KNOT HEART - Almeida Theatre

Interview: David EldridgeAlmeida Projects spoke to writer David Eldridge about his ideas and inspirationfor The Knot of the Heart, and his experience of creating the play for theAlmeida Theatre.Almeida Projects: What inspired you to write The Knot of the Heart?David Eldridge: Well I knew a little bit about the emotional impact of substance abuse on a family soit's a subject that I could write about if I chose to. The subject mattered to me. But the person I knowwho has struggled with heroin, has led a life quite similar to the stories we've seen a million times onstage and screen before. That is poverty stricken, parents not around, prison etc. I thought it wouldbe much more interesting to tell the story of someone who seemingly has all of life's advantages andfrom a middle class background struggling with serious addiction. Of course the play isn't reallyabout addiction. I think it's about a mother and a daughter and the conditions of love. And it waswritten for the actress Lisa Dillon. She was the trigger really.The play started life as a conversation with Lisa Dillon. I wanted to write something for her to do andshe said she'd love to play a leading role and ‘get to go on a journey like the boys get to go on’. Lisaalso mentioned a role ‘not defined by its relationship to a man’. I got the idea of writing somethingset in the world of addiction, and also the image of a middle class mother-daughter relationship hadbeen gnawing at me. I needed to research quite a lot in to the world of treating addiction. I relished itthough, and met some very special people in the hospitals, drop-in centres and refuges along the way.I suppose with Lisa I had an inkling of how I might push her acting in to an interesting andchallenging place. And in the process of writing something which challenged her I pushed my ownwriting in to a place I never expected to go.AP: When writing a play do you always have actors and a theatre in mind?DE: I think of actors a lot. Sometimes I just like to have a face in mind, sometimes I like to hear avoice, sometimes I imagine a particular actor very vividly. I think it helps when you're writing forperformance and I think many other writers agree. Shakespeare wrote for Burbage and Kempe,Chekhov wrote for Olga Knipper, Simon Gray for Alan Bates, Simon Stephens for Daniel Mays.Sometimes I have a theatre in mind. When I do, I imagine myself sitting in the middle of theauditorium as I write.AP: The play features many locations close to the Almeida. Why did you want to set the play inIslington, and why were you drawn to write it for the Almeida Theatre?DE: The Almeida has great intimacy so it's perfect for a story which reflects upon the humancondition, but I was also interested in challenging the Almeida's regular audience. I often think that indrama as in life it's best to be specific. I find a writer more often manages to touch on the biguniversal themes that move and challenge an audience by writing in a detailed and specific way. Forme location and place is always very important and I try achieve that sense of place in great particulardetail. I had a story to tell, but once I knew the Almeida wanted to commission it, then I decided toset the action of the play almost entirely in Islington and adjacent neighbourhoods. This is partlybecause I wanted the audience to feel stories like Lucy's are happening all around them. To try andget them to see Upper Street through new eyes when they leave the play. I also wanted to inculpatethe Almeida's generally quite affluent audience a little. To reference a line in the play: Stories likeLucy's do happen to people like them.AP: The play is rooted in a highly realistic, local portrayal of the area. How true to life is it?DE: I think the play has great veracity and is a highly accurate distilled version of one journey throughaddiction. But it's not documentary theatre. It's a play. Its highly theatrical. It's about the heart muchmore than it's about social issues. It was crucially important to me though to portray the19Resource Pack: Becky Shaw