A modern tale of coercion and abuse at the expense of a bisexual woman echoes the ancient myth of Apollo and Daphne. Lazar has her kiss the soon-to-be girlfriend tenderly after having previously engaged in an intense balancing act with the man. It's a striking summary of Daphne's precarious equation. From the poetic elements of the writing and its visual allegories down to the staging and performances, Sap is a gem. Rafaella Marcus is a 2021 MGCFutures bursary winner and JMK Award Finalist, whose work focuses on bringing marginalised voices to the stage, especially women. SAP is produced by 11-time Offie-nominated Atticist, whose previous production Life According to Saki won the Carol Tamber Best of Edinburgh Award, and by Ellie Keel, the Founder Director of the Women's Prize for Playwriting, who this year was shortlisted as Producer of the Year in the Stage Awards, and has added SAP to her roster of hit shows including Collapsible by Margaret Perry, HOTTER and FITTER by Mary Higgins and Ell Potter, and Reasons You Should(n't) Love Me by Amy Trigg. The production is designed by by Rūta Irbīte with lighting design by David Doyle, Composition and Sound Design by Tom Foskett-Barnes, and Movement Direction by Jennifer Fletcher. Tour Dates

Rebecca Bantvala portrays both the girlfriend and the girlfriend’s brother with absolute conviction. Using subtle touches of persona, which become more evident as the play progresses, it is an absolute gem of a role played to perfection.

The common semantics of trees appear throughout; the title itself and recurring themes of roots, planting her in the ground. Mentions of decay and trees overtaking a house, almost like nature is overtaking. These moments, along with more conversation-like script work well together, the poetic descriptions of her being ‘rooted’ into the ground in fear help the audience understand her psyche. Moreso, they help her deal with what is going on, she’s able to distance herself from the situation and focus on what her body is feeling- almost like a defence mechanism. I have been in several meetings recently with theatres who have expressed an interest in my work and those conversations have come down to me being asked “Do you have a great producer we could co-produce with?” or “Do you have connections with other theatres we could co-produce with?” or “Do you have a celebrity who you have a good relationship with?” I have accidentally built this lifeline of writing so it’s something that I am able to take into other mediums within a creative industry. I work other jobs so I can exist in this industry, where there are not enough jobs for the number of people who want to be in it, essentially.

There is a tough truth with theatre and art in general that it has never been able to wash its own face, or exist as a purely commercial venture. It has actually always required more money going into it than will come out. So art must be subsidised to exist, which means that decisions to cut government funding for art are ideological. Marcus’ script is full of metaphors and lyrical lines, at times it does feel slightly too metaphorical, perhaps due to the short run time of 70 minutes and how dialogue heavy these parts of the script are. I also would have preferred a solid and more satisfying ending to the play. Jessica Lazar’s direction is faultless, allowing the performances to be at the forefront of the production and ensuring the momentum is sustained throughout. The asides to the audience are a great touch and make Daphne more personable, although there are moments where these feel slightly uneven, as though one-half of the audience can see her facial expressions, and the other half is not. Credit: David Monteith-Hodge At the end of the performance, the actors were presented with a Lustrum Award given by Summerhall’s founder and owner Robert MacDowell to shows he particularly admires across the Edinburgh Festivals.

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The originality in Marcus’ exploration of bisexuality is fantastically complex. It centres on the experience of bisexual women and the fact that they are more likely to be abused by their partner than heterosexual or lesbian women – come the end, this is a fact that the play is open about starting an enlightening discussion on. While more and more plays dealing with LGBTQ+-specific issues are being commissioned and staged, Sap is rare in explicitly dealing with bisexuality and the prejudice many bi people face from within the rest of the queer community. That it does so with such engaging, occasionally distressing grace and humanity is just one part of its charm. Marcus has crafted a play which speaks on many levels, and is effective on each. Jessica Clark and Rebecca Banatvala reprise their performances with brand new vigour. Directed by Jessica Lazar, Marcus's debut play defies genres: part romantic drama, part psychological thriller, part queer cautionary tale, it's thoroughly gripping. Clark is utterly magnetic in her internal conflict as she is engaging in the lighter, more sardonic exploration of the push and pull of Daphne's sexual orientation. She controls Lazar's traverse, guided by a script that flows with introspective eloquence, perfectly in tune with the comic side even during the darkest points of the show. Writer Rafaella Marcus comments, Seeing the reception to SAP's Edinburgh run was one of the most moving experiences of my life, and I'm thrilled that we now get to bring the show to audiences across the UK. The opportunity to tour and share ideas nationally is an essential part of our cultural lives and I'm grateful to every venue that has opened their space to this strange, mythic play. I can't wait to share the extraordinary talent of our cast and creative team in new theatres, with new people, and I hope anyone who needs to sit with the play's story of liberation, power, and transformation will be able to do so. Performer, Rebecca Banatvala, skillfully multi-roles as work colleague, girlfriend and guy. There’s a real symbiotic energy between the two performers who can with the flex of their bodies, or a single expression convey passion, fear, disappointment or distance.

