrote a bit, then sent it to me and I wrote a bit and sent it back.
Sharon Spiegel-Wagner: It was great to be able to give it to Alan and say, “Tell us what to do.”
Alan Swerdlow: The gift they gave me was the trust to make it all into something special.
One of the aspects of an unexpected scenario like lockdown is understanding that there were many things we took for granted before. What were those things for you?
Lorri Strauss: So many friends lost their parents. So every time my phone rings and I see that it’s my mom or my dad, I’m so happy. I also closed an online shop I was running so that I could make sure I could focus on doing what I love. This.
Alan Swerdlow: Realising that the overwhelming majority of people in South Africa don’t give a toss about the theatre industry was a really salutary wake-up call. So the chance to actually do something will never be taken for granted again. And it’s been incredible to watch people for whom this is lifeblood get busy.
Sharon Spiegel-Wagner: I think that, before, I didn’t believe that artists are just people. We would get really stuck in following others’ careers and comparing them to our own. Then in lockdown, suddenly, we were all in the same place, back at ground zero. In one way, that was horrible. In another way, we found a new unity. We were going to do it ourselves; it was up to us to wake up and move forward. The time has come to create our own work, and to see who we can rely on.
Alan Swerdlow: Yes, were were all such fans of our arts minister…
Lorri Strauss: It’s quite poetic, actually. We had the last show on here at the Theatre On The Square before lockdown, and we’re the first to open it again.
Linking this headspace to the music you use in the show: what were the criteria for choosing the songs you’ve included?
Lorri Strauss: Initially, we were looking for songs that commented on the situation…
Alan Swerdlow: …but re-thunk. When they gave me the material, I realised that it was a classic revue – sketches, gags and songs, with a skeletal connecting line. I think that, retrospectively, people will understand that the songs make a point about what we’ve just seen on stage. And it’s not all funny ha-ha…
Sharon Spiegel-Wagner: There are very eclectic choices. We listened to a lot of music in lockdown, so it’s kind of a playlist of what got us through the day.
Lorri Strauss: Yes. During this time, music for me was all about escapism.
Given that there’s a non-linear narrative, how is momentum or range of expression maintained?
Alan Swerdlow: Obviously, it has to be structured, but it’s also about looking at which particular song makes sense here, or why this must be a lighter moment. And we have also gone slightly crazy – I think this show will a vital pressure valve for a lot of people. The last two years have given us a chance to reset, rethink and refocus. The old order is passing. We need to experiment with new ideas.
Sharon Spiegel-Wagner: It’s a great time to be experimental. Many people are wanting to try something new. Let’s see if it works?
Working with friends: how important is it in this context, as you rediscover what can be going forward?
Lorri Strauss: It’s wonderful. To be able to work with Sharon is the best. It feels safe – to try things and not be judged; to really support each other.
Sharon Spiegel-Wagner: We want each other to succeed. It’s not only about profile now. It’s about being able to make a living. Buying food. That’s not to say that we won’t be competitive, but any tension must be about making things happen. Lorri said to me, “I’m in your corner,” and we don’t hear that enough. It’s such a relief.
Lorri Strauss: The producer of another show Sharon’s working on wrote to me when we were juggling dates and said that sorting that out was not a problem, because “we’re all in this together.” And with Alan, we specifically chose to work with him. We wanted his wealth of experience and knowledge.
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