Abstract
Actor and writer
About Face was written specially for this issue of Index, and comes after the successful launch of her playwriting career with Sitting, which went to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe last year.
Parkinson, most famous for her acting in TV hits including The IT Crowd and Humans, is addicted to the theatre. She was in the middle of a run at London’s Royal Court when the lockdown happened and stages were closed.
Her new play uses humour to examine how we can reinvent ourselves online – a theme that was born out of her fascination with online dating.
She said that her dating life was pre-internet, so the idea of how it worked online now was one she wanted to explore.
“I’m old enough never to have done any of that and met my husband quite young and met him in the flesh, and I think it is really intriguing that it is becoming quite commonplace for people to meet online,” she said.
“In a way you have more choice; you can be more specific in your hunt for the right match.
“I am intrigued by what that does in terms of you meeting somebody online [and] not being able to smell them and see them up close.”
The characters in About Face are getting ready for a digital date and the audience observes them making decisions about how they want to present themselves to possible partners.
The actor and writer Katherine Parkinson
Parkinson has been getting to grips with new technology a lot more (time for an IT Crowd joke there), and so having her characters meet using it was a natural step. “I have been doing quite a lot of FaceTime with my mum, so I sat down and wrote it.”
The mum is a central character in About Face so it is perhaps not surprising that Parkinson’s own mother was part of the inspiration for the writing.
But About Face is mostly about image, what we think about ourselves and how we want others to see us and whether we choose different filters to show ourselves in a different light.
Parkinson seems to have a love-hate relationship with social media and digital tools. She has kept off Twitter because “I know I would be too tempted to do a kind of completely phoney version of myself”.
But, as we discuss, there were plenty of ways to change your image even before online dating, such as adding a new haircut or even using a different name for your date.
“That’s slightly explored in the piece, because who is the same with their mother as they are with their lover? I think I’ve always felt I have very different versions whoever I am with,” she said.
“I’m a different person when I am with friends. You exist according to your perception with the other person a bit.
“My reality growing up was meeting people in pubs and bars, and I can remember being quite quick to chat to a guy who said he was a pilot and he wasn’t a pilot.”
So are we using the same tools and techniques online as have been called into play for hundreds of years? “It’s quite easy to judge meeting people online as strange, but actually really how different is it from what we have always done? Once you get to know somebody then you are able to be your full self.”
One major difference is how the internet platforms where we meet new people have their own tactics and techniques, such as data-scraping – something that pubs were much less adept at doing. But, as Parkinson points out, the information they gather has a truth to it: they know the holidays you are actually booking rather than the ones you tell people you are going on.
“You can chat to someone online and put out whatever image you want, but when you google ‘holidays in Cornwall’ or ‘huskies’ then that’s your true interests expressing yourself.”
So how is she coping with the lockdown and is she reading a lot? “I think any kind of culture is important right now, as it helps to process what is happening and get things in perspective. We’ve been watching a bit of Blue Planet. I think if I just listen to the bulletins and the numbers and the statistics and so on, I quickly get down about it all.”
And there’s a lot of reading to be done.
“Reading has never been more significant in my life to stay sane,” she said.
She is optimistic that plays will be back, though it’s not clear when that will be allowed. “I don’t think theatre is ever going to be away for long, and unfortunately I am quite in love with doing it, so I hope it will be back.”
But, for now, she is looking forward to performing in an upcoming radio play of Shoe Lady for the BBC, and trying her hand at growing some peas in her garden.
About Face
By Katherine Parkinson
INT. BEDROOM/KITCHEN/
STUDY
Sarah, Janet and Damien are all self-isolating in their respective homes. When they FaceTime they speak out to the audience, as if it is the computer screen.
You haven’t been picking at them? You know we aren’t supposed to be touching our faces at all if we can help it.
She wipes the back of her hand over her lips to get it off.
Sarah exits. Janet continues to stare at the empty screen. Then shouts.
Sarah returns to Janet’s vision, drying her hands on her leggings.
About whether dogs carry the virus.
Sarah notices Damien is FaceTiming her.
Sarah ends her FaceTime call with Janet. Janet wipes down her computer screen with cleaning product and proceeds to wipe down other surfaces through the following, waiting for her daughter to call back.
We hear the ring of the new incoming FaceTime call. Sarah goes to reapply the lip gloss but then doesn’t. She checks her teeth in her image on the screen. She messes her hair to look casual but then tidies it again and frantically answers the call.
She tries to talk without revealing her teeth.
Damien calls from a small box room.
you said you had a video conference call today?
Nice to meet you, Damien.
done Joe Wicks.
Sarah smiles and then remembers to hide her teeth, and so ends up doing a strange grimace.
Janet is FaceTiming Sarah again.
Sarah takes the incoming call.
Sarah smooths her hair down with her hand.
Sarah grabs a pillow with her teeth and uses it like a brush.
Sarah reconnects with Damien.
Your hair’s changed.
A colleague-cum-friend. Not a cumfriend!
I mean a friendly colleague.
Friendly colleagues, I mean.
Sarah is embarrassed.
A beat.
From a pillowcase.
He produces his homemade mask and puts it on.
He keeps it on.
Damien pulls down his mask.
They laugh.
They end the call.
The three sit in silence.
Sarah calls Janet.
Janet is crying.
Sarah reaches out to touch the screen.
Janet reaches out, too.