Ahead of The Vegan Tigress joining us in February, we spoke with Writer and Performer Claire Parker and Director Tracy Collier about the show and what audiences can expect.
Can you tell us about the origins of The Vegan Tigress and what inspired you to bring Mary De Morgan’s life and stories to the stage?
Claire: I was immediately captivated by how lively and radically unconventional Mary De Morgan’s imagination was. She was brave and unapologetically outspoken. She wove social and feminist commentary into her subversive, unusual fairytales. So why hadn’t I ever heard of her? I began wondering if, in her older years, she had been satisfied with the slim success of her writing considering the price she seemed to pay to achieve what she did. She was at the bedside of the arts and crafts movement founder and socialist, William Morris, when he died. A man who clearly respected her bright intellect. How many ideas might she have sown in his mind alone?
My playwriting began because I couldn’t find any decent roles for older women. The research I carried out for my first play about actor Ellen Terry revealed many 19th Century female pioneers, artists and activists including Mary De Morgan. Her complex and feisty character and her storytelling legacy simply broke through and demanded to be told.
What was it like working with the cast, particularly in bringing out Mary's layered character? As a director, how did you guide them in navigating the play’s humour, drama, and historical elements?
Tracy: It is always a huge advantage to have the writer in the room as she had done so much research that little was left for me to do in terms of historical elements. The cast have been amazing in terms of the detail they are willing to go into. I am a very picky director, I need to believe every single moment and every single transition from those moments to the next. Both Edie and Claire were right on board for that amount of detail. The development of Mary was the important thing, as there is always the underlying illness there but I wanted it to develop this over the period of the play, and also find what really puts strain on her. There is a really interesting development in the relationship between Lady Tuttle and Mary as they find an anchor in each other within this strange encounter. Mary is a fighter and the joy of her is she never relents.
How did you come to choose the title The Vegan Tigress, and what does it signify in the context of Mary De Morgan’s character and the themes of the play?
Claire: The Hair Tree, one of Mary De Morgans fairy tales, is extremely fantastical and multi-layered and contains some quite brutal feminine themes. There is also, a story within a story, of an unfortunate female who, on refusing to marry a Tortoise King, is turned into a tigress by his outraged mother. She banishes the tigress who is told she mustn’t ever eat flesh or she will never again regain her female form. To me, this is Mary, the tigress who is never given permission to fully express and embody her own power as a woman or gain due respect in a man’s world.
Can you tell us about the origins of The Vegan Tigress and what inspired you to bring Mary De Morgan’s life and stories to the stage?
Claire: I was immediately captivated by how lively and radically unconventional Mary De Morgan’s imagination was. She was brave and unapologetically outspoken. She wove social and feminist commentary into her subversive, unusual fairytales. So why hadn’t I ever heard of her? I began wondering if, in her older years, she had been satisfied with the slim success of her writing considering the price she seemed to pay to achieve what she did. She was at the bedside of the arts and crafts movement founder and socialist, William Morris, when he died. A man who clearly respected her bright intellect. How many ideas might she have sown in his mind alone?
My playwriting began because I couldn’t find any decent roles for older women. The research I carried out for my first play about actor Ellen Terry revealed many 19th Century female pioneers, artists and activists including Mary De Morgan. Her complex and feisty character and her storytelling legacy simply broke through and demanded to be told.
What was it like working with the cast, particularly in bringing out Mary's layered character? As a director, how did you guide them in navigating the play’s humour, drama, and historical elements?
Tracy: It is always a huge advantage to have the writer in the room as she had done so much research that little was left for me to do in terms of historical elements. The cast have been amazing in terms of the detail they are willing to go into. I am a very picky director, I need to believe every single moment and every single transition from those moments to the next. Both Edie and Claire were right on board for that amount of detail. The development of Mary was the important thing, as there is always the underlying illness there but I wanted it to develop this over the period of the play, and also find what really puts strain on her. There is a really interesting development in the relationship between Lady Tuttle and Mary as they find an anchor in each other within this strange encounter. Mary is a fighter and the joy of her is she never relents.
How did you come to choose the title The Vegan Tigress, and what does it signify in the context of Mary De Morgan’s character and the themes of the play?
Claire: The Hair Tree, one of Mary De Morgans fairy tales, is extremely fantastical and multi-layered and contains some quite brutal feminine themes. There is also, a story within a story, of an unfortunate female who, on refusing to marry a Tortoise King, is turned into a tigress by his outraged mother. She banishes the tigress who is told she mustn’t ever eat flesh or she will never again regain her female form. To me, this is Mary, the tigress who is never given permission to fully express and embody her own power as a woman or gain due respect in a man’s world.
This production celebrates the art of storytelling—what themes or messages do you hope audiences take away about storytelling from Mary’s perspective and the play’s broader context?
