Charlie Wood and Theresa Buchheister Chatting About The Devil’s Eyelash, Inspiration and Impossible Stage Directions

by Theresa Buchheister

This is a conversation with multidisciplinary artist Charlie Wood, who is the playwright behind The Devil’s Eyelash. This play came into my awareness because Charles Quittner was like - You have to read this play it is so great I did it and I will send you video and the script and you have to do it in the US.” I don’t love reading plays by myself, so I got some friends to come read it aloud and we immediately said - “We gotta do this.” So we are! June 15th at The ECM in Lawrence, KS! Just a reading with some design elements and vibes. It will be a fundraiser for fetish org Midnight Menagerie, as well! Come check it out, help us do it more and/or bring it to a city near you!

Theresa: Hi Charlie! Here we go… All right. So I'll just ask a handful of questions. And of course, you can be like, "I don't want to answer that," or you can ask for clarification.

Charlie: Haha ok. Apologies in advance for rambling. I'm such a classic rambler.

Theresa; Honestly, same. I will edit…So! I wanted to start out with the reality that you do so many things. Can you share your creative modes and outlets these days? How do you express yourself artistically? 

Charlie: Yeah. I've got a lot of things going on at the moment. There's three major strands, I think, probably, maybe more. Writing for live performance is very much one of them at the moment, and it's one that I'm trying to push a bit more. But alongside that, there is the cabaret world stuff that I do, which sort of started in a drag place and is moving increasingly away into some other place that involves making a lot of very big headpieces. Yeah. So a sort of performance art, drag, adjacent cabaret stuff. I run my own cabaret night called Miss Ellaneous with Frankie Thompson, who is a genius and whom I don't deserve. And then the other outlet is the band that I'm singing and writing for partially and playing guitar in, but mainly just because we couldn't find anyone else to play guitar. That's a punk band with a cello and a violin called Thwack. And I'm also currently considering trying to start a jewelry making course because I feel like I don't have enough to do. So more is more? Yes. I'm restless or something, but yes. Yeah.

Theresa: I think this is a very undeveloped idea, and I'll talk to my therapist about it later, but I think that there are people who enjoy being busy until they find the sort of edge of that busyness that then becomes sort of awful and dangerous. But up until they get to that edge, it's just like, "Yeah, I have time to do more things, and I'm interested in more things, so why wouldn't I do more things?" 

Charlie: My mindset cycles, I think. I'm just coming out of a bit of a burnout period (after a big gig). And I'm sort of getting excited about things and wanting to start a bunch of new projects and getting inspired by everything. I feel like I'm chronically inspired, I think, is the problem. There's always things that are moving me to do things and make things. 

Theresa: Well, that's a great segue because my next question was going to be, what led you to write The Devil's Eyelash?vWas there a first spark with one of the characters or a scene or one of the trillions of evocative images in the show? Or did it just sort of tumble out all at once? 

Charlie: Well, I was doing a playwriting course at Soho Theatre in London. And I knew that there was something in there, and I had sort of strands of ideas for stuff. It was getting further and further into this course, and I still didn't know what the idea that I was actually going to work on. I think the first image was the idea of the extremeness of a Leather Daddy and a Dominatrix sort of on the run together in some context. I also make quite a lot of collages and stuff. So I had a little collage image of those two characters in a car, which I think I've lost the image, but I think it was like a Tom of Finland illustration for the leather daddy. And then I think it was a Vogue shoot where they had a lot of people in full high glam latex that had sort of been back on my old Tumblr, actually. So I just sort of dug that out and went, "Okay, let's try." And then that became that opening scene where they rob the liquor store. 

Theresa: Wow. I love that. And it makes me want to revisit some Tumblr activity. 

Charlie: Yeah. It's still kicking as far as I'm aware. These things stick.

Theresa: Before I forget, I did just see that Christeene is going to be at Soho Theater this weekend. Are you able to go? 

Charlie: I don't think I am, unless I can move things around, but I do adore Christeene. I saw Christeene when I was quite young  because I grew up on David Hoyle, who I think Christine is married to or was married to. And so seeing them at formative ages is probably part of the DNA of this show. Honestly, that's sort of the grotesque and the queer, anti­-everything thing that is probably part of this. Yeah. 

photo: Harry Elletson

Theresa: Yeah. It's amazing how when we're young, we see things that reveal aspects of ourselves that already exist… So on to a way less interesting question, but I think maybe interesting for the theater nerds out there and probably the poets too. Have you added or subtracted anything since first starting writing that you still think about? 

