Pulled earrings. Slit wrists. Chopped veins. T-rex arms.
Eva is just a regular rat racer. Single mother to a 6-year-old boy, she is stuck in a world that keeps punching her down, and is desperately trying to play the game – pay the bills, get him to football, try to survive mum’s comments.
But her mind has different plans. On the way to an important job interview, Eva gets bombarded by a series of ever-worsening intrusive thoughts.
So prepare for the uncomfortable and dive into Eva’s mind. Guided by Arthur, a grotesque, sadistic, half-real figure, this two-hander surreal dark comedy will bring you on a journey that will shift your concept of normality.
We caught up with writer and performer Chiara Fumanti to learn more about the piece.
What can you tell us about The Extraordinary Life of a Rat Racer?
The Extraordinary Life of a Rat Racer is a dark surreal comedy that deals with intrusive thoughts and aims to redefine our concept of normality. At its core, the show tells the story of an ordinary person, Eva, just trying to survive the day. She is a single mother to a 6-year-old boy on her way to a job interview. However, throughout her commute she gets bombarded by a series of ever-worsening, viciously violent intrusive thoughts, described in detail by Arthur, a grotesque, sadistic, half-real figure.
What inspired you to write this piece?
It started with the need to get back on stage. As migrant artists, both Andrea and I have struggled to find our place in mainstream theatre. We’ve worked in other settings, but in the last few years we’ve both started feeling alienated by the theatre world. So, we decided to do our own thing.
It started with the need to get back on stage. As migrant artists, both Andrea and I have struggled to find our place in mainstream theatre. We’ve worked in other settings, but in the last few years we’ve both started feeling alienated by the theatre world. So, we decided to do our own thing.
I suffer from intrusive thoughts – in fact, the play is mostly autobiographical. I’ve suffered from anxiety and intrusive thoughts since I was 16, so it’s something that I have been living with for a long time. For me, writing has always been a way to translate the mess in my head, so very often my pieces are inspired by my reality. Years ago I had this idea, and I jot it down on a post-it note. It reads: “Short story – only written in incohesive anxiety-led thoughts throughout the day.” It was meant to be a stream of consciousness style piece, but it only stayed on the post-it note for years. Then one day I was on the tube, staring into nothingness (as one does), and I suddenly envisioned the anxiety-led project as a short film instead of a short story. I thought it might be cool to have the protagonist just sitting on the tube with a deadpan face, with sharp intercuts of the extremely violent intrusive thoughts she was having. But again, it didn’t materialise.
Then in January last year, Andrea and I sat down to brainstorm ideas, and after some back and forth and some other project ideas (some of which might actually see the light of day at some point…), we finally thought: “Hey, what if we did the intrusive thoughts idea? Could that work as a play?” And that’s how we got started.
How have you approached the development of ideas for the play?
Concept-wise, we always knew it was going to be a two-hander play. As it’s our first and it’s mostly self-funded, we didn’t want to involve too many people without being able to properly pay them, so we thought to keep it simple and deal with the challenges as they came. And they did come, straight away!
Concept-wise, we always knew it was going to be a two-hander play. As it’s our first and it’s mostly self-funded, we didn’t want to involve too many people without being able to properly pay them, so we thought to keep it simple and deal with the challenges as they came. And they did come, straight away!
I always knew I wanted a “real” character and a “half-real” character – a personification of the darkest parts of the protagonist. Challenging the concept of truth and reality has always interested me, the blend of reality and fiction has always been a bit part of my writing inspiration. So I knew from the start that I wanted the play to live on two realms: tangible reality – Eva on the tube, the people around her, etc. – and less tangible reality, what’s going on in her brain – which although not real in the eyes of the people around her, is very real to her.
But I didn’t know how to show the people around Eva, the commuters, the “victims” of her intrusive thoughts. Andrea came up with the idea of using balloons instead, and that was most definitely a break-through in terms of how we approached the writing of the show.
