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10 Questions - Julie McNamara
Published 20 May 2009 by Foluke Akinlose

In our latest artists interview we ask Julie McNamara about her influences, creativity and the best job she's ever had...

Ten Questions

Name: Julie McNamara
Role: Playwright / Actor
Showcase Performance: Crossings

1. Where do you find inspiration for your work?

Life. I stay open to the unexpected. ‘Crossings’ was inspired by a random discovery. I was searching for my Father’s boat on the Mersey; the Dajam was sold on after his death. In my searches I’d go to visit The Maritime Museum, instead I wandered into the International Museum of Slavery at Albert Dock in Liverpool and uncovered the truth about another boat entirely – a notorious slave ship called The Zong.
I was incensed that this hadn’t been a part of our education in Merseyside. I was born in Birkenhead, two members of the family worked in the Ship yard at Camell Lairds. Nobody told us about the Zong.

2. What has been your most memorable performance?

Performing ‘Pig Tales’ a one-woman production, before the Maori elders at ‘Good Health Whanganui’ a psychiatric conference in Whanganui, New Zealand.

3. Where in the world would you most like to perform... and why?

I would like to perform ‘Crossings’ in Auckland before the elders of the Nga Pui who blessed the production after reading the initial script and allowed me to use the image of Hine Nui Te Po, one of their elders. That portrait, taken by Lisa Reihana, had moved me to tears at Te Papa Museum in Wellington when I was researching a character for ‘Crossings’. I asked for permission to incorporate Lisa Reihana’s work in the projected images on the ship’s sails. Hine Nui Te Po appears in the production as ‘First Woman’ calling the young Shelley out of trouble. I’d just like to give them something back.

4. Who/what has been the greatest influence on your creative output?

My father. He was great compost for stage material, although he was a very damaged being. He’d had a tortured childhood that left him emotionally constipated and remote. Although he wrote me extraordinary letters, full of poetry and bigotry. He was a great singer and storyteller, more often drunk than sober but he came to life on the sea. He’d built a boat with his own hands. Dredged up an old hull from the bed of the Mersey. He’d always say Liverpool was the bowels of hell and we were all living in a den of iniquity. That boat was his salvation. After his death I found every post card I’d ever sent him from across the world, in date order, carefully archived. I decided from that moment on I was going to live to the full or do my damnedest to live my dreams. I didn’t want my life reduced to a post card.

5. What has been the highlight of your career so far?

Last year! 2008 was a great year for highlights. I had three commissions that took me from Liverpool (DaDa Festival) where we presented ‘Crossings’ to Adelaide’s Feast Festival working on ‘Steak and Chelsea Out To Lunch’ with No Strings Attached Theatre, to Auckland working with Philip Patston and Diversityworks on ‘Derby and Joan’.

6. Who would you most like to work with...and why?

I am currently working with a new Director, Paulette Randall. I would dearly like to work in partnership with her, co-producing new work, acting as her Assistant Director while she shows me the ropes. She’s inspirational, thrilling in her creative approach, her imagination and her treatment of a script.

7. What is the best job you have ever had?

Working for Skyros Holidays, in 1995 I was contracted to set up and direct a new project in Tobago. It was stunningly beautiful and I had to experience every excursion and tour on the island before our punters arrived. (Someone’s got to do it.)

8. Where do you see yourself/your company in 5 years?

I’d like to be creating cutting edge work on an international platform, working with exciting new voices and pushing people from the political peripheries onto mainstream stages.

9. What makes you happiest about performing?

Connecting with the audience, through connection with the story, the actors on stage and the energy. It’s alchemy and it’s addictive.

10. What concerns you most about the state of the Performing Arts Sector in the UK?

We have inherited a dinosaur. We have state funded monuments to the establishment that are so far out of touch with contemporary Britain that they are struggling to retain audiences. They have little common ground with the vibrant voices currently working on the cutting edge of Theatre, Live Art or Performing Arts. The funding needs to be shared more equitably, merited through talented creativity and imagination, not assumed through social privilege. I’m hoping projects like Decibel will begin to change things.