EDINBURGH 2019: APPROPRIATE Q&A

BWW catches up with Sarah-Jane Scott to chat about bringing Appropriate to the 2019 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Tell us a bit about Appropriate

Appropriate is a darkly comic tale of Sorcha; queen bee of her small West of Ireland town who LOVES weddings and has been dreaming of he big day since forever and ever...However we meet Sorcha moments after fleeing her reception, just after marrying her Gaelic football hero fella who she has been with since she fought for him (literally) at her high school graduation ball. For the first time ever Sorcha is forced to ask herself -is this what she wants or is this just what's happened? Has she ever really listened to herself? Can she ever go back?

Appropriate is about tradition V modern life, our insatiable appetite for matrimony, the pressure that still exists for us settle down and also celebrates the hilarious peculiarities of small town Irish life.

What was the inspiration for writing the show?

A move home to the West of Ireland after spending my twenties in London got me thinking about how your environment can really shape your goals. I started exploring this idea in regards to Irish peoples obsession with weddings, the common want to be settled down and sorted by your thirties and the idea that if you hadn't, something may have gone wrong. I wanted to approach it from the point of view of someone that has always wanted a marriage, mortgage and babies; a woman who has ticked all the boxes and is living a very appropriate life- what would have to happen for her to really question it all and if she did...how free is she to change her mind?

Why does it feel particularly relevant just now?
Because it feels like we have come long way in society with women's roles, but we are still very far from proper equality, in the home as well as in the workplace. Appropriate is both very Irish and totally universal, exploring the effects that the expectations of Sorcha's environment have had on her; expectations that have been there since she was a little girl even though she hasn't been aware of them.

Also, our parents generation would try and keep up with the posh family down the road who went away foreign for their holidays and knew what hummus was - we spend our time looking at famous peoples perfect lives and bottoms online and anyone we have ever met can basically see ours. There is so much pressure now for us all to be seen to be living like our best selves with super positive successful lives. It has to be having an effect on our life choices, and what we think will make us happy.

Who would you recommend comes to see Appropriate?

Anyone who has ever asked themselves what the hell am I doing? Or, is this it? People who love, hate or have ever come in contact with an Irish wedding. If you haven't, get yourself an Irish pal and bag yourself an invite to one...They are days of joy, wonder, intense social anxiety and pure madness that inspire the best and worst behaviour in people (along with much jiving and an ACDC megamix)

What do you hope audiences take away from it?

I hope that they will feel that they have shared a very private and personal hour with a woman perched on the edge of her life, and take comfort in someone questioning out loud all of those existential big scary life questions that we all ask ourselves...As well as the feeling of having laughed properly from deep within their bellies and then promptly stopped when I move them to big salty tears with all of the emotions.

https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/appropriate-by-sarah-jane-scott

Photo credit: Cáit Fahey

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