What happens when the Tooth Fairy accidentally visits an adult who never stopped believing? That’s the central, darkly hilarious premise of Teeth, a new play by Estelle Warner. It's a fairytale stripped of its polish—exploring isolation, the exhausting cost of being needed, and our universal desire to be seen.
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| Estelle Warner |
We caught up with Estelle ahead of a rehearsed reading as part of Playhouse East’s Work In Progress Festival
What can you tell me about Teeth?
Teeth is a dark, contemporary fairytale about a jaded Tooth Fairy who, on her shift, arrives at the flat of a lonely adult - the Believer - who was waiting up for her. Against everything management has drilled into her, she doesn’t leave, staying to speak to the Believer instead.
Whilst the encounter starts as something a little weird but seemingly innocent, as the night unfolds it twists into something much more complicated. The play, underneath its magic, is an unravelling tale of emotional labour, loneliness and what happens when you become someone’s miracle.
The play tackles magical burnout through the Tooth Fairy, but it reflects a very real, modern human experience. What inspired you to use a childhood mythological figure to explore contemporary exhaustion and isolation?
A lot of the inspiration for the play came from my own experience working in a care role.
Although this field is rewarding, it can also be emotionally exhausting. You spend huge amounts of time supporting someone, listening to them, holding onto their worries and making them feel safe which all naturally creates this kind of false sense of closeness. You care about the people you help, but at the same time, you’re operating inside a professional system that does not really account for what happens when things feel personal. And in these kinds of jobs, your entire purpose is supporting other people - which, for us as humans, will always feel personal.
The Tooth Fairy felt like the perfect figure of this. As a child, we’re taught that she’s here to take away our little losses - baby teeth - leave something behind and disappear. No-one really thinks about why. Or even about who she actually is, or what carrying all of that could do to her. It’s almost a kind of invisible, lonely labour. There’s something that resonates with me in her story. I think in today’s world, where more young adults are exhausted by work than ever before, will resonate with others, too.
The synopsis mentions "the danger in being someone's miracle." Can you expand on what that phrase means to you and how it manifests between the Tooth Fairy and the Believer?
For me, the phrase is about the difference between helping someone and becoming emotionally responsible for them.
The Tooth Fairy arrives at this flat disconnected - both from her work and herself. She’s exhausted, doesn’t speak to anyone (after all, the Tooth Fairy flies alone) and the job has become extremely depersonalised. So when she meets the Believer, one of the first people in a long time who has faith in her magic, who actually sees her, she’s drawn in. But the more she becomes this source of comfort for them, the more impossible it feels to leave.
She’s needed in a way that gives her purpose again, whilst they place more and more emotional weight onto her. I think a lot of people, especially those who are naturally nurturing, will recognise that feeling of becoming someone’s lifeline. And that dynamic can become dangerous very quickly.
Teeth is described as a contemporary fairytale for adults. What is it about the fairytale format that allows you to explore darker, more complex themes like the desperate need to be seen?
What I love about fairytales is that they are universally known stories which exist across generations, cultures and time. They carry massive emotional ideas and themes inside of them, beyond the magic.
I’m fascinated by taking these familiar myths and twisting them to explore contemporary experiences.
And when you actually think about it, a lot of these fairytales are actually really strange. There’s something quite weird about a woman sneaking into children’s bedrooms, taking teeth and leaving money behind. I liked playing into the oddness of these stories we accept without ever questioning.
I like that the format of a fairytale allows audiences to engage with darker themes whilst being safely distanced through magic and wonder. Fairytales act as a metaphor, which I felt worked for this story.
Teeth came from very real feelings about burnout, emotional labour and loneliness, but by filtering those emotions through fantasy, audiences can bring their own interpretations to it.
I’ve also always been drawn to magical realism - it’s probably the genre I write the most. I’m quite childish (young at heart!) and have always had a huge imagination. As a kid I completely immersed myself in fairytales. I actually believed in figures like the Tooth Fairy and Father Christmas for far longer than was probably socially acceptable (I remember my mother breaking the news to me when I started secondary school that it was her leaving gifts in my stocking…), which mortified me at the time, but now I think it’s probably why I write the way I do. I still have this curiosity and wonder towards these kinds of stories now.