Charlie: Gosh, have I? It's been a minute since I wrote it, so I can't immediately bring anything to mind. At one point, I was sort of thinking, because it's quite an episodic show, I was imagining what it would be like as a sort of more extended podcast or radio show. There was a podcast called The Thrilling Adventure Hour that I used to like and they did it in the style of old-­timey radio. So they did a lot of the sound effects and music live. And I quite like that. And I was imagining what this show would be as part of that. And so I did have vague concepts for two or three other segments, sort of locations that they would end up in the journey. And the one I can bring to mind was (and it never got developed too far), but there was going to be a part where the characters are sort of elite sex workers in their own right. And there was going to be a situation where those skills were very much utilized to escape or to win a situation. It was all going to be very, very explicit and very horrible, but maybe quite fun. And I'm sort of sad in some ways that I never put pen to paper on that because I think it could have been ridiculous. But I was aware that the show is not short. 

Theresa: But I mean, all the more reason to potentially turn it into an episodic podcast. 

Charlie: Yeah. Potentially. Potentially. I mean, yeah, we'll see where it goes, but it would be nice for it to have some life at some point. And that is definitely one thing that it could be. 

Theresa: Yeah. You know adaptation is such a fascinating thing. For example, I just, for some reason, decided to rewatch The Leftovers, which is an HBO show with Justin Thoreau and Carrie Coon about the rapture, sort of. But it's based on a novel. And the novel is so different from what the three seasons of the show turned into. And I was just thinking about how hard that probably was for the writer in many ways, like having worked for a very long time on this novel and some of this stuff just not making it in and how that feels. And then other things, sort of expanding far beyond what he ever thought - like something that was just mentioned then becomes an entire character or through line. But you know stories expand and contract. And this one can certainly expand.

Charlie: And the cool thing about radio is that the level of sort of grotesquery that you can accomplish via sound to me feels sort of limitless because you don't actually have to figure out how to do it. And that was one of the reasons why the show has taken the sort of storytelling form. All of the events are not really happening. They're being talked about. They're being told. And that was partly because it was always a play about extremes, which is obviously really hard to achieve if you're just directly representing those things. You know, some of the earliest performances I did was in the storytelling world. I was part of a queer myth retelling group. And a piece that I did in that probably has the roots of this show. It was a story about Icarus and Frankenstein's monster as two non­binary teenage lovers escaping the heterosexual police and a sort of Mad Max style thing. And that was the first time I realized you can do anything if you're just telling the story rather than trying to physically embody it. I find that I tend towards surrealism and extremes and that kind of thing. So it opened the field to just have anything happen, have the most ridiculous thing you could possibly think of occur. So yeah.

photo: Nona Dutch

Theresa: Yeah, radio and storytelling. Both freeing formats in sorta special ways. Ok! So now I have a sort of two­parter, and don't get too excited about it. But just to provide some context for who you are, I was curious what excites you most about theater. So not storytelling, not music… I mean, all of those things can be part of theater, but theater, as we understand it, AND what annoys you most about theater. 

Charlie: Interesting. Yes. I think theatre has a potential to move me, one. I can't speak for others. But I think theatre shows have moved me more completely than a lot of other mediums. There's something about the aliveness of theatre combined with the telling of a complete or a developed narrative that changes over an amount of time and for that to be channeled through the live performers who are in the room with you. I think it has this absolute potential to be completely moving and it's so whole in its ability to take you and transport you and make you feel something complicated and make you learn something. And yeah, just all of that, all of that.

The political potential of that, the personal potential of that. And it doesn't happen often, but there are shows that have really done that in my life. I'm sure I could list a bunch of them. So yeah, I think theatre has a unique potential to do that that other art forms don't fully have. And it's something that I see as a responsibility in work that I make - like you've got people in a room. I think the thing that annoys me most about theatre is when it doesn't take seriously that responsibility. And that doesn't mean it tries something and fails. I don't mind something failing. Like I'm usually okay with theater, if I can see what it's going for and it just doesn't hit for me, that's fine. It doesn't have to hit for everyone. But when something is self­indulgent or trite or when it's like a money grab or yeah, just something that's designed to entertain at best. Yeah. I think that's what I find most annoying, probably. It's probably a bit pretentious, but I think yeah, art's important. And when people treat it like it's not that makes it not. 

