Photo by Deborah Champion/ Blipfoto
We’ve made it to the end of our first week of rehearsals for Girl X – the National Theatre of Scotland’s new production for Spring 2011. I’ve been asked to blog during the whole process so bear with me as we go on quite a wild journey.
This whole process began for me around four years ago when the story of Ashley X came to light. For those who don’t know, Ashley was nine years old when her parents decided to give her a hysterectomy, breast removal surgery and hormone treatment to keep her small and manoeuvrable. Due to her severe cerebral palsy, Ashley is unable to move around independently or to communicate – her parents felt that by keeping her small and ‘handle-able’, they could better care for their daughter as she gets older.
At the time of this coming out in the press there was a great amount of public debate about the rights and wrongs of such medical intervention – I’ll write much more about this in weeks to come, but if you want to read further, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashley_Treatment or http://saynoga.blogspot.com/.
As you can imagine, the Ashley X case generated a lot of debate on internet forums at the time, many of which I took part in. With these forum transcripts in hand I approached the National Theatre of Scotland with the idea of producing a piece of theatre. They loved the premise, hooked me up with Pol Heyvaert from Belgium’s Campo theatre company, and here we are four years later.
Most of this week has been spent refining the script. The chorus, who I keep seeing as the second ‘actor’ in this two-hander, don’t start until next week so we want to have as much as possible finalised by then. As a co-writer of the piece, I’ve had to really challenge myself – my gut instinct is to want to educate and inform the world about this issue, but actually we all need to have the core aim of just creating great theatre. While the two aren’t mutually exclusive, I now recognise that everyone can read about the issues until their hearts (and minds) are content – what I hope Girl X will give audiences is the passion behind the debate.
Keep checking this blog for links to sites about Ashley and the controversy around Growth Attenuation treatment.
The other joy of this week has been seeing the National Theatre of Scotland machine roll in to action. I’ve been working in Scottish theatre for ten years but I’ve never seen a show working at this scale before – the team behind Girl X is definitely the biggest that I’ve worked in so far, and the ease with which things can be made possible is ‘a whole lotta fun’!
The set designs are looking great, the animations will be beautiful and the whole feel of the show is shaping up fantastically – let’s hope I can rise to the challenge! As ever, it’s impossible to know exactly what end product will look like, but I’m pretty damn sure we‘re going to give people something to think about.
More to come next week – feel free to post questions or thoughts here, or on the National Theatre of Scotland Facebook discussion board.
Robert Softley
21st January 2011
Robert Softley talks to National Theatre of Scotland Artistic Director Vicky Featherstone about Girl X:
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February 1, 2011 at 12:40 pm
“Girl X”, the National Theatre of Scotland’s new production for Spring 2011 « What Sorts of People
[...] http://nationaltheatrescotland.wordpress.com/2011/01/24/girl-x-blog-1/ http://nationaltheatrescotland.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/girl-x-blog/ [...]
February 1, 2011 at 2:37 pm
Claire
Please watch your facts. Ashley had her “treatment” at 6 and 1/2 years of age, not 9. Her diagnosis is “static encephalopathy” not CP. You can find this information on the parents’ blog http://ashleytreatment.spaces.live.com/blog/. Excellent counters to this abomination: http://huahima.wordpress.com/ and http://saynoga.blogspot.com/ with extra sites on the sidebar.
February 1, 2011 at 5:21 pm
Robert
Dear Claire
Thanks for your post.
From the doctors’ original report (http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/160/10/1013) and the parents’ explanation of the case (http://pillowangel.org/Ashley%20Treatment%20v7.pdf): Ashley X underwent surgery in July 2004 (at which time Ashley was almost 7 years). The hormone treatment took almost three years, making her about 9 by the time it was completed and her parents decided to go public.
Ashley doesn’t have CP, but “static encephalopathy with marked global developmental deficits” – which is described in many blogs as a “CP-like condition”.
For the show we decided to start from a fictionalized case, “Girl X”, inspired by the Ashley X case but also by Katie Thorpe, a 15 year old girl with severe cerebral palsy in the UK.
We also wholeheartedly encourage people to read a wide range of material about the Ashley X case but also to remember that this production will not argue for or against the treatment.
Robert
February 2, 2011 at 6:15 pm
Where’s Robert? « flip – disability equality in the arts
[...] Theatre of Scotland. You can follow development’s through Robert’s blog on the National Theatre of Scotland website. I’ll certainly be checking in to remember what the other half of flip looks [...]