Christine and Lois Mackie: IRON - Interview

Josie is seeing her mother Fay for the first time in a while – she’s never walked into a prison before and she’s been putting it off for fifteen years. Uncovering the memories they share is going to be more perilous than either of them can imagine…

Real-life mother and daughter Christine Mackie (Dr Gaddas in Coronation Street/Daphne Bryant in Downton Abbey) and Lois Mackie (Finding Emily/Coronation St/Elysium Theatre) play Fay and Josie in Rona Munro’s Award winning play, IRON, presented by Best Girl Productions.

Christine Mackie.

We caught up with Christine and Lois ahead of the run.

What can you tell me about IRON and your roles?

Christine: Rona Munro is a terrific storyteller and we loved the play, as far as we knew it hadn’t actually been performed with an actual mother and daughter so that was quite an exciting possibility.

I play Fay and she has been in prison for 15 years. She’s has never admitted or denied her crime and has had a very solitary life since the event which separated her from her daughter. 

And then suddenly Josie turns up! And that’s the starting point of the play. What is it she wants from her mother after all these years?

Lois: Josie is stuck, unable to remember the past and unable to move on and see a future for herself. It's as though Fay, her mother, holds the final puzzle piece for her to take back control of her life, but she knows that journey will be a traumatic one. I have an enormous amount of empathy for her.

What attracted you to this piece?

Lois: Rona packs a serious punch in this script. There is so much to get your teeth stuck into, it’s honestly such a gift for the actors and creative team, we can’t wait to turn up each day of rehearsals and delve in deeper to the world of it all. I love that the audience are taken on a journey of love, grief and hope, but it doesn’t shy away from all facets of human behaviour, the brutality and the humour, it’s got it all.

You previously worked together on Best Girl through Best Girl Productions. How does sharing the stage side-by-side in IRON compare to a writer-actor relationship?

Lois: Well firstly, I am so glad that we waited for a play of this caliber to act alongside each other for the first time. We both have a huge amount of respect for each other as women and as actors and so performing together has been wonderful, it makes the difficult scenes automatically easier to approach because there is love and support there. Best Girl was a very bonding experience for us both and working creatively together through that has definitely laid the foundations for this to be an enjoyable and exciting experience.

Being a real-life mother and daughter playing a mother and daughter who haven't seen each other in 15 years is an incredible dynamic. How do you draw the line between your actual relationship and the deeply fractured bond between Fay and Josie.

Christine: I have to admit being in the rehearsal room working opposite Lois does feel very special and we just are connected. But Munro’s characters are very clearly defined and she has constructed the play so that as Fay and Josie get to know each other again, their shared memories become alive and vivid and Faye become more like her old self she tries to encourage Josie to embrace life.

Have you found that your natural familiarity with each other helps build stage chemistry, or do you have to actively work to resist "mother-daughter instincts" during tense scenes?

Christine: Well, we’re very comfortable with each other in the rehearsal room and I think we trust each other. And my head is as full of memories of her, as hers is full of memories of me, so we’ve got a lot of background material to draw on without having experienced the specifics of this extraordinary story.

Fay has been incarcerated for fifteen years and has built an emotional defense system to survive prison life. How do you tap into that emotional hardening while still leaving cracks for Josie to reach through?

Christine: I had this very strong sense that despite all the defenses that Fay must have built up to survive incarceration, every time she sees Josie it’s like the oxygen tap is turned on and the rush of life that she gets just from seeing her daughter is so intoxicating it almost threatens her survival because she becomes more vulnerable.

Josie is walking into a prison for the first time after avoiding it for a decade and a half. How do you approach playing someone who is simultaneously desperate for answers yet terrified of what she might discover?

Lois: You channel a swan! Elegant and calm on the surface and paddling like mad beneath the water. She is terrified to show her vulnerability but soon discovers it’s impossible to keep up the facade when faced with the only family she has left. 

Lois Mackie.

Best Girl Productions was created with a mission centred around creativity and kindness. IRON is a heavy, emotionally demanding psychological drama—how do you cultivate a supportive off-stage culture while working on such intense material?

Christine: I don’t know how you make good work unless you are in a supportive and generous environment, trying your best to bring the best out of the company that you’re in. It isn’t always the case of course, I’ve done a lot of different productions over the years and they’re not all like that but I’m trying to create work that enables everybody who takes part in it to really get something good out of it; hopefully it’ll be beneficial to them in terms of future work but also they’ll have had a great experience and learnt from each other and have flourished through the collaborative nature of playmaking and if it touches an audience and they enjoy the theatrical experience and for a moment imagine what it’s like to step into somebody else’s shoes that’s just fantastic.

Rona Munro’s writing in IRON deals heavily with how memory is unreliable, biased, and selective. How do Fay and Josie's differing recollections of the past drive the psychological tension between them?

Lois: Well this is the genius of Munro’s writing, because it’s what keeps the audience guessing who and what to believe throughout. The tension absolutely builds, like a pressure cooker and the audience is in the pot with them! It places the audience as the judge and juror if you like and I think it’s what makes it such a unique and impactful piece. 

The physical setting of the play is a stark, controlled prison visiting room. How does that spatial confinement affect the pacing and intensity of your performances?

Christine: The space that we inhabit is a contained location and yet our director and designer’s vision for the play is one which still allows for movement and surprise and for the space to be fully explored.

What was the first piece of theatre that had a big impact on you?

Christine: Hobson’s Choice. I was at school and saw it at The Key Theatre. Malcolm Hebden played Willie Mossop and I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He was so wonderfully funny. Many years later in Coronation Street as Dr Gaddas we met in my surgery and talked about the show. So lovely!

Lois: It was Alice in Wonderland at Williamson’s Park in Lancaster by The Dukes Theatre. The park shows are always promenade there and so you get taken on the journey whilst taking in all these magical views, utilising the night’s sky and the nature making it so atmospheric and immersive. The scene where Alice eats the mushroom and grows enormous took place on this big pond and the actress playing Alice was sat on this huge rock with her legs dangling over the edge into the water and when she grew, this pair of lets jetted out across the water filling the whole length of this huge pond and I remember my eyes nearly popped out of my head it was completely awesome!

What do you hope audiences take away from watching this journey into memory, trauma, and maternal love?

Christine: That through the laughter, love and sadness in the telling of this tale they will engage with the characters and want to know what happens to them.

Lois: I hope they are still having discussions about it the next morning over a brew, I hope it stays with them, if not the detail of the story, but the memory of being fully immersed into these peoples story for just a couple of hours and the impact that one snap decision really can change everything forever. 

IRON runs at the following;

September 15th – 19th HOME T2 Manchester
September 23rd & 24th John Godber Studio Hull Truck
September 30th – Oct 3rd Dukes The Round

Christine Mackie.