Read on for an interview with writer Ben Ockrent, ahead of the world premiere of his new comedy Relics.
Where: Lyric Hammersmith Theatre
When: 18 Jun-18 Jul
Ticket link: https://lyric.co.uk/shows/relics/
Ben Ockrent is an award‑winning playwright, director and executive producer whose work spans theatre, film, television and radio.
What inspired you to write Relics?
My own greed. A number of years ago a distant relative told me that she wanted to leave me a very large painting which hung in her living room.
From an aesthetic perspective, I did not love this painting and could not imagine being able to provide it with a wall in my own home. But then that unconscionable thought flashed through my mind: unless, of course, it could be worth something…
At around that same time, I became aware of two news stories. One related to the discovery of a long-lost Tintoretto masterpiece, which had been discovered languishing in the attic of an old, English, family home.
The other related to a French painting which was being restituted back to the descendants of the original owners whom it had been plundered from by the Nazis. As I reflected on
those two stories in the context of my own moral dilemma, the foundations of Relics began to take
shape.
Although the specificities of the characters and their relationships would take some time to develop, I knew from its early conception that I wanted the play to use an inherited object to explode open a
long-buried family secret, and for the characters’ response to that revelation to deliver an exploration for the cluster of questions which I had been grappling with since I was bequeathed that
painting by my distant relative.
Those being: in what ways do the things which we inherit from our parents, be they physical objects or emotional legacies, impact on our individual choices in the here
and now? Are our value systems innate and universal, or constructed and context-dependent? And to whom are we ultimately responsible, and for what?
The play asks difficult questions about what we owe to the past. What interested you the most
about exploring this?
As everyone’s favourite Danish existential philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, tells us: ‘life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards’.
Time isn’t linear or uni-directional. We
are constantly projecting ourselves forwards into our future possibilities. And yet the present we are projecting ourselves forwards from can only be understood by reflecting backwards.
I’m fascinated
by all of the many ways the past can impact upon us: our own immediate pasts, the pasts of our
parents, and even the pasts of our shared, cave-dwelling ancestors, who epigenetically imprinted upon us that fear of the dark which still pervades within us all, to this day.
What do you hope that people take away from either reading or watching Relics?
A feeling of hope. Very rarely in life is anyone wholly good or bad, entirely wrong or right. But our need for certainty makes us fatally prone to totalising one another.
In Relics, our characters are confronted with a secret which reveals how flawed their family might be. As it turns out, none of them are quite the people they thought they were.
But as destabilising as that revelation is, being
forced to reexamine themselves creates new, potentially improved possibilities for their shared futures. Certainty closes doors. Uncertainty opens them.
Which of the siblings do you relate to the most, and did this change throughout the writing process?
I’m not sure that I love what this says about my self-concept, but I find myself relating most of all to whoever is being the worst version of themselves at any given moment.
Like Olivia, I can be
unbearably opinionated. Like Jonny, my moral compass isn’t always entirely reliable. Like Rob, I am a hopelessly prone to people-pleasing. And like, Michelle, I do seem to enjoy pushing buttons for my own entertainment.
How did you approach balancing humour with the emotional weight of the story?
As we know, humour and pathos are two sides of the same coin. Getting the balance right was not something I approached strategically.
I think tone is one of the more instinctive aspects of writing. Sometimes it feels like the emotional tension of a moment will be enhanced by being undercut with humour, and vice versa.
Ultimately, the priority is always to deliver what feels true.
This sounds so much fun. Thank you as ever, Louise, for sharing this fun intervew. Much appreciated, Bella