Sophie Stars in One-Woman Show

As we’ve just finished our NEW season of plays here at RWCMD, graduate Sophie Melville is about to open in an anticipated new play.

Sophie plays Effie in Iphigenia in Splott, a one-woman play by the writer Gary Owen, who was also commissioned to write two of the plays in our 2014 and 2015 NEW writing seasons (Ring Ring and Spring Awakening).

We caught up with Sophie in rehearsals at Sherman Cymru for a chat about new writing.

Iphigenia in Splott is a one-woman show – how does it feel to be cast in a play where the whole performance is by you?

It’s an amazing opportunity to have, and feels totally different to anything I have ever done. It’s a very intense process and requires a different, more grounded kind of energy. I am loving it.

Are you working closely with the writer during the rehearsal process?

We had Gary in for the whole first week. It was so helpful because he could tell you exactly what he was thinking when writing it and the impact he wants his words to have on an audience. So this has informed my playing choices and helped with variation in my performance.

The last piece that you worked on with Sherman Cymru was Romeo & Juliet. Can you tell us a bit about the differences between working on classic plays and new writing.

With classic plays everyone has an idea of what the character should be like, so with Juliet the struggles were: making her new, making her truthfully my own and not some ‘Juliet shape’ that we think we know. With new writing – especially in this case – I am the first person to play this part, so that worry that it will be the same as someone else’s isn’t present.

I think the challenge is always marrying the poetry with the truth of the text. There is a temptation to worry about the poetry of Shakespeare too much and neglect the truth, but also we can neglect the poetry and the drama in new writing, because if its contemporary we want to throw it away in a conversational way.

What do you think of our NEW season as an initiative to get emerging actors working with up and coming directors and writers on new plays?

I think it’s so exciting and a brilliant way to learn about how writers work, which will help you as an actor think from a different angle. I’ve learned so much from working with Gary. His work has a very specific structure and if you follow it closely, it will get you where you need to be for the story to work.