Ahead of the world premiere of The Last Picture in the York Theatre Royal Studio in February, we caught up with writer Catherine Dyson to find out more about this brand new play and what audiences can expect…
How would you describe The Last Picture?
The Last Picture is told from the point of view of an emotional support dog who is accompanying a group of children on a school trip. The dog takes them around an exhibition of photographs which focuses on events in Europe in 1939. It’s primarily about empathy, the power of our imagination and the communal experience of being together in the theatre to explore those things.
Where did your inspiration for the play come from?
The idea behind the play came from a number of different places. Whilst this play is not about me or my family, I do have a personal connection to that period of history. My grandad was a Polish Jew, from a part of Poland which is now in Ukraine. He left in 1939 and ended up in Australia and later came to the UK. Most of his family and his fiancée were left behind and sadly didn’t survive. It’s something I had grown up knowing about from a young age even though my grandad never talked about it at all. As I got older, I felt there was a piece of my history that I was missing and it became something I wanted to find out more about and to write about. The Holocaust has been explored a lot in all forms of art and has been done brilliantly, but I was really interested in finding a new way of writing about this period of our shared history.
The idea for the dog came very early on in the writing process. It was an experiment really into how the character of the dog could help us to explore a dark and difficult story and still feel safe. I wanted to write in such a way that the audience wouldn’t feel judged or accused – and the neutrality of the dog felt like an unexpected and interesting way to do that.
The play also focuses a lot on the photograph exhibits and I wanted to find a way of ‘looking’ at things when we can’t physically see them – to help us to really appreciate what is going on more clearly.
Can you tell us about the process from first draft through to the play being made for stage?
It’s the first thing I’ve wrote in a while that wasn’t in response to a specific commission or working with a venue or company. It was just something I really wanted to write for myself which was quite freeing in a way.
I then entered it for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 37 Plays competition and it got picked up by them which was brilliant. I feel so fortunate that it then ended up in John R.Wilkinson’s hands – he really understood it straight away and I couldn’t have hoped for a better Director to work with for this piece. It’s been so exciting to see John build the creative team and to see everyone working on bringing it to life on the stage. I just can’t wait for rehearsals!
How did you approach writing from the perspective of Sam?
It was an early idea to tell it from the point of the view of the dog and I found that it opened up possibilities. A dog doesn’t carry the burden of emotion, or the morality and guilt, that a human character might (as we see in the play through the character of the teacher.) Sam is in a way always neutral. This enabled me to describe quite graphic and terrible images in a way that asks the audience to come with us in imagining those things whilst also feeling held. The dog’s neutrality offers us a different way of accessing the story which is without judgement or emotional manipulation.
I was also very interested in this sense of fragility that many of us have, particularly in this post-pandemic world when things can feel turbulent and scary. The emotional support dog is a tool that can be used to help people deal with these difficult feelings and it feels like it’s very of our time to explore that.
What is your favourite part of the playwriting process?
Writing for me is a way of understanding the world and honestly, it’s also really fun! It’s amazing to have licence to follow your imagination in this way as part of your job. It’s hard to say my favourite part, but I do really love when I’m just starting to write something new and I haven’t quite worked out exactly what it will be. The potential there, and the anticipation of what could be, is always really exciting.
Then, seeing your work turned into reality on stage is a very precious experience. Seeing the team come together and that everyone is joining you on this collaborative process of telling a story.
Putting your writing in front of the audience is also very special and particularly for The Last Picture, the audience is at the very heart of the play and it’s all about what they bring to it.
What can audiences expect from the show?
A powerful story, that will be told in a very compelling way by one actor. I think audiences can expect to be immersed in a story and to come out feeling like they’ve been on a communal journey of the imagination.
More than anything I would want people to leave the show feeling a sense of hope. That it will reaffirm their sense in the power of humanity’s goodness and the potential we all have for empathy and imagination.
Finally, if you could describe the themes of the play in three words, what would they be?
Empathy. Courage. Humanity
The Last Picture is at York Theatre Royal from 05 – 14 Feb.
Find out more information and book your tickets here.
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