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A Play about Addiction - Interview with the Actors

Wed, 28/11/2007 - 21:34 — emma

 

Whats Your Poison? A play that was at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival

Lisa and Jim are becoming enslaved by an addiction to crystal meth. Her independence is coming at a price, especially when she battles with her mother to 'free' her younger brother Andy from the comfort and security of being his mother's only live-at-home son, only to replace it with the questionable security of living with her and Jim.

Addictions, compulsions, dependence and independence are explored through several relationships in this moving piece.  

Beneath most addictive patterns of behaviour lie some form of psychological dis-ease and a desire to be consumed by something that soothes, and the play explores how each of these characters to varying degrees seeks to find a way of achieving a feeling of fulfillment. 

"I suppose we all get consumed in the end."

COAP will be interviewing some characters from this play so watch this space...

Interview with character Jim from "What's your posion?"

1.      What was your character in “What’s Your poison?”

My character was Jim - an orphaned middle class guy with a troubled past.
 
2. What kind of things did you find out whilst doing the research? The main thing I discovered whilst researching the play was how totally consuming an addiction can be. Going to NA meetings, talking on chatrooms and listening to people talk about their experiences and what they were still having to cope with made me realise how damaging a drug addiction can be, during use but also after somebody goes clean. Without NA meetings I doubt people would be able to stay clean. I heard people say they hadn't missed a meeting in 4 years - everyday. In that respect the meetings could be said to be a replacement addiction.
 
I was also able to relate a lot of issues to my own personal life. Maybe not through the drug addiction but through the relationship dynamics and the dependency that characters had for one another. It's not until you take a step back that you realise how dependant you can be on partners, friends and family. I realised I was emotionally dependant on people that I wouldn't have thought I would be. The theme tied in with the issue of addiction as dependency and addiction are tightly related.

 3. What kind of things did your character go through in the play? Jim goes through a rollercoaster of emotions throughout the play. He has moments of genuine contentment when being welcomed in to Lisa's family - a family life is what he desires more than anything. Through to moments of total devastation and despair - Lisa bringing up horrors of his past to deliberately torment him and realising Lisa has spiralled out of control and he is powerless to help. 
 

4. How did your character feel about his drug use and it's effects on others?

Jim always feels his drug use is under control and to the greater extent recreational. This is true in the main part - he takes it to have fun - especially in regard to sex although in reality his taking is as much a route to escapism as it is to have a good time.
 
He thinks that his drug use doesn't affect others - although deep down he probably knows it perpetuates Lisa's habit but he chooses to leave those thoughts buried. 

5. How did your character feel when his girlfriend’s habit started to get more out of control?

Powerless - guilty - hypercritical - angry with himself and Lisa.

6. What are you views on addiction; do you feel it is someone's choice, or something they are powerless over?

As I said in the first question - I understand that once an addiction takes hold it seems that people can be powerless. As one person put it it is also a "patient disease" - waiting, all the time waiting until that moment, however long down the road, out it will come.  
 
However there are always choices and whatever regrets we have in life you can follow it back to a choice you may or may not have made.

 Thank you to Edward Elks (character Jim) for allowing COAP to interview him :)