Actor and writer Elena Mazzon talks about the obscure history that inspired her new play, compares acting and writing and shares what she likes to watch at the theatre.
Your play, The Popess: Instructions for Freedom, is based on a movement back in 13th-century Italy, which challenged the male-dominated Catholic Church. How did you come across the story?
Elena Mazzon: Accidentally, although I don’t believe in accidents. I was bored during lockdown, and I was trying to make sense of the major arcana and minor arcana – I do tarot readings with friends.
I was very interested in the archetypes and flicking through the booklet for the Rider-Waite [Tarot], and when I got to the second card, which is the High Priestess, the story was unbelievable. I didn’t know anything about it.
This woman from Milan, called Maifreda Visconti, a relative of a very powerful family at that time in the 1300s, was the inspiration for this card, for the Visconti tarot deck, which was made a century and a half later.
I’m from Italy and I’ve never heard of it, none of my friends knew about it and I was like, ‘how come’?
And I started delving into it and researching, and I thought it was fascinating. And it felt like the veil of the High Priestess was just the veil of knowledge had been lifted, and I had to put it out there for other people to know about it.
What was the process for turning this historic story into a play?
EM: That was a bit tricky initially, because I didn’t know how to put it all together. Everything that I wrote and the research, which is really minimal – there’s not much you can find.
But then I worked with Colin Watkeys, the deviser and director of the show. We worked together on another show before, and he specialises in solo shows and is fantastic.
He can help you take everything out of your hat very easily. And he uses cards as well. Sometimes it’s the structure of the tarot card. Sometimes just cards to talk about the characters and give them qualities and levels of qualities, low and high.
Working with him is very smooth and liberating. So it was actually a really, really nice process.
You also perform the play. How do the challenges of writing and performing compare?
EM: I was never a writer before the previous show, and I never thought I could write anything. I still think I can’t write anything unless I have a very compelling story that drives me.
I didn’t just sit down and write something. I need characters, and then through the characters, something develops.
It’s very similar to acting in many ways, because I think when you act, you create that inner story inside of you, because the writer does give you ideas, but not everything. You have to create a world, or parts of that world anyway.
So they’re similar in that sense, or at least similar in the way I create these stories.
But then, I think when you perform your own shows, it’s a bit easier because you have written everything already.
You know all the insights that you don’t know when you’re performing someone else’s show, and you always feel like, ‘Am I doing it right?’ Am I giving the right voice to this person, or to this character?
Given you are a performer who now writes, what would be your ideal next project?
EM: I have two ideas for the next project – projects, probably – and I think one of them is particularly compelling to me and urgent. So I have to get it done after this run and focus on it.
But I’d like to expand my writing and learn a bit more. And maybe go across mediums as well. I’d love to do something for the screen, but I feel like I’m so behind. I’d like to crossover and go to the next level.
I don’t know if the next show I write will be a two-hander or a solo show; it really depends on the characters. Colin says: Whatever they dictate to me. If it’s going to be a solo or two more, I don’t know. Let’s see.
What is your favourite type of theatre to watch, and is there something you’ve seen recently that you think deserves a shout out?
EM: I really like text-based theatre. I also like physical theatre a lot, and I use it in my shows, but I love a good text, especially if it’s a bit obscure, with dark humour, like black humour.
I went to The Globe and watched Merry Wives of Windsor. That was a very dark humour. I liked it. I like classical plays as well as new ones.
I follow a lot of independent performers like me. There’s a lot of amazing, amazing work out there.
An independent performance I saw was Kathryn Haywood’s Yoga and Sex for Women (over 40). That was hilarious.
📆 The Popess: Instructions for Freedom is at The Glitch, SE1, from 3-8 September. More information and buy tickets.
Watch the full interview:
More interviews with theatre creatives you might enjoy:
Writer Alex Urwin on turning wild Brixton Academy memoir into a play
Director Scott Le Crass – ‘comedy is truth’
Writer Laura Horton on Edinburgh stress
Theatre director Madelaine Moore on making female-focused theatre
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