Theresa: Yeah. I think there are times where the perception of seriousness is sort of based on this idea of seriousness. That to be serious means to, you know, sit down in a suit with a pencil and a newspaper and a pipe or something. It's like - I'm very serious about everything that I do, but I also think everything is absurd and stupid as well. It's really, I think, a beautiful balance for artists and particularly theater artists that are sort of navigating all of these different modes of expression of the visual and of the written text and of the embodied and of the sung and the spoken and all of these things, they're finding the balance between those things. And that's a serious work with a lot of responsibility, especially on a macro level, what it's putting out into the world. And on a micro level, the experiences of the people doing it. And so, yeah, I take it very seriously as well. So we can be hoity­toity together. Yeah.

Charlie: And I think some theater people can get a little bit up their own ass of like, "We're going to change the world with this play, and it's going to bring down the government." And it's like, "It's not going to do that." But it's going to do something. And yeah, if it means something to a few people, and if it changes something in someone's heart, that is what it has the potential to do. And that ripples out. And yeah. So it's not going to bring down our various commanders in chiefs, but it's something. And it does have a power, if not complete power. Yeah. Yeah. Mm­hmm. I'll leave it at that.

Theresa: So we're drawing near the end. So the questions are getting a little bit like we're drawing near the end of this interview. What would you love to see on stage that you've never seen? 

Charlie: Oh, I've seen some very good things on stage. You don't mean like extant productions that I would love to have seen…?  

Theresa: I didn't initially, but let's make this a two­part question. Is there a show that you know exists that you would like to see? And is there something, someone, some act, some idea that, as far as you know, has never been done on stage, or at least that you've never seen, that you would like to see happen in front of you?

Charlie: Oh, gosh. There are so many things that I would like to see on stage that I've not had the opportunity to. I'm desperate to see someone stage a Sarah Kane production that I've not yet seen. I would love to have seen Orville Peck as the MC in Cabaret, which is happening in New York at the moment, which is such a perfect casting. I've got quite obsessed with Ride The Cyclone, the musical, at the moment, which I would love to see live. Gosh. I once heard of a production... It's the only Shakespeare production that I'm interested in seeing. It was called Tiny Ninja Macbeth. And I've just heard myth of this. I've never seen anything about it. But apparently, it was just a man in a small room doing the whole of Macbeth with Lego figures. And I've heard someone say like, "It's amazing because you can never have a full army on stage, but he had a full army, just as Lego figures." That always sounded exciting. And in terms of what I would like to see on stage that I've not seen in a more general way, I really love scripts that present the unstageable and then just tell the director like … Sarah Kane has got lines like, "Rats carry his feet away." And there's no way of doing it. You can't do that. And I think that came into the writing of this play a little bit like, "I'm just going to visualize things that I would love to see visualized and then just see." I would like to see what happens if you have just a bunch of different directors with very different visions and ways of working approach a play like mine but not necessarily mine because, yeah, I just really like when the impossible is presented to a group of people who then have to bring it to life in some way. I don't know if that's exactly the answer to that question, but it's within the world of it, hopefully. 

photo: Sinju Hitomi

Theresa: I absolutely love that. And I think there is a whole further interview that we could do about intentionally writing the impossible to stage, you know, because it brings a lot of things into play about shows that I don't like as much now, things that are so intended to be staged and understood and consumed that they're the most bland thing that I could imagine, even if the inspiration started out sort of interesting. And people do that for different reasons. They want it to get published. They want it to get done. They know that they're self­ producing, and so they're already eliminating wild opportunities for themselves. But then it also forces people to not write outside of their experience, which as writers, we can be so much more expansive than our own stories. So there's also a lot of just really personal bio pieces that don't really expand beyond that personal bio, so I'm like, "Oh, I don't care." It's not that I don't care about the person, but I don’t care for the theater. A person that I love that I think you would probably be into Daniil Kharms, who is a Russian absurdist poet. So because most of his stuff in the '30s was not going to ever be staged and probably a lot of it was destroyed by the KGB, he wrote these exquisite things with the idea that “this will never be staged”. And the sort of freedom that unleashed was exciting to read and then exciting to see a company (The Million Underscores_ _) you know nearly 100 years later be like, "I'm going to do it. What is the language of birds? We'll find out." And it turns it into so much more of a collaborative process, as well. This all makes me really want to take The Devil's Eyelash after this reading and have each section staged by a different group. I know that that would probably be like wildly confusing for people, but also who cares? I think that'd be so fascinating. 