The writing of the play started by simply writing down my own intrusive thoughts as I was having them on the tube. They are, pretty much word by word, my own intrusive thoughts. Then I wrote the monologue in which Eva reveals her trauma – which is also my trauma – in the notes app on my phone just before going to bed. Those are really the only things in the play that have remained mostly untouched since they have been written. They are raw, real experiences, so I didn’t want the writing to feel too edited. Once we had those fundamental autobiographical blocks, we started thinking about a storyline which could enhance them. It was almost like a dot-to-dot, I guess you could say.
How have you approached your character, Eva?
She is quite autobiographical, so in terms of writing, as I mentioned, I focused on her trauma first. But one of the most important things for me was that she is a very average person. I don’t mean this in a bad way – I just mean that she must be just an ordinary person, who wakes up, takes her child to school, goes to work, gets back home, repeats it all the next day. A regular rat racer. This is important because it underlines that intrusive, violent, negative thoughts don’t just happen to serial killers, people you hear about in true crime documentaries, “sick” people, psychopaths. They happen to all of us. So, she’s just like everyone else. Traumatised and only just managing to keep her head above water.
She is quite autobiographical, so in terms of writing, as I mentioned, I focused on her trauma first. But one of the most important things for me was that she is a very average person. I don’t mean this in a bad way – I just mean that she must be just an ordinary person, who wakes up, takes her child to school, goes to work, gets back home, repeats it all the next day. A regular rat racer. This is important because it underlines that intrusive, violent, negative thoughts don’t just happen to serial killers, people you hear about in true crime documentaries, “sick” people, psychopaths. They happen to all of us. So, she’s just like everyone else. Traumatised and only just managing to keep her head above water.
I also decided to make her a mother, not only to give her a strong motivation to keep fighting, but to explore what pressures motherhood would add to the mix and how the relationship between her and her son would change her approach to Arthur. Given the theme of the show, I also thought it would be important to highlight and normalise the negative thoughts that mothers might occasionally have towards their children or themselves. I do think it adds another layer of humanity to Eva, makes her less of a serial killer in the making and more of a person simply struggling to keep up with everything.
Acting-wise, I focused on the relationships first. The relationship she has with Arthur, the relationship with her mother, but most importantly, the relationship with her son, as I find it to be the key to many of her decisions.
In terms of challenges in the performing approach, I think one of the biggest is the autobiographicity (I think I just made up a new word!) of the piece itself. Acting is a craft that often requires vulnerability anyway, but there is often a smidge of separation between the actor and the character, and it’s healthy to have one. No matter how much character work you do, in the back of your mind you know that it’s all make believe, you know. But in the back of mine I know it’s not. I lived it, and sitting on a chair on a dark stage telling it is an incredibly vulnerable place to be in. It also means I have to reimagine and relive everything that I have spent years of therapy working on. On the other hand, I also find it highly therapeutic, and I feel really proud to be able to tell this story and hopefully inspire someone else to find a better relationship with themselves.
Arthur seems like a unique character. What role does he play in Eva’s journey?
Arthur is an interesting character because he is not a person nor a feeling, he is an irrational response unconsciously built by Eva herself. He is part of her. There’s no getting rid of him and there’s no getting better by ignoring or pushing away his existence. Arthur pushing Eva further and further is fundamental to her realising this. He plays a fundamental role, in his own twisted way, in keeping her safe and although he doesn’t change his ways – if anything, he gets worse – Eva is pushed to change around him, so much so that she doesn’t have a choice but to change.
Arthur is an interesting character because he is not a person nor a feeling, he is an irrational response unconsciously built by Eva herself. He is part of her. There’s no getting rid of him and there’s no getting better by ignoring or pushing away his existence. Arthur pushing Eva further and further is fundamental to her realising this. He plays a fundamental role, in his own twisted way, in keeping her safe and although he doesn’t change his ways – if anything, he gets worse – Eva is pushed to change around him, so much so that she doesn’t have a choice but to change.
How do you blend the topics and themes in the piece?
