09 Jan 2024

“It’s a script that’s close to my heart”
The playwright Tasha Dowd spoke to Damon Fairclough about Tell Me How it Ends.

What is Tell Me How it Ends about?

It's set in Liverpool during the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, and it's about two people who would never have been friends if it wasn't for the circumstances.

Aster is a volunteer with a lesbian group that helps support people who are HIV positive – people who are left alone or don't have any family they can be with while they're having treatment. Women created these groups worldwide because of the discourse between men and women in the community. This is how she meets Marc.

They don't get on at first, but the show is about how they end up bonding. They travel together and try and live as much as possible. I love a love story, and this play is all about platonic soulmates.

How did you come up with this idea?

I'd gone to London with a mate to see a show about the AIDS epidemic – it was set in the US. It was gorgeously done and there were some fantastic performances, but it felt very bleak as a young queer person to watch that play. It made HIV still seem like a really scary, hopeless kind of thing – which it was at the time when the play is set, but I felt there's got to be other ways of talking about this now that will really resonate with young queer people as well as older generations.

We know people can still live full lives, and they were back in the 80’s too. That’s what I wanted to explore, that nobody lied down and gave up, they carried on, they lived.

Did you discover anything surprising when you looked into the history of AIDS during the 1980s?

The mate who I saw that play with told me how lots of lesbian organisations gave a helping hand during the epidemic, both in the US and in the UK. I'd never heard that before.

When I researched it, I discovered it was a huge thing! Lesbian groups would volunteer as visitors, they would organise blood drives and raise money, and some even turned their homes into hospice care. So much happened behind closed doors, a lot of these events were never properly recorded, and it’s rarely explored today as a result.

The play’s journey to the Everyman has been a bit of a whirlwind hasn’t it?

Yeah, it's crazy! It’s one of the first plays I’ve written. It was a passion project – something I needed to get out of my system. But then I entered it into the Homotopia Writers’ Award, because they said they’d give you feedback whether you were successful or not.

But then that feedback turned into getting shortlisted, then that turned into winning the award. Then the Everyman got in contact and said they wanted to stage it!

Amazing – and well done!

It's a script that's close to my heart, so it's really nice that it's resonated with other people already, and that I've been given space to tell that story.

I was really thrilled when I found out; I was in shock.

Can you tell me about Aster and Marc, the two characters at the play’s heart?

Aster's a bit of a control freak, and that starts to bleed into her wanting to look after Marc – she gets a bit antsy about making sure he takes his medication on time, and that he does this and that. She becomes a bit of a bedside nurse, but she does it because she just wants him to be better. She wants to keep him around; she wants him in her life all the time because she doesn’t have anyone like that really.

As for Marc, he’s really impulsive emotionally. A lot of that comes from the stress because he isn't well, and how young he is dealing with it all – so for him the easiest choice is to shut down at first, because he’s not gonna miss much if he refuses to use the time he has left. It makes him snappy and very prone to saying things impulsively.

I think together they balance each other: Aster gets him to start doing little things, like reading again, taking his medication, trying new things, talking. And when Aster has a breaking point of her own, he’s there to make sure she doesn’t do what he did, to make sure she talks about it. They work so well together because they’re polar opposites.

You make a point in the play’s introduction that it’s a story about living, not dying. Why is that so important to you?

In the play I saw in London, and in some TV shows, it's like anyone who gets diagnosed, by the end of that episode or even the next scene they're in, they're dead or dying. It’s really sudden and fast, and that's not what would happen the vast majority of the time. I feel that's where a lot of the fear has come from because of the representation that we see; they get diagnosed and they're immediately a dead man walking. 

I think shows like Pose and It’s a Sin were incredibly important in starting to shed light on the reality of that part of our history: people were still going out and living, starting businesses, having relationships, fighting for treatment, fighting for other people to get treatment, doing all these things with their lives.

So, in my play they get up to all sorts – go to concerts, go travelling, eat bad oysters in restaurants, drink fake wine. They’re using the time they have in the best ways they can.

As a local writer – and actor and musician – did it feel important to locate the play in Liverpool?

I'm really proud to be from here because we’ve got so many stories and so much history, for better and for worse, and I think it’s important we talk about our history more. I think in Liverpool, supporting the people around you, even strangers, is a huge part of our culture. You help each other out when you can, and I think that really links into that sense of found family within the play.

But also, when I was doing my research, I found examples of Liverpool hospitals during the early 1980s that wouldn't let AIDS patients onto the hospice ward because they thought they were going to kill everyone else faster. Doctors and Nurses didn’t know any better, and of course there was a big stigma around it being a “Gay Plague” but as time went on, Liverpool hospitals went on to be better educated and equipped to treat people who were HIV positive.

What were relations like between lesbians and gay men when the AIDS crisis hit in the 1980s?

There was definitely some discourse particularly between gay men and lesbian women at the time – insults were thrown back and forth, queer women weren’t always allowed into gay bars, and they certainly didn't always get on. In my research I found that it was the AIDS crisis that really made them come together and queer women stepped up. It was that point in history where both sides of the community looked at each other and really saw one another properly.

What are the play’s key themes?

I think the biggest one is the idea of ‘found family’. It's not necessarily about the people you're tied to by blood, it's about the people you find in the community who help you grow. Queerness, of course, and the different shapes queer love can take…

I think also the denial that can come with knowing what's going to happen. Aster and Marc are both aware of how their story together is probably going to end, and as much as they're trying to live and do the most with their time, some of that is rooted in denial. That universal experience of not wanting something to end; that final chapter in your new book, that last night out with your mates before you all go to different universities, that last bit of time you get to have with someone you love. Everyone knows that feeling.

What are your hopes for the style of this show?

I want it to feel really warm. The audience are part of it – there are points where Aster and Marc talk to the audience or explain things directly to them because they're in the space with them. I want that vibe where everyone's sitting together discussing this thing, like a book club.

It’ll be really intimate, and funny too; there are loads of classic 1980s references that I think everyone can appreciate. 

It's your Everyman main stage debut. How does that feel?

I’m thrilled! It’s not long since I graduated from drama school, and this was something I had on my five-year plan, so the fact I've been able to tick it off in six months is pretty phenomenal. I'm really grateful – gonna have to rewrite that plan now!

Who do you think will love this play?

Hopefully everyone!

I feel like it does a lot for older queer people in terms of the references and also because it’s an honest attempt at Liverpool and it’s queer history – the fact that the community was ignored by the government, often socially shunned, and medically ignored because no one had the answers. But at the same time, there was so much life, the city was electric, breathing, the community was this intense combination of loss and life. Everything was happening at the same time. So in that sense, I think it's important for young people to see it too. I wrote it because I learnt something I'd never heard before and hopefully it’ll be the same for other people in my age group. 

And there are themes that, whether you're queer or not, you’ll understand those feelings. So I'd like to say there's something there for everyone!

Tell Me How It Ends is at Liverpool Everyman Wed 12 Jun to Sat 22 Jun 2024, click here to see the performance diary.