Deepest Red

Unplanned - Malika Booker talks about her new one-woman show

No one can craft a monologue quite like Malika Booker, that’s one of the reasons I am so looking forward to her upcoming one-woman show Unplanned. Billed as a theatrical performance that delves into all aspects of fertility, you just know that in Malika’s hands there will be humour as well as candour.
It’s a performance that has been some six years in the making and judging by the amount of preparation that has gone into it, one that she is determined to get just right. I caught up with her shortly after she returned from performing a dry-run of the show in Amsterdam, and she sounded very pleased with the results. ‘I performed it as a work in progress at a festival there and the audience really seemed to love it. We had a question and answer session afterwards which was good for me because I like to get feedback. I was particularly pleased with the feedback from the men in the audience.’
During a conversation littered with references to jelly babies and blow up balloons – I’m guessing they are props – Malika explains why she wrote the show. ‘This is a show about human nature and it is about fertility.’ she says, ‘It’s about having a baby and not wanting one and not being pregnant and desperately wanting. And all the scenarios in between. It’s a story I wanted to tell and an issue I wanted to discuss with everybody. But it is also something I find very hard to talk about.’ So over six years, during which she created many other pieces of work, she researched the issue of fertility. ‘It’s been a fascinating journey,’ she reflects, ‘There are so many stories out there. I did a lot of the research by talking to people. From talking to women about giving birth to grilling people about how their babies were conceived.’ The issue is brought to life through various characters, including Sade the fourteen year old who denies her pregnancy even exists and Stella the forty year old that becomes pregnant relatively late in life. Malika’s research also led her to read reams and reams of newspaper cuttings about the subject. ‘You know there is so much contradictory information out there?’ she says, ‘One report will talk about how we have the worst teen pregnancy rate; another will say how we’re having children much too old.’
Using storytelling, film and poetry, Malika has produced a thought-provoking show about what can be a very sensitive issue. From designer babies to spells and secrets and old wive’s tales, she covers it all. And there’s lots of audience participation too.
Directed by Rachel Mars this is Malika’s second foray into theatre production. Her first, Catwalk was produced a few years ago and though I really enjoyed this expose on the fashion industry, I get the feeling Malika the perfectionist wasn’t as pleased with it as she should have been. ‘I think working on Catwalk took me too much out of my comfort zone,’ she reflects, ‘I’m not sure all involved had the same vision as me and that was hard. Anyway I felt I had to come down to go back up and that is what I have done.’
Known to many as a great spoken word artist, Malika has always tried to nurture other artists in the field. To this end she helped launch Malika’s Kitchen, a writers’ collective that functions here and in America. ‘I wanted to develop a network and a community of quality writers and along with artists Roger Robinson and Jacob Sam La Rose have managed to use it to help develop so many people. Most members are performance poets but for us it is not necessarily about performance. If you look at an artist like Jean Binta Breeze she is a great performer, but on the page her work is amazing too.’
Running workshops, performing her work here and internationally and working on her first novel (‘Actually the novel is on hold at the moment so I can concentrate on the show’) Malika Booker remains one of the hardest working performers on the circuit. And just as importantly she is playing a vital role in developing a new generation of artists.
10-29th April BAC SW11
Bookings:020 7223 2223
Info: www.applesandsnakes.org

posted by Andrea Enisuoh @ 9:45 AM