The comedy is fundamental in this piece, as it cuts through some of the heaviness of the themes. One of my worries when writing this piece is that it wouldn’t be understood. I wanted it to be relatable, and I think sometimes if you write something that is just sad, the audience might stop listening. In that sense, I think the comedy highlights the tragedy, not only it gives a little balance, but also somewhere to fall from and to come back up to. At the same time, the characters balance each other out, Arthur being big and physical and almost clownesque, Eva being small and intimate. So I suppose the blend of the topics, the delicate balance of it all, is where the show actually lives.
The comedy is fundamental in this piece, as it cuts through some of the heaviness of the themes. One of my worries when writing this piece is that it wouldn’t be understood. I wanted it to be relatable, and I think sometimes if you write something that is just sad, the audience might stop listening. In that sense, I think the comedy highlights the tragedy, not only it gives a little balance, but also somewhere to fall from and to come back up to. At the same time, the characters balance each other out, Arthur being big and physical and almost clownesque, Eva being small and intimate. So I suppose the blend of the topics, the delicate balance of it all, is where the show actually lives.
As a writer and performer, how do you balance both roles in bringing this story to life?
It’s quite hard to separate them, especially because the story is so autobiographical. I know the reason behind each word, however that does not necessarily mean that the audience will get that specific meaning and that’s ok. I suppose the point of putting your art and story out there is that everybody can see what they want in it. And knowing the reason behind each word is definitely a double-edged sword: in a way, it means that I’ve already done a lot of my acting work when writing the piece. On the other hand, it can be quite limiting, for the same reason. I suppose it’s the same with words themselves – the beauty of words is that they can be interpreted in many different ways, but at the same time they can be intentional, purposeful, and paint a precise picture. Allowing both facts to live at the same time is where the balance is for me. By that I mean that I must give myself and Andrea freedom from the words at times, but I also must be strict on some sections of the script as I have chosen those words purposefully to instigate a certain type of reaction in the audience.
It’s quite hard to separate them, especially because the story is so autobiographical. I know the reason behind each word, however that does not necessarily mean that the audience will get that specific meaning and that’s ok. I suppose the point of putting your art and story out there is that everybody can see what they want in it. And knowing the reason behind each word is definitely a double-edged sword: in a way, it means that I’ve already done a lot of my acting work when writing the piece. On the other hand, it can be quite limiting, for the same reason. I suppose it’s the same with words themselves – the beauty of words is that they can be interpreted in many different ways, but at the same time they can be intentional, purposeful, and paint a precise picture. Allowing both facts to live at the same time is where the balance is for me. By that I mean that I must give myself and Andrea freedom from the words at times, but I also must be strict on some sections of the script as I have chosen those words purposefully to instigate a certain type of reaction in the audience.
How do you mentally and physically prepare ahead of a performance?
First of all, I need to breathe. I need to lay on the floor and take a couple of minutes to just feel the space and slow by body and my mind down. It helps me separate the Chiara who wrote the piece and produced the piece, the Chiara who worries about numbers, spreadsheets, ticketing, etc. from the Chiara who is just meant to be present on stage and give the best performance she can. I normally do that to a relaxing playlist. After that, we do a quick warm up, switch the playlist up to something more in the mood of the show, and get the energy up ready to step on stage!
First of all, I need to breathe. I need to lay on the floor and take a couple of minutes to just feel the space and slow by body and my mind down. It helps me separate the Chiara who wrote the piece and produced the piece, the Chiara who worries about numbers, spreadsheets, ticketing, etc. from the Chiara who is just meant to be present on stage and give the best performance she can. I normally do that to a relaxing playlist. After that, we do a quick warm up, switch the playlist up to something more in the mood of the show, and get the energy up ready to step on stage!
What was the first piece of theatre you remember having a big impact on you and your journey?