The Tooth Fairy we meet is a far cry from the pristine, magical figure of childhood - she's exhausted, cynical, and late. How did you approach writing her voice, and how do you balance her cynicism with the play’s comedy?
I never wanted her to sound like a fantasy character, or even a manic pixie dream girl, which would be an obvious, stereotypical portrayal of her. When you’re first told this story as a child, you imagine her as this whimsical, feminine, magical figure. A lot of my work deals with the expectation we, as women and as people working in support roles, face to be happy-go-lucky, emotionally available and a kind of healing presence in both relationships and friendships. I wanted to write a version of the Tooth Fairy who is exhausted by this. She’s blunt and cynical, overworked from the same draining customer service job she’s been doing for centuries. But this cynicism is at the heart of the comedy of the play. The Tooth Fairy treats this absurd magical role with the logic of modern burnout culture. There’s humour in the idea of this fantasy system becoming corporate and emotionally detached - as well as something quite
universally relatable today.
The setting shifts from a child's bedroom to a grotty flat of a lonely adult. Why Kingsland Road, and what does this specific, grounded setting add to the magical realism of the play?
Kingsland Road is the address of Playhouse East - where the play will be first performed. I love the jarring contrast between something magical and a setting that’s ordinary and familiar to those watching. Putting a mythological figure into a tiny East London flat instantly makes the fantasy feel stranger whilst stopping it from becoming too escapist. This magic exists in the mundane and it’s something everyone can relate to somehow.
The play hinges on a two-hander dynamic between a cynical immortal and a hopeful, lonely human. How do they act as mirrors for one another as the night unfolds?
They’re foils, but they’re both incredibly lonely, just in different ways. The Tooth Fairy has spent so long giving parts of herself to other people that she’s become detached from her own sense of identity, especially now that her job has become so impersonal. The Believer, meanwhile, is someone who is totally isolated and disconnected from the world around them, hidden away in their flat and terrified to speak to anyone. Despite their differences, this unites them. And as the play unfolds, they both give the other something that they’re missing, filling emotional voids through needing each other. The Believer reminds her of a version of herself that had faith that her work mattered, while she makes them feel understood. In this way, they’re mirrors for one another.
Teeth is being presented as a rehearsed reading at Playhouse East’s WIP (Work in Progress) Festival this June. What are you hoping to learn or discover about the play by putting it in front of an audience at this stage of development?
For me, plays truly reveal themselves once they’re in a room with actors and an audience - especially conversational, character-led ones like Teeth. I want to experience where the energy shifts, where people laugh, where silences land and where the themes feel as though they click into place. I’m also curious about how audiences respond to the tonal balance of comedy; darker, emotional subject matter and magical realism. This is key to the development of the piece and will help me to fine-tune it for other runs after the festival.
What was the first piece of theatre that had a big impact on your career?
Definitely A Streetcar Named Desire. I love Blanche. She’s a character who doesn’t fit in with her surroundings. She’s theatrical, fragile, “too much” for the people around her. There’s a quote that always stayed with me about her putting on “the colors of butterfly wings” and I think this idea of changing yourself into someone else is something that’s in the heart of all of my writing in some shape or form. A Streetcar Named Desire demonstrated to me the power in putting these feelings into theatre.
What gives you inspiration?
Travelling. I’m a bit of a workaholic, so I find that when I’m on holiday, I’m forced to step away from my routine and productivity mode. I’m away from a desk, out of my normal habits and my brain is unlocked to think more outside of the box. When you’re travelling, you’re constantly encountering new situations and new people, which is inspiring, but also given the space and rest to just have that thinking time that is crucial to the creative process. Writers aren’t machines - we need time to just think!
If audiences walk out of the reading carrying just one question or feeling about the cost of being needed, what do you hope that is?
There’s this cultural idea that being needed makes us valuable, especially for women or people in caring roles. But Teeth explores what happens when you become so consumed by being useful to others that you stop existing as a person outside of that - the true cost of being needed.
Teeth is being performed at Playhouse East on Thursday 25th June at 19:15. For further information visit https://www.tickettailor.com/events/playhouseeast/2192747
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