Laurie Ward and Charli Cowgill on the power of your own monologue.
Laurie and Charli reflect on spit, slop and oil and a chance meeting on a double date.
Charli We actually met on a double date. We were strangers both dating these two best friends and realised quite quickly that we liked each other a lot more than our dates. Our friendship grew from there.
Laurie We are opposites, truly the yin and yang of each other. Every morning I have a single piece of toast with butter, black coffee and do a crossword.
Charli Whereas, this morning for instance, I had yesterday's dinner - it was a daal. I spent about four hours making it last night so of course I’m going to be having it for every meal. I’m not wasting any of that!
Laurie What you have to understand about us is that Charli is crazy brackets neurotic whereas I’m crazy brackets depressive. It also works well in how we run our shows. Charli is chatty and engages with the audience before the show. But even though we must have done the show like over 40 times now, I still feel like I'm gonna throw up just before. I can’t really look people in the eye. I just remind myself of what I know, and what I know is that I am a fierce mover and I shake my ass behind the gold foil curtains trying to not let the nerves get the best of me, probably to Gabber music.
Charli I love the room whilst it's filling up. I’m also something of a sadist insofar as I'm really into the mortification that flashes on people's faces when I ask them to spit in the cup I'm holding and waving in their face. The majority of my pre show ritual is getting all the audience members to spit into a cup for me.
The glee I get from their reactions truly dissipates when I see some of the spit I collect. In our fringe run, we had the 3:30pm slot so it was just after our audiences were having their post-lunch coffee pick me ups, so the spit would be all brown. Some can also be orange, slimy, truly astounding the variety you can get, those are the moments where I’m like, "oh yeah… that's coming my way soon…"
For our first show together, we had just come out of the pandemic. It was the summer that still had lockdown restrictions so everyone who worked in the theatre was still under a mandate to wear masks. Actually, I think maybe we were also under a mandate to wear masks, and everyone who entered the auditorium was wearing a mask. So I would have to stand at the door and go, “could you spit in this cup for us” and they'd all go, “errr…”
Laurie She had to stand next to a sign that said, “Coronavirus isn't over, keep your mask on!”
Charli At the end of that run I was really sick.
Laurie We have a gorgeous stage manager (Laurie’s partner) who will bring all the props, set them all up and get the bits of wardrobe needed for the show before we get there.
As much as they love me though, we both have the responsibility of bringing in our sequined jumpsuits. I’m not one to be wearing it into the venue though, no mama! I’ll be head down, big shades on, all the way there.
Charli I think in the show, we don't act as like other people, it's just Laurie and Charli doing the show, there's no character really.
Something that I think that’s important for trans and queer performers is to make your own work and make it for yourself. Don't wait for someone else to write a role for you. Just make the role that you want to see yourself doing that’s unapologetic, and that’s audacious and as extreme as you want to be. That was a big part of making 52. I had just dropped out from drama school, Laurie was choosing not to go to dance school. The name, 52 Monologues for Young Transsexuals, comes from the monologue books that people use for drama school. All there was were 50 monologues for young men or young women. We didn't have a monologue book for us, so we decided to make one.
Laurie I think it's important when you’re making work that you shouldn’t feel like you have to give the audience everything. You don’t have to show them every part of you. Which is rich coming from me…
Charli Because you show a lot of you
Laurie I do!
Charli In our process of how we work I think that I'm the rebel and Laurie is quite disciplinary. I might push and she might pull but, I still feel like we don't really know what we're trying to do. With 52 it was more of an explosion of passion and urgency than it was something we took time to craft with the intent to say something.
I think one of the things that we've ended up doing has been kind of opening pathways for solidarity and sisterhood that we didn't quite know we would have set into motion. At the end of the show, we talk about how you don't ever really see other trans women out together. You don't ever see two trans women over a dinner table together at a restaurant sharing a meal. Seeing trans women together where they are just being friends in quite a banal setting is extremely rare.
After one of our shows there were two trans girls who were going to go home separately straight after the show but, in the end they decided to stay and go out together. It might not sound like much but being seen doing normal things means a lot.
We've also had a lot of people who are not trans women who have seen the monologues and they really resonate with them in very particular ways. That has been really fruitful and rewarding. Being meaningful to both people who are very similar to us, but also to people who are very different to us has been something that the show has achieved without those really knowing or intending it.
Laurie After the show I find it impossible to resist having a drink. Yeah, I love it. Charli doesn’t really care, she'll just be like, "byeee" and honestly I really think that is a mark of real maturity.
Charli Yeah, I feel like a loser! But I think we are missing a crucial detail that after the show: we're covered in spit, slop, oil, powder, shit. Well, not shit, but you know what I mean. We're getting out of the show really oily, wet, and dripping. I can't be holding onto a beer that's slipping out of my hand and my fingertips are so oily that I can't grip anything. Laurie definitely does the PR for the company.
Laurie I know you don't have to stay after the show for a drink, you can just go home, you probably should. I probably should… But then when I'm there I'm like "well, one would be nice". That usually means I’m probably not in bed til 1am.
52 Monologues for Young Transsexuals is running at Soho Theatre 4-16 March 2024. Buy tickets here.
We saw what you did in the dark:
20. 22/02/24, Good News / Bad News, "I think I've just been owned by Liz Truss. I don’t know what that means…."
Stationed in the cellar of Aces and Eights bar is Good News / Bad News, a monthly night set up by Suchandrika Tia. With a BBC journalist’s training behind her Tia has brought this into the concept of the show: it’s a topical comedy night finding the laughs in that month’s newsreels and headlines.
The first half of the night comprised of character comedy from Liz Truss promoting her new book (Nerine Skinner). Skinner joined Tia on stage in a broadcast interview Q&A, in what we thought was a particularly clever use of a character comedian in a news-themed comedy line up, allowing for a dash of improv too.
Following this was a classic literary character trying to sell the audience life insurance (Edward at last), part stand-up part confession from Lil Wenker, and an eerie old lady in a laundromat (Ozzy Algar). Bar Skinner, it has to be admitted the acts were not quite performing within the topical spirit of the show but were hilarious nonetheless.
The second half was classic stand up with Aisha Amanduri joking about having recently become a UK citizen, and Sam Nicoresti dead naming the old Prince of Wales. To round it off, headlining was Bilal Zafar who was a natural storyteller with calm confidence and wry asides, especially when reflecting on his experience of offbeat reviews.
Hosted, teched, produced and run by Suchandrika Tia, it reminded us that people like her are engines of this scene. Without people like her, London would be a much greyer and less vibrant place.
People to follow: Aces and Eights, Suchandrika Tia, Edward at last, Lil Wenker, Ozzy Algar, Aisha Amanduri, Sam Nicoresti, Bilal Zafar, and special guest Liz Truss.