We Don't Do It Alone

On Saturday morning, I got a string of messages on my phone. Various friends, who I knew were coming to see ‘Who Is Claude Cahun’ at some point, were dropping me messages to let me know they were on their way. My D&D group. Storyteller friends. A queer activist friend I haven't seen for years. My best friend from drama school. My partner. My parents. They were all coming that day. They were going to make up 10% of the matinee audience alone.

A stage show is very different from storytelling, in that it doesn't change as much based on the audience's reactions. But being able to hear laughter that I recognised out in the stalls - and seeing my mum in tears, like she always is when she comes to see a show - it gave the whole thing a different life for me. I was hit by the emotion of the piece in a new way, and found whole new details to the performance.

I rushed down to the bar afterwards and got big hugs from my parents - my mum ‘had things to say, but would tell me them when she wasn't crying anymore’. And I came and stood in a big circle with all my friends like the host of a strange birthday party, and got to talk a little about the truths of Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore’s lives that didn't make the cut of the theatrical adaptation.

In the play, the two come across as very isolated and separate from the other Jersey residents, but in fact their house became a community hot spot during the war, as they were one of the few places that had a working telephone. And so they became a space for news to be shared covertly, for information to be passed on, and their pantry became a place where folks would leave food they had smuggled away from the Nazi hotels, ready to be redistributed. Yes, the folks of Jersey thought these two French artists were weirdos, but they were THEIR weirdos, dammit, and when they were imprisoned their friends and neighbours came and protested, spoke out, wrote letters, and visited them regularly in prison.

And Claude and Marcel were far from the only people who resisted Nazi rule on Jersey. A small group wrote an underground newspaper sharing BBC news when radios were banned. People left food out for the starving labourers building the Nazi defences. Teenagers painted V for Victory on walls and postboxes. Together they made life harder for the occupying forces, and gave the locals hope.

We don't do it alone. We see it in our history and we see it in the protests today. Humanity is a creature built for community. When we come together to share food, knowledge, and our imaginations, what we can achieve is far greater than the sum of our parts. I felt it especially that Saturday. It made me think of this gorgeous quote by Maya Angelou. So many kind people from my life joining me on that stage. Their hearts and love powering that performance. It's a bit of magic.

‘Who is Claude Cahun’ runs for another 2 weeks at Southwark Playhouse Borough - if you'd like to come and see it, you can get tickets here.