Tracy: Storytelling relies on the imagination of the listener. This is not high tech storytelling so the audience has to come along for the ride. I love this as it allows us to think like children again and regain our sense of play.
Claire: The power of a story is timeless and any inherent healing property within will remain active like a seed and can literally carry on the wind unhindered by barriers of time and space. But stories need ears to hear them in order to blossom into life. I wanted to offer a chance to discover a lost, yet distinct, voice from the past and to put context to the experience of being a female storyteller in that particular time in history. The play is a hopeful message of how stories have a life of their own and at anytime might just rise to the surface again. I’ve taken two opposing narratives and searched to find the truth in both. The goal being that the divisive element of the story can eventually emerge healed. The resolution and forgiveness does come about yet with complete disregard for truths, not to mention all the evidence stacked against these two women that suggests it’s too late for resolution. And the play lets us take a glimpse at how we deal with getting older and what meaning life holds for us as it begins to draw to a close. It looks playfully at life and death as well as at legacy and the nature of narrative. Theatre is a powerful yet safe way of looking at difficult themes.
What drew you, as a playwright, to the fascinating figure of Mary De Morgan, and what aspects of her life or writing resonate most strongly with audiences today?
Claire: Mary De Morgan, suffragist and activist, put her heart and soul into fairytales. Having found her, I wanted to unearth her storytelling power and restore it, as respectfully as possible, in a contextual setting. Shining a light on a lost, nuanced voice so carelessly absorbed into the patriarchal narrative, is my way of celebrating feminine writing and the mature, creative woman. And giving any kind of marginalised voice a platform is to acknowledge the importance of social reform to create a more compassionate, diverse and equal society that Mary fought so hard for. Who doesn’t want to live in a more compassionate world?
What happens to our stories once they can no longer be remembered? Are we merely custodians? Why might we wish them to be heard above the din of the collective? Do stories have a life of their own separate from us? How fair is it that the loudest narrative always belongs to the dominant group? I began asking so many questions I wished to explore. Mary expressed herself through her fairytales and they capture the essence of what it meant to be a woman in the late 19th century. I’m attempting to address some of those questions which are just as relevant in the digital age and bring them into a theatrical experience.
Could you share how you approached blending historical elements with supernatural and fantastical ones, especially as they relate to Mary’s journey and the ghostly figure she encounters?
Claire: Mary’s mother was a spiritualist and there was a whole fascination at that time with the spiritual and supernatural realms. So this was the ideal setting in which to begin the story. For context and structure, I began by finding out every historical fact I could about Mary De Morgan and her immediate environment and relationships. I proceeded to read all her fairy tales and everything else she had ever written. I then tried to allow her voice to come through in my imagination and always knew I wanted to find a story that followed both the factual, stark reality of her situation and the dreamworld of her tales. I’ve placed her towards the end of her life and asked her how she feels about her almost forgotten legacy as a writer. Once I’d chosen the fairytale I wished to be a part of the story, I then draped it over the factual structure and added an imagined take on how and why she became a single woman of independent means by choice. The ghost she accidentally summons represents everything that she fought against as a woman and so becomes her greatest dramatic challenge and a mutual reckoning.
Tracy: Storytelling relies on the imagination of the listener. This is not high tech storytelling so the audience has to come along for the ride. I love this as it allows us to think like children again and regain our sense of play.
Claire: The power of a story is timeless and any inherent healing property within will remain active like a seed and can literally carry on the wind unhindered by barriers of time and space. But stories need ears to hear them in order to blossom into life. I wanted to offer a chance to discover a lost, yet distinct, voice from the past and to put context to the experience of being a female storyteller in that particular time in history. The play is a hopeful message of how stories have a life of their own and at anytime might just rise to the surface again. I’ve taken two opposing narratives and searched to find the truth in both. The goal being that the divisive element of the story can eventually emerge healed. The resolution and forgiveness does come about yet with complete disregard for truths, not to mention all the evidence stacked against these two women that suggests it’s too late for resolution. And the play lets us take a glimpse at how we deal with getting older and what meaning life holds for us as it begins to draw to a close. It looks playfully at life and death as well as at legacy and the nature of narrative. Theatre is a powerful yet safe way of looking at difficult themes.
What drew you, as a playwright, to the fascinating figure of Mary De Morgan, and what aspects of her life or writing resonate most strongly with audiences today?
Claire: Mary De Morgan, suffragist and activist, put her heart and soul into fairytales. Having found her, I wanted to unearth her storytelling power and restore it, as respectfully as possible, in a contextual setting. Shining a light on a lost, nuanced voice so carelessly absorbed into the patriarchal narrative, is my way of celebrating feminine writing and the mature, creative woman. And giving any kind of marginalised voice a platform is to acknowledge the importance of social reform to create a more compassionate, diverse and equal society that Mary fought so hard for. Who doesn’t want to live in a more compassionate world?