Charlie: I think quite a lot of the characters' voices come out of different people at different times. So you could have a sort of rotating cast. It'd be a bit confusing. Yeah. But no, I think it'd be fun. We'll see.

Theresa: I'll keep ruminating on that… So speaking of your play - any advice for audiences of The Devil's Eyelash? Like how would you want people to enter into the experience of your world that you've created? 

Charlie: Gosh. Well, I definitely wouldn't want to be too prescriptive. But I would say it's not about trying to understand it necessarily. Just let yourself be taken on the ride, I think. I don't want to tell people how to experience it, but just allow it to do whatever it's trying to do in your mind.

Theresa: I love that. Yeah. I historically don't read director's notes in a program before I sit down to watch a play. But I'm always open to somebody saying like, "Oh, you know if you open your mind in this way or think in this direction, you'll enjoy yourself more." Or even sometimes telling me the runtime of the show. Just tell me how long the show is so then I can not worry about peeing myself. 

Charlie: Yeah. It's got a lot of words. Not all of them are important. You'll pick up the ones that are meaningful to you and the rest are like, "Yeah, don't try too hard.” Basically, just let it happen to you. 

Theresa: Right on. Ok!  Lastly, are there any shout outs for upcoming shows or projects that we can tell people about?

Charlie: Oh gosh. Look out for what Miss Ellaneous is doing. Look out for what THWACK! are doing. I'm very proud of both of those projects. I will shout out Charles Quittner!. Brooklyn Rep is a London-­based company that comes out of America that is doing endlessly interesting and experimental things utilizing the drag world in London in a lot of interesting queer spaces. Gosh, what is happening? Panic searching through my friends on IG. I have so many friends who do such interesting work. This is a delightful thing about being immersed in a creative world. Oh! I've been involved in a cabaret project in which a quite wonderful friend of mine has got a bunch of London cabaret artists together. And her background is in flamenco. And she got a bunch of people together whose work has nothing to do with flamenco. And we did a bunch of flamenco workshops and flamenco pieces.

And so we've all made a piece loosely inspired by Lorca and sort of historical queer flamenco. I don't think it's been announced officially, but it is coming back to London in quite a big way in the later part of this year. So yes, keep an eye out for that. 

Theresa: Oh, that's so exciting. See? There's always something. That's what I tell people when they are like, "There's nothing to do." I'm like, "You're not looking." 

Charlie: Yes. You're not looking. Look around. Oh, I just remembered that Edinburgh is coming up, and there's so many things in Edinburgh. Emma Franklin has a show called No Apologies, which is an exploration of the potential that Kurt Cobain was a trans woman, which is fabulous. And my friend Cabbage the Clown is doing a beautiful, ridiculous, draggy little clown show about the shit jobs we have to do while we're trying to make our interesting jobs happen. Those are the only ones I can think of in this moment, but there's some fabulous people doing the Edinburgh fringe. 

Theresa: Oh, yes. Someday, I'll get there.

Charlie: Oh, I wanted to mention - I really love the show poster for this one. I was genuinely touched. It was someone who clearly really engaged with the work and cared about it. So that was very… I was touched. And it's a beautiful little poster too. 

Theresa: I'll let them know! One of the performers, Arlowe, their roommate, Sundae, did the poster. And I was like, I'm sort of used to having to tell an artist what I want. And Arlowe was like, "Oh, no, they'll read the play." And I was like, "Great. Okay. And then we'll see what that means." But yeah, I really love it. It has a lot going on, and yet the eye is really drawn to all these like little treats, and then there are sort of big expressions of what you might get in the show.

Charlie: It looks to me like it's an exciting show if you haven't seen it, and then it rewards you if you have seen it. So. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. It's like good merch. It's like if you know, you know.

Theresa: And if you don't know, it's still intriguing.

Charlie; Yes indeed.

Theresa: Ok, so I said this was ending a long time ago. So now we are really ending. This has been really fun! And now we do the show!

Charlie: Awesome. Thank you. Fabulous.

photo: James Klug