{"id":34366,"date":"2013-10-19T17:28:10","date_gmt":"2013-10-19T17:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=34366"},"modified":"2013-10-19T17:30:55","modified_gmt":"2013-10-19T17:30:55","slug":"playwright-sarah-rutherford-middle-class-mixed-race-families-are-invisible-on-our-stages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=34366","title":{"rendered":"Playwright Sarah Rutherford: ‘Middle-class, mixed-race families are invisible on our stages’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Playwright Sarah Rutherford: ‘Middle-class, mixed-race families are invisible on our stages’<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

What’s on Stage<\/a>
\nLondon
\n2013-10-10<\/p>\n

Editorial Staff<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As her new play<\/em> Adult Supervision<\/a> premieres at the Park Theatre<\/a>, playwright Sarah Rutherford<\/a> discusses multiculturalism in modern Britain<\/em><\/p>\n

What’s Adult Supervision about?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It’s set in 2008 and it’s about a white ex-lawyer, Natasha, who’s adopted two children from Ethiopia. As a parent who likes to do things by the book, she’s decided that it’s important for the kids to get to know the handful of other \u2018children of colour’ at their very smart private school. Natasha seizes on the opportunity of the US election to invite the mothers of these children to a drinks party, but things start to go awry as the Obamatinis flow and inhibitions are shed.<\/p>\n

Why did you set it on the night of Obama’s election?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have such vivid memories of that night, and although it was historic for everyone, I think many communities\u2014\u2018parents of children of colour’ being one\u2014took it as a kind of personal victory. It was an incredibly heady moment\u2014suddenly anything seemed possible\u2014and it’s an interesting time to look back on from the perspective of today, when the US seems to be going into meltdown and November 2008 looks like an almost innocent time.<\/p>\n

Would you describe it as a comedy?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes\u2014a comedy drama. But the laughs in it come mostly from character, from truth (truths you may not have heard spoken out loud before) and from discomfort, rather than from gags.<\/p>\n

How has your personal experience influenced and shaped the play?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hugely. I’m married to a man of Jamaican origin and am the mother of two amazing mixed-race children, although they go to a much more diverse school than the one in the play. Some of the more jaw-dropping dialogue in the play is actually pretty much verbatim stuff that has been said to me over the years; other material has come from things that I’ve thought or sensed but that have gone unsaid…<\/p>\n