What happens to our stories once they can no longer be remembered? Are we merely custodians? Why might we wish them to be heard above the din of the collective? Do stories have a life of their own separate from us? How fair is it that the loudest narrative always belongs to the dominant group? I began asking so many questions I wished to explore. Mary expressed herself through her fairytales and they capture the essence of what it meant to be a woman in the late 19th century. I’m attempting to address some of those questions which are just as relevant in the digital age and bring them into a theatrical experience.
Could you share how you approached blending historical elements with supernatural and fantastical ones, especially as they relate to Mary’s journey and the ghostly figure she encounters?
Claire: Mary’s mother was a spiritualist and there was a whole fascination at that time with the spiritual and supernatural realms. So this was the ideal setting in which to begin the story. For context and structure, I began by finding out every historical fact I could about Mary De Morgan and her immediate environment and relationships. I proceeded to read all her fairy tales and everything else she had ever written. I then tried to allow her voice to come through in my imagination and always knew I wanted to find a story that followed both the factual, stark reality of her situation and the dreamworld of her tales. I’ve placed her towards the end of her life and asked her how she feels about her almost forgotten legacy as a writer. Once I’d chosen the fairytale I wished to be a part of the story, I then draped it over the factual structure and added an imagined take on how and why she became a single woman of independent means by choice. The ghost she accidentally summons represents everything that she fought against as a woman and so becomes her greatest dramatic challenge and a mutual reckoning.
Can you give us a sneak peek into the stage and sound design elements? How did you and your creative team use lighting, sound, and setting to evoke the historical and supernatural tones of The Vegan Tigress?
Tracy: Because we knew we were going to be working in smaller venues we needed the stage and lighting designs to be really simple. Of course once we hit the West End we will expand those ideas With this in mind the sound is the most important technical element as it really supports the world of the play. There are two very distinct worlds: The world of wonder and imagination in the stories where the sound effects and music are there to build the tension and the different characters we meet along the way. The sound in the natural moments are more to give us a sense of place, atmosphere and the emotional state of the characters.
How did you develop the dynamic between Mary and the ghost she accidentally summons? How does this interaction serve as a reflection or challenge for Mary’s ideals?
Tracy: The dynamic of Lady Tuttle and Mary naturally changes in the writing. Both characters start out very much involved in their own business which gradually begins to change as they hear each other properly. It takes a while but I love the slow understanding that develops between them. And the forgiveness that is necessary for this to happen.
Claire: Once I had my two characters; one, by uncovering my perceived, truest version of Mary De Morgan and, two, by creating and rounding out her antagonist, Lady Tuttle, all I had to do was to put them in the ring together and let them spar. Having done my part, the characters will then tell me what they need to say to each other and ultimately dictate how the story will pan out. The ghost is as passionate about her way of life, as is Mary, and there comes a reckoning whereby both parties have to face the reality of the other’s ideals and the consequences of their personal choices. At one point I became stuck and challenged myself to a creative writing exercise asking what was hindering my writing and might I have her blessing. My imagination came back vehemently that I was not to bang on about the tuberculosis or paint her in anyway as a victim. Mary’s character became very forceful and clear after that. Both characters are products of their era and both suffer as women albeit for very different reasons.
Given Mary De Morgan’s connections with the Pre-Raphaelites and other influential figures, how did you go about capturing this artistic circle on stage?
Claire: Mary refers to her contemporaries and their shared artistic and political backdrop throughout the play, however, the play is written in such a way that you don’t have to know who or what they are yet if you do, you will recognise them immediately. It’s not easy to give historical context without being expositional. The ghost is a traditional Victorian lady who accepted her lot in life and is appalled by Mary’s progressive attitude and lifestyle. So social commentary of the time is embedded in the dialogue between the two characters.
Tracy: Because we knew we were going to be working in smaller venues we needed the stage and lighting designs to be really simple. Of course once we hit the West End we will expand those ideas With this in mind the sound is the most important technical element as it really supports the world of the play. There are two very distinct worlds: The world of wonder and imagination in the stories where the sound effects and music are there to build the tension and the different characters we meet along the way. The sound in the natural moments are more to give us a sense of place, atmosphere and the emotional state of the characters.
How did you develop the dynamic between Mary and the ghost she accidentally summons? How does this interaction serve as a reflection or challenge for Mary’s ideals?
Tracy: The dynamic of Lady Tuttle and Mary naturally changes in the writing. Both characters start out very much involved in their own business which gradually begins to change as they hear each other properly. It takes a while but I love the slow understanding that develops between them. And the forgiveness that is necessary for this to happen.
