Fox

Inspired by true events, Katie Guicciardi’s Fox is a sharply observed drama that explores our complex relationship with ‘help’ - our desire to give it and the need to seek it for ourselves - in an increasingly isolating society. This world premiere is directed by Lisa Cagnacci (Associate Artistic Director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough).

Juxtaposing postpartum depression and the silent issues of motherhood with the plight of the homeless, Fox addresses privilege and isolation in a contemporary, urban environment. It looks at the tension between the materially disadvantaged homeless man and the new mother who views him from the loneliness of her flat, questioning how we judge ourselves, others and who we deem worthy of help. Studying the weight of responsibility of another human being in two very different ways, Fox is a moving and insightful first play.

Katie Guicciardi comments, I started writing the play whilst on maternity leave with my first child. One day a man arrived and sat on the wall outside my flat on a quiet street in East London. He stayed living on the wall for a month before disappearing and I began to write about the experience and the very strong, conflicting emotions it evoked in me during an already new and heightened period in my life as a new mother for the first time.

Fox explores issues surrounding class and gentrification and the experience of seeing an area change before your eyes. It also brings to light the spectrum of changes, emotions and pressures brought about during a woman’s period of ‘matrescence’ and how, by becoming mothers, women undergo not only complex hormonal and physical changes but also emotional changes in how they perceive the world, the way the world perceives them and their whole identity and lifestyle.