Not a piece of theatre – but Annie, the 1982 film. Unfortunately, I didn’t grow up watching much theatre – in Italy theatre is not as entwined in the culture as it is here in the UK. However, I grew up performing and watching musical films. When I was little, I used to go to an afterschool English-learning institute, in which they taught English through theatre – more specifically, musical theatre – and when they showed us that film, I remember just being so fascinated, especially by Miss Hannigan. They were showing us little ones the film as the older children were putting on an amateur adaptation of it, and we were meant to be the “choir”. The girl who was playing Miss Hannigan in that production was just so brilliant, I remember staring at her from the choir stalls – I even gave her a letter at the end of the production. She became my theatre hero. And that was it, I was hooked, and theatre became my safe place. I even played Miss Hannigan myself a few years later! So I guess actually, to answer your question, the piece of theatre that got me into theatre was an amateur production of Annie.
Not a piece of theatre – but Annie, the 1982 film. Unfortunately, I didn’t grow up watching much theatre – in Italy theatre is not as entwined in the culture as it is here in the UK. However, I grew up performing and watching musical films. When I was little, I used to go to an afterschool English-learning institute, in which they taught English through theatre – more specifically, musical theatre – and when they showed us that film, I remember just being so fascinated, especially by Miss Hannigan. They were showing us little ones the film as the older children were putting on an amateur adaptation of it, and we were meant to be the “choir”. The girl who was playing Miss Hannigan in that production was just so brilliant, I remember staring at her from the choir stalls – I even gave her a letter at the end of the production. She became my theatre hero. And that was it, I was hooked, and theatre became my safe place. I even played Miss Hannigan myself a few years later! So I guess actually, to answer your question, the piece of theatre that got me into theatre was an amateur production of Annie.
What keeps you inspired?
My family. I have a note from my Dad and a note from Andrea pinned behind my laptop. Andrea’s one says that I am a force of nature and that he loves me. My dad’s says to chase my dream, be well and be happy, but that he misses me terribly. I left Italy to come to London 11 years ago now, and that note reminds me how much I have sacrificed in order to be here, and how much I still sacrifice every day for the love of my craft. Sharing my life with Andrea, I am extremely lucky to have a partner who supports and shares my journey, and I am so excited to see what else we’ll be able to create together as a new theatre company.
My family. I have a note from my Dad and a note from Andrea pinned behind my laptop. Andrea’s one says that I am a force of nature and that he loves me. My dad’s says to chase my dream, be well and be happy, but that he misses me terribly. I left Italy to come to London 11 years ago now, and that note reminds me how much I have sacrificed in order to be here, and how much I still sacrifice every day for the love of my craft. Sharing my life with Andrea, I am extremely lucky to have a partner who supports and shares my journey, and I am so excited to see what else we’ll be able to create together as a new theatre company.
What do you hope audiences take away from their experience with this play?
I hope they can feel seen. Even though they might not have had an intrusive thought as violent as Eva’s, we all have “bad” thoughts from time to time, things we definitely wouldn’t say out loud, and we judge ourselves so harshly because of them. But a thought is not a fact. Your identity is not defined by your thoughts, but by your actions. So, I hope they can feel some compassion, towards themselves and others.
I hope they can feel seen. Even though they might not have had an intrusive thought as violent as Eva’s, we all have “bad” thoughts from time to time, things we definitely wouldn’t say out loud, and we judge ourselves so harshly because of them. But a thought is not a fact. Your identity is not defined by your thoughts, but by your actions. So, I hope they can feel some compassion, towards themselves and others.
Where can readers see the show and follow the show's journey?
We will be at the Bread & Roses Theatre from the 24th-28th February, the Etcetera Theatre from the 7th – 10th March, then The Bridge House Theatre from the 21st – 25th April. You can get tickets through our Linktree here: https://linktr.ee/extraordinarylifeofaratracer
We will be at the Bread & Roses Theatre from the 24th-28th February, the Etcetera Theatre from the 7th – 10th March, then The Bridge House Theatre from the 21st – 25th April. You can get tickets through our Linktree here: https://linktr.ee/extraordinarylifeofaratracer
You can also follow us on Instagram @extraordinarylifeofaratracer, TikTok @stageleftovers for more updates!
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