Get Tonya Joy Bolton's thoughts on the Holy & Horny Farewell Tour.
Photographer: Pamela Raith
Can you tell us a bit about Holy & Horny?
Tonya Joy Bolton: The themes are exploring issues around identity, race, gender and sexuality so those are the key issues. There's 20 characters - I play them all, 16 women and four men - but there's a main character, who is Sheila who is very much a people pleaser and always sacrifices herself to make others happy, as many women do. So it's really her story in terms of how she takes control of her life and starts owning her decisions and finding out who she really is, as opposed to the identities that have been thrust upon her.
Would you say the story is somewhat autobiographical?
The story is partly my story, as well as the stories of other men and women who have confided in me throughoutabout my work. I run a full-time charitable organization where I work with vulnerable people, particularly young people, and I specialise in doing a lot of work with girls and sexual exploitation, and I kind of drew from that. I do a lot of work with female survivors of domestic and sexual violence so I draw from that as well as my own experiences too. So it’s sort of like a mixture.
In 2016 you're off to perform internationally - where are you headed to on that tour?
I'm going to New York, Atlanta and LA. I don't want it to be as big as this one - last year I did 12 performances, this year it's about 16 to 18, so next year I just want to do a nice easy two or three night in each area - couple of nights in NY, couple of nights in LA, couple of nights in Atlanta but it could all change, I may end up doing it a lot bigger than that. It's quite a demanding show in that it's an 80 minute performance without an interval and it's a very physical piece, so I'm moving around a lot and playing lots of different characters and having multiple conversations at once. So it's quite a marathon!
And you're excited?
I am! Because that was always the dream, to take it to America. When I wrote it of course I wanted to do it here but my real aspiration was wondering if I could ever take this to America -but then I thought 'don't be silly, it's never going to go that far!' when it has!
How do you think Americans will react to the themes?
I think it will have a great response in America because the issues it’s dealing with like sexual abuse, sexuality, identity, these are human issues - you take that anywhere in the world and everybody can relate so I do think that it will go down really well. ...I mean you know the stuff that’s going on in America right now, with race, racism and black/white murders and all these things happening I think they will be able to relate really well to the themes of race and identity amongst all the other stuff. Interestingly enough, I used to think, oh, Americans are so liberated, so much more liberated than we are here, but actually it depends on the state you're in. There's a lot of subjects in America that are just as taboo there as they are here. So I have no doubt that it will touch people there as much as here.
Have you ever had any negative feedback about the controversial issues in the play?
I haven't, you know! When I first wrote it and staged it in 2011 at a place called the Public in Brimingham I'd booked a place that was sort of 120 and I was advised to only book a 50 seater. Someone said to me to start small, youre not going to get many people there given the controversy, and we actually over 270 people come and we had to literally squeeze everybody in and I was very scared then. I was so scared I was throwing up before my performance because I thought, 'is everyone going to walk out?'
Another thing is, I think on that night we partnered with Women’s Aid and Rape Crisis centres across the country - we often have support workers and counsellors at every show so that after the show or during the show and if anyone does get upset there are people there that can help - and I think the first time that I staged it there were probably two women that walked out at a very difficult scene and after three or five minutes they came back and carried on watching the show... I’ve read a few Facebook discussions where people who have not seen the play want to give their 10 penny’s worth by saying it's blasphemous and disgusting but who have never seen the play so I take that with a pinch of salt really, but no I’ve never had a bad reaction. At one of the shows I did last year in London a woman wrote to me and said she that she had actually been raped a few days before the play, and she had no idea that the play was covering sexual abuse. But she said having seen it, it really helped her come to terms with what happened with her.
So audiences are giving you a lot of immediate feedback?
We do get a lot of feedback and after the show I'm quickly get dressed and at the bar meeting people or having an after-show discussion. Meeting people is as important as the play, it’s so interesting, it’s so brutally honest because the play makes people want to share their secrets with me. I perform and I give them my truth, or the characters truth. You get all walks of people - I’ve had vicars, counsellors, police woman. You get a wide range of people who sadly don’t have a supportive environment, so when you have someone who's in high office those people can feel burdened in life by the things that have happened to them and tend carry that around silently.
The Holy & Horny Farewell Tour will be at Nottingham Arts Theatre on Saturday 3 October 2015
We have a favour to ask
LeftLion is Nottingham’s meeting point for information about what’s going on in our city, from the established organisations to the grassroots. We want to keep what we do free to all to access, but increasingly we are relying on revenue from our readers to continue. Can you spare a few quid each month to support us?