Claire: Once I had my two characters; one, by uncovering my perceived, truest version of Mary De Morgan and, two, by creating and rounding out her antagonist, Lady Tuttle, all I had to do was to put them in the ring together and let them spar. Having done my part, the characters will then tell me what they need to say to each other and ultimately dictate how the story will pan out. The ghost is as passionate about her way of life, as is Mary, and there comes a reckoning whereby both parties have to face the reality of the other’s ideals and the consequences of their personal choices. At one point I became stuck and challenged myself to a creative writing exercise asking what was hindering my writing and might I have her blessing. My imagination came back vehemently that I was not to bang on about the tuberculosis or paint her in anyway as a victim. Mary’s character became very forceful and clear after that. Both characters are products of their era and both suffer as women albeit for very different reasons.
Given Mary De Morgan’s connections with the Pre-Raphaelites and other influential figures, how did you go about capturing this artistic circle on stage?
Claire: Mary refers to her contemporaries and their shared artistic and political backdrop throughout the play, however, the play is written in such a way that you don’t have to know who or what they are yet if you do, you will recognise them immediately. It’s not easy to give historical context without being expositional. The ghost is a traditional Victorian lady who accepted her lot in life and is appalled by Mary’s progressive attitude and lifestyle. So social commentary of the time is embedded in the dialogue between the two characters.
The play weaves in one of De Morgan’s own fairy tales—how did you select the story, and how does it contribute to Mary’s narrative within the play?
Claire: I chose her fairy tale, The Hair Tree, because I was intrigued by the story of the tigress. The mother of the Tortoise King curses a woman for rejecting her son and ignoring protocol. This informed the nature of the insult experienced by the highly offended ghost in the play. I could also sense so many of Mary’s personal social and political beliefs and frustrations coming through within the story. So there are many parallels and the two narratives weave and blur throughout.
What do you hope audiences will feel or take away from experiencing Mary De Morgan’s world in The Vegan Tigress?
Tracy: I hope they will get a sense of what the struggle was really like for women and how brave and bold Mary was in her time. And that we don't have to settle for what is expected of us in the present day either. State your business and do the work to live the life you really want to live.
Claire: I hope to fire the imagination and heart by immersing the audience in Mary’s magical world where different things make sense and outcomes are unexpected. Audience member responses; “I loved the seamless transition from un-seeing to seeing and the clever weave between mythical story and present action.” And “The characters are flawed and relatable and irresistible and take us on an intense arc with them. They end in a quite different place to where they started as a result of their interactions, and so do we. It’s a ghost story, an adventure story, a fairy story, a love story… it was magical and moving.”
Playwright quote:
“I’m intrigued by the amorphous quality of narrative and the desire for one’s personal story to stand out from the collective. An almost forgotten writer herself, I love to imagine that Mary De Morgan’s bright intellect sowed seeds in the minds of her eminent male contemporaries whose names and legacies we do still remember. And that, even though she was ahead of her time, she sought to be heard through her fairy tales. It may be impertinent but I love to pluck inspiring women from the past and bring their fascinating stories into the light once more.”
Claire Parker, the writer.
You can catch The Vegan Tigress 18th February - 1st March 2025, Tickets: https://app.lineupnow.com/event/the-vegan-tigress
Claire: I chose her fairy tale, The Hair Tree, because I was intrigued by the story of the tigress. The mother of the Tortoise King curses a woman for rejecting her son and ignoring protocol. This informed the nature of the insult experienced by the highly offended ghost in the play. I could also sense so many of Mary’s personal social and political beliefs and frustrations coming through within the story. So there are many parallels and the two narratives weave and blur throughout.
What do you hope audiences will feel or take away from experiencing Mary De Morgan’s world in The Vegan Tigress?
Tracy: I hope they will get a sense of what the struggle was really like for women and how brave and bold Mary was in her time. And that we don't have to settle for what is expected of us in the present day either. State your business and do the work to live the life you really want to live.
Claire: I hope to fire the imagination and heart by immersing the audience in Mary’s magical world where different things make sense and outcomes are unexpected. Audience member responses; “I loved the seamless transition from un-seeing to seeing and the clever weave between mythical story and present action.” And “The characters are flawed and relatable and irresistible and take us on an intense arc with them. They end in a quite different place to where they started as a result of their interactions, and so do we. It’s a ghost story, an adventure story, a fairy story, a love story… it was magical and moving.”
Playwright quote:
“I’m intrigued by the amorphous quality of narrative and the desire for one’s personal story to stand out from the collective. An almost forgotten writer herself, I love to imagine that Mary De Morgan’s bright intellect sowed seeds in the minds of her eminent male contemporaries whose names and legacies we do still remember. And that, even though she was ahead of her time, she sought to be heard through her fairy tales. It may be impertinent but I love to pluck inspiring women from the past and bring their fascinating stories into the light once more.”
Claire Parker, the writer.
You can catch The Vegan Tigress 18th February - 1st March 2025, Tickets: https://app.lineupnow.com/event/the-vegan-tigress
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