Interview: 'British Theatre Has a Huge Problem With Tokenism': Playwright Naomi Westerman on Queer Joy, Anthropology and Her Play PUPPY

Naomi Westerman's play Puppy is coming to the King's Head Theatre in April. Billed as  an outrageous, sex-positive, female-centric comedy about dogging, queerness, feminist porn, protest, the patriarchy, and Nick Clegg.

As she prepares to open the show, BroadwayWorld asked Westerman about its inspiration, queer joy, anthropology and gender parity in theatre.

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Congratulations on the upcoming run of Puppy. How does it feel to be bringing it to the King’s Head Theatre?

It feels wonderful to be bringing this celebration of queer joy to a theatre that has such a long and proud history of championing queer voices. I can't wait to see and play in the new venue!

What was the inspiration for the play?

The play started as a ten-minute short inspired by some graffiti I noticed in Barnes where I was living that was just the word 'DOGGING' with an arrow, and I was intrigued by the question of whether that was random or an actual direction, and by the idea that there might be dogging going on in Barnes which is an extremely posh and genteel area! So I created a sweet queer love story around the idea of middle class people going dogging.

We did the short a few times to great applause, and as I was in the middle of thinking about ways to extend it to full-length, a news story broke that the Conservative government had proposed a ban on the portrayals of certain acts from porn, which seemed to disproportionately affect portrayals of female sexual pleasure and acts where women are dominant, where equal acts showing male pleasure or dominance were not mentioned in the ban.

This led to protests by activists and adult entertainers, culminating in a mass face-sitting protest outside the Houses of Parliament, and Nick Clegg of all people randomly issuing a statement in support of the protest where he used the expression (in the context of defending face-sitting), "the government should keep their noses out of people's private.. lives." I thought that was the final scene of a really funny political play about sex already written!

Puppy has been around since 2017. Can you tell us about its development since then?

It's been a bumpy road. I started writing Puppy in 2017 and Puppy debuted at Vault Festival in 2018, where it did really well - both Time Out and The Guardian name checked us in their pick of the week columns, and Lyn Gardner referred to us in a Stage article as "one of the hits of the festival."

A West End theatre was very interested in the play and the plan was for the play to transfer in summer 2020. Which for obvious reasons didn't happen. Covid and the subsequent financial crisis and the huge impact those things had on theatre completely turned everything upside down. I was fortunate to have steady playwriting work and commissions throughout the pandemic but I was busy focusing on my other projects, so Puppy just sort of got thrown in the back of a drawer. Then I heard that a company called Relish was inviting script submissions for a proposed season of queer plays, so I uploaded Puppy to their website at about five minutes to midnight on the submission deadline date, and forgot all about it. I was astonished to be chosen!

The play focuses on two women who meet and fall in love while dogging. You have said the play is sex-positive and from a queer feminist point of view. Why was it important to write work with these themes?

LGBTQ theatre is crucial for celebrating LGBTQ communities and honouring our history, but LGBTQ theatre traditionally has been overwhelmingly stories about white, cis-gay men, and often centre on trauma: there are so many gay plays that are about AIDS, or tragic coming out stories. These stories are crucial for remembering our history which is a history of pain, but also one of joy. I think we desperately need more queer female, trans/non-binary, and non-white queer stories, and more than anything more queer comedy, queer love stories, queer romcoms, and more queer joy!

It also looks at the feminist porn industry. How much research did you do into this industry and how did it influence the story?

I come from an academic background so I started by reading dozens of books - everything from memoirs of porn stars and Playboy models to Foucault and Zizek 'Sex and the Failed Absolute' which debates the female org*sm as the ontological proof of God. I also spoke to a lot of people who were or had been involved in sex work or adult entertainment - both those who were enthusiastic and found it empowering, and those who were strongly anti-porn.

As a former anthropologist, how to think this informs your writing?

I think being an anthropologist just gave me an incredible curiosity about people - or maybe I became an anthropologist because I had such a curiosity about people. I grew up very isolated and I tend to intellectualise things, so anthropology was my way of learning about and understanding a world and society I felt distant from and confused by. I think anthropology has also made me pretty tolerant towards the diversity of people and customs that exist in the world.

My work as an anthropologist was mainly on death customs, mental health, and gender - all the big issues! And the point of theatre is to address these big issues and how people construct their lives and societies to cope with the brutal realities of sex and death. Moving from anthropology to playwriting felt like a very natural step, since they're both about attempting to reach understanding through empathy.

Your previous work Tortoise focused on three women and you are known for writing female-centric work. Do you feel that women’s stories are still under-represented in today’s theatre landscape?

Yes, but it's also something I'm conflicted over. Theatre still has a huge problem with gender parity; women have to work much harder and achieve more on the fringe scene before being trusted with commissions and big stages, and are more likely to be sidelined into studio spaces. This is especially true of women who aren't white, or cis, or middle-class: British theatre has a huge problem with tokenism, and lack of intersectionality.

At the same time, I would love to write more male stories and plays addressing masculinity. Men are allowed to write women and applauded when they portray women as having any kind of interiority; why can't women write more men? I love that I've had the opportunities to tell the stories I've been able to bring to the stage, but I do sometimes feel that the industry only lets me/expects me to write "women's stories" or "queer stories" and while that is important, it's also limiting. Women and minorities should be allowed the same creative freedom as anyone, and be able to write about anything and everything.

And why should people go to see Puppy?

Because it's funny, sex, and thought-provoking. And has the best porny Agatha Christie gag you'll ever see.

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