Q&A: EDINBURGH 2024: Eliza Beth Stevens on YES, WE'RE RELATED

BWW caught up with Eliza Beth Stevens about bringing Yes, We’re Related to the 2024 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

How did you first get involved in the world of theatre?

It actually took me a little while to find theatre when I was growing up - I was definitely a late arrival to the world of theatre kids. There wasn't a great deal of the arts going on where I grew up and the bits that I did take part in, though marvellous, definitely didn't allow me to see a future career in theatre. I was, however, always involved in music. My teacher, Mrs Snioch, told my Mum in Year 3 to get me singing lessons, and music led to musicals and musicals eventually led to anything and everything involved in telling stories for the stage. By the time I was eighteen, I was leaving school, having decided to leave my plans of being a vet behind and go to drama school which I later did at twenty, determined to embrace training not only as an actor but also as a writer and director too. I moved to Liverpool to study at LIPA [Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts] and during my first year of drama school, I started my own company, Out The Attic, to be a platform for the stories of women and those unrepresented throughout history. Since then, I have had a groovy old time working as an actor, director and writer across theatre, comedy, film and even opera and though I think sometimes, life would have been easier as a vet, I could never imagine myself doing anything else. So thank you, Mrs Snioch! 

Can you tell us a bit about the show you are directing, Yes, We’re Related?

Yes, We're Related is a silly little play about grief. Two sisters, Sara and Saskia, along with Saskia's fiancé, Mark, host a party to celebrate the anniversary of their mother's death. As can often be the case with forced family “fun,” especially in the light of huge loss and polar personalities, things get . . . Messy. Dark secrets are spilt, trifle is thrown and a squirrel named Gerald makes a special, at some points spooky, feature. Florence Lace-Evans has written a tender, hilarious, relatable story of a family fractured by grief, trying to find common ground. 

What was the creative process like for Yes, We’re Related?

Playful. We had a heck of a lot of fun rehearsing this show. Myself and Flo often had conversations about how to push further with the “weird” in this play, something we were very aligned on from early on in the process. We found the more we had fun with the chaos and the silliness in the story, the harder the vulnerable moments hit home. I also decided quite early to borrow elements of the horror canon to shape the narrative. This was definitely something myself and the wonderful cast had a lot of fun with and will definitely be leaning into even further for our next run. 

What is it like to be bringing Yes, We’re Related up to the Edinburgh Fringe, especially as a recipient of the Keep It Fringe fund?

The Edinburgh Fringe is a magical and brilliantly chaotic place to make theatre. It's an absolute gift to be surrounded by such fantastic work across all genres across both the Festival and the other projects supported by the Keep It Fringe Fund. Funds like Keep It Fringe put us in great company at the Fringe and it feels like a real stamp of encouragement. Also, with the vast expense of taking a show to the festival, it's a great help to be supported financially, too. 

What is it like being part of an all-female creative team?

Wonderful. I'm lucky to have mostly worked with women and queer people throughout my career so far and almost exclusively work on projects that centre those narratives and voices, so thankfully, it makes sense that the creative teams reflect that also. It has been a lush time working with the brilliant and talented women on the Yes, We're Related team and I look forward to doing so again in the future. 

How do you balance the comedy of the show with its dark subject matter of grief?

There was never really an explicit conversation in the room on how to balance this as, to me, the two are both so organically entwined. Light and dark so often coexist in real life and often in the deepest days of the chaos of loss, the most ridiculous happenstances or turns of phrase bring laughter. During the process of making the show, I never wanted to push the heavy themes but instead push the laughter and the silliness as far as we could and then fall back, due to the sharpness of Flo's writing, to the darkest depths of grief often lying just below the surface of comedy. The more comedy we found, the more real the characters became.

What do you hope audiences take away from Yes, We’re Related?

That in the depths of grief, there can be laughter and even, sometimes, resolution. 

How would you describe Yes, We’re Related in one word?

Messy.

Yes, We’re Related runs from 2 to 17 August at Greenside @ Riddles Court - Willow Studio at the 2024 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Photo Credit: Yellow Belly

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