Interview with Brook Tate ‘Birthmarked’
Interview conducted by Emmie for Theatre and Tonic.
Brooke Tate is a British painter, writer and musical theatre performer. Their production Birthmarked was one production amongst the minefield of last summer’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe that I heard a lot about. It’s been described as ‘profoundly moving’ and ‘life-affirming’ by critics and now it’s on a limited tour this spring with dates at The Lowry and Royal Stratford East. I’m delighted to be joined by Brook to delve a little bit into their journey and the impact that telling your own story can have when performed on the stage.
Brook Tate in Birthmarked. Photo by Paul BlakemoreWhere did the journey with Birthmarked begin?
It began with a bit of a joke that I said to my band at a festival. I told them before we went on stage, that I was going to improvise a musical whilst they just played the normal songs we usually do. They were a bit like, What do you mean? And I was like, just just go with it, just go for it. And then we did it. It was amazing. It was so much fun.
That was the sort of springboard, the catalyst for starting a musical. But I guess on a bigger scale, my journey began in, or specifically around 2016. I grew up a Jehovah's Witness and I got excommunicated in 2016. And that was the big, the big, sort of like turning point for me, the inciting incident. I would never have expected to end up what I'm doing now. What I’m doing now is crazy.
Birthmarked is your story. Does that present challenges as you are making yourself vulnerable with audience members when you play it out..
It’s only recently that I'm really noticing the challenges of performing this show. I think for the last three years, it's been such a journey of excitement, positive change, finding my flow, finding my strength and my power as a performer and as a storyteller. Being openly honest about things was not the way as a Jehovah’s Witness so working on this show has helped me find calm and confidence but also helped me develop as an artist, it’s also impacted on my personal life.
But I think what I'm realising now the challenge is the challenge is coming back to it., I've noticed that my emotions aren't the same. This story feels very different to tell now because it's my personal story has changed. Since telling the story I’ve changed and now going back to do the show feels emotionally different. So it's kind of challenging in that way.
As well as that, Birthmarked is a piece centred on a community. Have you kind of received any backlash from there and how have you handled that?
Jehovah’s Witnesses are not violent people so it’s not like I wouldn’t have got protests, they’re not outspoken online. It's all quite internal. I think the closest thing that I got which made me very uncomfortable last year was at Edinburgh Fringe. We were doing the show and in the front row, right in the middle bang in the middle was a row of four people in like, quite nicely, not like dolled up, but like smart, smartly dressed.
For everyone, this is quite a funny show. I can see that the audience when they're laughing and enjoying clapping or dancing. Those four people were sat right in the front and I was like, oh good they’re not enjoying it. I thought that was strange because most people enjoy it. Then it got to the part where I got to the part where I quite directly and straight out, talk about the religion. There’s a moment where a lot of people’s emotions are really telling on their faces and these people in the front row were just deadpan. It picks up again and the key changes and transforms, everyone cheers (usually) and they just don’t. It dawned on me that these people were probably Jehovah’s Witnesses. They gave me daggers and it was scary, but that was the first time that it had happened.
That incident brought home the immediacy of what I was doing and what talking about my situation is doing. Hats off to them really because they were brave enough to come because I don’t think many Jehovah's Witnesses would come to see the show. They must have paid for the ticket so they did financially support the show, but they did to knock me off my high heels.
Some of the readers might not know a lot about Birthmarked. Can you provide us with a quick synopsis?
Birthmarked is an autobiographical gig musical. It's very theatrical. And there's a storyline that runs through it. The storyline is my experience growing up as a Jehovah's Witness and what happened to me when I got excommunicated, or disfellowshipped. It sounds really boring and depressing, but it’s not at all.
There's a story in the Bible about this man called Jonah, he gets swallowed by a big fish or a whale. And I parallel my story of being excommunicated from the religion, like being chucked off the boats, which happened to Jonah and then drowning underwater was like going into depression. And then meeting this whale, who in the Bible, swallows Jonah for three days, and then vomits him up on land. The whale in my story is called Gail who is lovely and friendly. Gail is curious as to why I'm underwater and I'm scared to talk about the situation publicly, I ended up saying to her, Well, I could play you some songs with my band here. So it turns into this conversation between me and this whale with my band.
Birthmarked was used as a tool to make one last try at trying to contact my family because when you leave the religion, the leaders encourage people to just have nothing to do with the person. They don’t answer their phone calls, don’t reply to their texts - don’t do anything. When that happened to me and my siblings, I couldn’t believe it. It sadly hasn’t changed anything but who knows maybe the young people in my family who might not understand why I disappeared, will one day through my story. The narrative from my end would have been erased and by doing Birthmarked it’s very much not erased. It’s kind of spray painting it all over the walls.
So would you say that performing Birthmarked is part of your healing process..
Completely. Absolutely. Like every time I’ve made art in whatever, that’s whether it’s a single poem or a song, a piece of music or a painting.
Birthmarked had huge success last summer at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and now it’s heading on a limited Spring tour. What do you hope audiences will get from seeing your show?
People who haven’t grown up in the Jehovah’s Witness community or any religion even, they can still enjoy this show. There are lots of things in my experience that reflect and touch on other religions similarly. I think for those people not associated with a religion it’s a chance for them to witness what it means to grow up in a community that is so restricted and being told to believe a certain thing that is so disconnected from reality. Birthmarked will also enable people to see how that impacts on someone and their family. The show also puts a spotlight on what happens to queer people when they get ostracised for their sexuality or any kind of difference.
Lots of people do know ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses or people still in the religion, but they might not talk about it very much and don’t know much about what happened to them. Seeing this show might help them understand their neighbour, someone that they work with someone that they’re related to, in a way that they might not otherwise have expected to understand them. It’s so important as they may be people trapped in a story that they’ve either been born into or been tricked into believing which is really sad.
Hopefully Birthmarked is empowering and will encourage other people to do the same from any religion, any background, any story just to share their stories and change their lives.
Birthmarked is performing at the Lowry, Salford from 29-31 May before performing in London at Theatre Royal Stratford East from 10-13 July. Keep up to date with Brook Tate via their website.