Rafaella Marcus’ Sap is loosely based on the myth of Daphne and Apollo; the show centres around Daphne, a bisexual woman living in the contemporary world. Daphne meets a guy she describes as ‘exactly what you think of when you think of just a guy’, and they have a one-night stand. She then meets and falls in love with a woman and fails to tell her about her sexuality due to the opinions the woman possesses about bisexuality. There’s more to the story than this, but I’m leaving it at that, so as not to spoil the plot. The name ‘Daphne’ comes from the nymph in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, who, hotly pursued by Apollo, turns into a tree. In Sap, the silent lie takes root in Daphne’s subconscious and psyche until she too starts to turn into a tree with “bark like eczema.” As her relationship develops, the lie grows, and the stakes rise. The conceptual basis of this narrative also brings to mind the prose works of South Korean author, Han Kang. The Fruit of My Woman and The Vegetarian, tell of a young woman who, as a way to cope with a hostile environment and patriarchy, transforms into a plant. The arboreal language used in Sap to describe the growth of the tree that takes hold of Daphne’s body is poetic and entrancing. The signs of trouble set in when her new girlfriend says that she will not date a bisexual woman, and Daphne chooses to hide her sexuality. Marcus has Daphne play this as a convenience, a white lie that she will eventually confess to – until her girlfriend and her one-night stand are revealed to have a connection to one another. There should be more schemes into which wealthy actors, producers and directors can easily pay a percentage of their earnings, to be redistributed. If they want to have a hand in deciding where it goes, that’s fine. If not, I’ll happily run it. We need to have formalised ways of redistributing this kind of money. The other thing I would make compulsory, if I could, is that every company with profits above a certain threshold has to do some arts patronage.Rafaella Marcus’ first full length play, directed by Jessica Lazar, for Atticist, and Ellie Keel productions, is a dazzling debut. The whole thing is performed in seventy minutes, with just two performers, outdoors in a tent at the Summerhall in Edinburgh. All of which just adds satisfying layers to this complex and thought provoking theatrical experience. At its simplest, SAP is a modern retelling of the Apollo and Daphne myth. SAP manages to retain the love and predatory desire of the original, as well as the tragedy. Performers Jessica Clark (as Daphne) and Rebecca Banatvala (playing all the other roles) are riveting as the pursuing, and the pursued. Greek myths told in a new way is a perennially popular choice for playwrights. What makes Rafaella Marcus’ retelling so intriguing is that SAP confronts human sexuality in non binary forms, and in a very contemporary way. The language of SAP is rich and evocative. Metaphors are used lavishly, which suits the method of presentation — that of an extended monologue told by Daphne, and short scenes with two characters that round out the story when needed. Plants are described as images of transformation, but these are not gentle or passive examples of vegetable life. In the character of Daphne, Marcus explores the idea of metamorphosis as a metaphor for bisexuality as well. In the first of several unexpected plot twists, we discover that Daphne’s lovers are brother and sister. She has a casual fling with the brother, then meets the sister, and the two fall passionately in love. But Daphne’s lover is unsympathetic to the idea of bisexuality, and Daphne gets trapped in the first of several lies as she has to hide who she really is. When she meets her male lover again at a family wedding where both siblings are present, the meeting is catastrophic. There is so much for a couple of talented performers to work with in SAP. Jessica Clark and Rebecca Banatvala are more than up to the challenge. Banatvala takes on the supporting roles, including those of the rival brother and sister. But the play begins and ends with Clark’s non binary character Daphne. Jessica Lazar’s luminous direction allows plenty of room for the performers to transform their bodies, and our imaginations, using the vivid language of Marcus’ script. Banatvala’s ability to shift character with the twitch of an eyebrow or shrug of a shoulder, is particularly breathtaking to watch. But the energy that drives the whole comes from Clark as Daphne. The production is complete and satisfying, and that includes costumes and set (Rūta Irbīte) and the work of sound designer and composer Tom Foskett-Barnes. Catch this production while you can in Edinburgh—and hope that it gets produced elsewhere, and soon. Jessica Lazar’s luminous direction allows plenty of room for the performers to transform their bodies, and our imaginations” RAFAELLA MARCUS’ DEBUT DRAMA TAKES AN ANCIENT STORY AND MAKES IT BOX FRESH’ – Lyn Gardner, The Stage Breffni Holahan in Collapsible by Margaret Perry at the Edinburgh fringe in 2013. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/the Guardian

EK: We commissioned Raf because I knew of Sap and couldn’t take it to Edinburgh that year. I wanted to keep the flames of our collaboration burning. Rafaella Marcus has produced such a beautiful and complex script, conversational, poetic, funny and emotional, all in the space of an hour. The actors are incredible at bringing it to life in a way that makes it feel a real privilege to be a part of the audience. Work as associate director includes: Emilia (Vaudeville Theatre), Fury (Guildhall) for Nicole Charles; The Cause (Jermyn Street Theatre) for Andrew Shepherd.

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There’s a vicious circle because if you tend towards safer programming, you actually double down on the audience that you already have. You’re going with what’s tried and tested. You are de facto not inviting new people.