This show is part of Sight Unseen, a season curated by Isabel Adomakoh Young for The Takeover.
Explore the full season & find out more here!
'You're like a queer bridge through time. From Mary's house on Butt Lane to just above the Costa on Deptford High Street.'
Inspired by a real story, this is the weird, wonderful and joyous tale of a genderqueer Londoner who discovers a historical hero.
Krissy buys the memoirs of Mary Lacy, a real-life 18th-century shipwright, who lived her life as a man. Mary defied gender norms, bossed it in a binary world, and even came from Deptford, just like them... Krissy’s immediately obsessed, both with her story and with the building Mary lived in.
Like a queer bridge through time, the famous street art on these Deptford chimneys starts talking to Krissy, and helping them on their own 2023 gender journey.
Inspired by her unbelievable memoirs, Mary Lacy Woz Queer tells Mary’s story through the eyes of a modern-day Londoner and the voice of a talking chimney.
Hilarious and heart-warming, this production asks: Who owns history? And what do we do when our heroes disappoint us?
Mary Lacy (1740-unknown) escaped her hometown of Welling at 19, wore men's attire and enlisted as a shipwright in Deptford as 'William Chandler'. For 13 years, she served and lived as a man, had female lovers and was 'one of the boys' on the ships. She questioned the gender binary all the way back in the 1700s. Today in Deptford, where she spent so much of her life, a mural called Deptford Pearls by @artmongers stands, unknowingly connecting us with the LGBTQ+ history of the place.
Mary Lacy Woz Queer is a play inspired by the mural, explores the story of a Queer icon and our relationship with history through the eyes of a modern-day genderqueer history student... and a talking chimney.
Praise for Mark Daniels' work:
'Relevant as hell... I dug it' ★★★★ London City Nights
'Truly thought-provoking comedy... Daniels writes plays that need to be written' ★★★★ Smiths Magazine
'Daniels really holds the audience with brilliant laugh-out-loud lines & beautifully tender moments' ★★★★ London Pub Theatres
'Just what we needed' ★★★★ A Younger Theatre
CAST & CREATIVES
Krissy | Naz Simsek
Mary | Rosanna Suppa
Paul (and other roles) | Isambard Rawbone
Writer | Mark Daniels
Director | Miko Chrobot
Lighting Designer | Gulika Nagpal