A group of Genie in the Gutter staff and service users interviewed award winning Liverpool playwright Esther Williams.
GITG: Firstly welcome to Genie in the Gutter. I will start with ‘unprotected’ which was massive hit in Liverpool and here at Genie we actually know a few people that you interviewed for it. So what was your motivation for covering such a taboo issues in the play?
Esther: To be totally honest it was money, I was signing on. The Everyman asked about five writers who they considered to be political writers to pitch and idea called the “Headline Project.” They wanted something that would be in the Post or the Echo headline but would have a national resonance. So basically on the day of the meeting I was sat in the Philharmonic with a pint and a red pen and the Echo. I just drew a circle around what I thought would be interesting to bring to the meeting. One of ones I circled that I found most interesting was about having managed zones in a city for sex workers. It was a response to the murders of Hannah Parry and Pauline Stevens, Prostitutes whose bodies were chopped up and left in bin bags in Stanley Park. So truthfully I didn’t go out to be a campaigner for sex workers, I was genuinely just trying to come up with an interesting creative idea that would get me some work.
GITG: Did the research and development of this play change your views towards sex workers, sex workers customers and your understanding of addiction?
Esther: Yes definitely, I think I really don’t agree with some feminist ideas of saying that you demonize men, or women, because for the men that go with the women sex is like breathing, you can’t just demonize them it’s ludicrous. You know people go in prison and have sex with each other. Everyone has different moral views but it’s about being human. It changed my thinking that we have to be more tolerant.
GITG: Did you decide from the offset for unprotected to be verbatim or did this evolve?
Esther: No that’s what they wanted, because Liverpool is known for its provocative subversive passion so he suggested doing a verbatim piece.
GITG: So what was the most horrific story disclosed by the working girls and why do you think these stories are never accessible to the public?
Esther: There was one case where a guy went back to her flat, raped her, buggered her with instruments, carved crosses in her back and then said he was going to kill her. She was tied to a chair naked and battered and her only response was to say “before you kill me I’m going to kill myself.” So as he went to get the knife from the kitchen, she jumped out of the window, but in doing this she saved her life. There were lots of stories like that. As it not getting to the media that’s the exact question I asked myself when I was getting told these stories. And it made me realize that actually people are afraid of the truth. People like it boxed up nice and a bow on, we always get sanitized versions.
GITG: Your other big headlining play was “Ten Tiny toes”. I went to see this and it was brilliant. What was your reasoning behind writing this play?
Esther: I was very anti-war and anti -Tony Blair. I’d been on all the marches. More famous writers down in London had done the war to death and no one was interested. So I had to come at it from a different angle. I’d read about Rose Gentle, I thought her name was a gift from God. Rose was just an ordinary uneducated woman. She had a family, worked as a cleaner and her son got recruited into the armed forces outside the dole office just outside of Glasgow. Basically they lied to him and said come and work for us. I wanted to go to this peace camp where they were which was at Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester at the last election.
GITG: Did you find it difficult to put it behind you after the research you did?
Esther: Yeah absolutely. I mean it changed my world because it made me look at the way I thought. I mean I was saying soldiers are bad because I was on the anti-war march. I was just thinking oh you’re just stupid. Why would you join an army? Then you realize it’s more complex than that. I realized that if I was a mother whose son had an option of guns and gangs I’d think well the army was a good thing for you. It can make you disciplined it can give you a job. It gives you a sense of purpose. Unfortunately we’re in that many wars now, that you could also die, but you might not.
GITG: Do you think the army needs to address drug and alcohol problems? And do you think there are enough resources to deal with the issues?
Esther: I don’t think they’re that bothered about addressing the alcohol problems its very complex isn’t it? I mean they’ve always had what they used to call shell shock. Now they call it Post Traumatic Stress Disorder but that implies that some accident has happened to you. With the mental health issues that soldiers have, I don’t think any human being could stay intact seeing what those people have to see. We know now that they were giving LSD to soldiers in Vietnam to get them hyped up. They’re fighting in the wars that’s where all the resources are.