Culture in Lockdown: Rebecca Frecknall – ‘David Byrne’s American Utopia has become my running soundtrack’

Books

I read Just Kids by Patti Smith over lockdown. It’s an autobiographical portrayal of her life and career, and particularly her time in New York when she was living at the Chelsea Hotel and hanging out with Andy Warhol and Jimi Hendrix. It’s this overwhelmingly personal, moving and inspiring story about someone who’s an artist to their core.

I also read The Lesser Bohemians by Eimear McBride. I actually started it a couple of years ago, but stopped because I found it quite upsetting. I picked it up off my shelf during lockdown and finished it. I loved A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing, but I think I loved The Lesser Bohemians more. It’s not as formally radical, but I found the central relationship – it’s about an 18-year-old Irish girl living in London having a relationship with an older English man – really compelling.

Another book I enjoyed is Art Objects by Jeanette Winterson, which is a collection of literary essays about writing and art. I’m a huge fan of her writing, and I’ve read quite a lot of her fiction, but I hadn’t read any of her non-fiction. I found it good soul food, reading about art and why it matters, during that period of lockdown when it felt like the world didn’t care.

Music

When I was in New York, I went with [designer] Tom Scutt to see David Byrne’s American Utopia on Broadway. It’s kind of a gig and a show and a dance piece all at once, and I found it so joyous and moving and theatrically inspiring. In lockdown, I found the original cast recording on Spotify, so I listened to it on repeat. It became my running soundtrack.

Film

I didn’t stream any theatre during lockdown – I found it too difficult – and I didn’t watch many films either, but I did watch Parasite. My housemates and I watched it one night, and I just thought it was a brilliant piece of film-making. I was just in awe of the writing. It’s so strange and clever, and it has a very theatrical tension to it, which I really enjoyed.

What theatre work have you been doing?

When the possibility of reopening the Almeida began to look like it wasn’t a complete pipe-dream, Rupert Goold, our literary manager Stephanie Bain and I started thinking about what we could put on, within the restrictions.
I didn’t want to do a play, because it didn’t feel right to take something and squash it into the wrong shape. What I was intrigued by, and what the Almeida has never really done, is work as a devising company.

I approached Chris Bush to write it. We got a team together and started making something that was not directly about Covid, but was in conversation with the year we’ve had. Something that explores connection and isolation, community and loneliness, and the different things people have gone through.

It was Chris who suggested taking Nine Lessons and Carols and subverting it, and using that as a framework for thematically linked monologues, songs, characters and scenarios. And that’s what we’ve done. It’s so nice to be working in such a creative way. It feels like a bit of a tonic for everyone involved.

Nine Lessons and Carols runs from December 3 to January 9. For more information go to: almeida.co.uk/whats-on