Every great story begins somewhere, often in the most unlikely of places, and the stories they tell can tell us many things about ourselves, our world, and crucially, the people who wrote them. So what are we to make of someone who decides to write a play about a woman who decides to go and spend her days living as a sheep? Outlandish maybe, but every great work begins with a humble idea, and to that end, I sat down with playwright Ruth Berkoff as she embarks on a U.K. tour of her original piece The Beauty of Being Herd, coming to Sheffield for one night only next week.
Ruth Berkoff is an actress and playwright, who trained at Ecole Philippe Gaulier in France, as well as Both Feet, Meisner. She has many credits in the Arts & Theatre industry, including in pantomime, short film and immersive experience. She was a top finalist in the Actress Universe Film Festival 2022 and Bronze Winner at the World Monologue Games 2021. As well as her creative credits, Berkoff is also a cycle instructor, massage therapist and regular open-water swimmer. She is currently touring the U.K. with her original play The Beauty of Being Herd, playing at Sheffield’s Crookes Social Club on September 5th.
Tell us a little bit about The Beauty of Being Herd – what is it about & what can audiences expect from this show?
I’m still learning how to sum it up, but it’s basically a one-woman show [with] original songs, with lots of funny moments, and some little moments of heartbreak as well, about a woman who’s decided to go and live as a sheep.
What a plotline!
What you can expect is some frolicking, lots of laughter, possibly some tears, and you just get to meet the character, Hannah, and she’s really looking forward to meeting you! She’s very enthusiastic!
The play is an original piece written by you. How did the idea for this script, especially given how you’ve described it, come about, and what was the development process like going from this idea, to it being written, and now on stages around the country?
I love walking in the Yorkshire countryside, and you always see sheep and I always used to be like “look how powerful I am compared to a sheep”, because they just run away, you look at them and they run! Originally, I wondered if I could do some theatre show about a woman who’s really unconfident and then goes and finds confidence by being more powerful than a sheep. I worked on that idea vaguely, but it wasn’t quite coming together, and then I had another character that I’d created for a new writing night in Leeds called Hannah, and she just really wanted to have some friends, and she didn’t have any. I’d done a monologue already for her, the theme was ‘From Darkness to Light’, so I did a piece about someone who was at a rave, her first ever free party, having the time of her life, and then the sun starts to rise, and she’s like “maybe I can’t turn my life around just like that”. It’s that sort of feeling, I thought I’d found the magic secret to everything, and actually maybe not.
So I had this character who I’d loved and I’d written another monologue for her as well because someone suggested for me to put her somewhere you’d never expect, so I was like ‘sex party’? So I already had a few bits of writing for this character and I loved her, so when I went into the devising process with Georgia Murphy, who was the Associate Director at Bolton Octagon, but is just my friend from [Ecole Philippe] Gaulier, we played around with all the ideas that I had and then it was like “what if we fused together those ideas?”. We’ve got Hannah, we’ve got some monologues about her, she struggles to fit in anyway, so what if we have it so it’s not about power over sheep, what if she finds sheep and that helps her find a way of fitting in? So I lost the idea of power over the sheep but I kept the costume because I’d already made it, this proper DIY costume, and I had the character so it was just about putting together some monologues that I had.
And Georgia’s just amazing, she’s just there with Post-It Notes, like “okay, we need a song for this bit, give me a song about why sheep are great”. She just puts me on the spot and so songs were written. She’d say “right, we need something for this moment, some sort of crisis, we need some sort of ‘what would happen if she went to a really awkward party’ ”, and it was all improvised basically, apart from some of the bits I’d already written myself. It’s a mixture of improvised and prepared pieces of writing, and Georgia really helped me pull it all together. It’s all my words, she just sort of nudged me in different directions. I love Georgia, she’s amazing!
The Beauty of Being Herd is touring until October. What are your plans for the show after this tour? Does it have other venues & dates in mind, or something else entirely maybe?
I really want to get some funding so that I can tour it nationally, so I can get a producer. I’d like to do workshops alongside the show, so it’s just finding the money and finding the right people. I’ve got ideas for other shows that I want to do, but I don’t want to say goodbye to this one yet because I really love it. And I haven’t even been to London yet! I’d like to do some of the festivals next year, all I’ve done this year is Greater Manchester Fringe, where I got runner-up for Best Newcomer and Best New Writing, so it’s doing okay.
It seems to be doing really well! I mean it’s still quite an extensive tour you’ve got going on now! You’re going to York, Leeds, Bristol, obviously here in Sheffield as well.
Yeah, it’s good isn’t it! I’m happy with it, but I am, at the moment, a one man-band, I’m doing everything so I don’t have an amazing quality of life, I am a bit obsessed with the show!
Especially taking something that means so much to you on such an adventure, it must be quite taxing
Doing the show is great, I love doing the show. I’m just doing a lot of selling, which is not my area of expertise, so I’m learning a lot as I go.
Speaking of learning, your credits are quite varied, covering pantomime, immersive experiences, film, and of course theatre. How does working in theatre, particularly on an original play, compare to working in other industries?
This has been my dream for years and it’s just taken this long to build up the confidence. This is what I’ve wanted to do so I’m just so buzzing that I’m doing this. But panto definitely feeds into this, because I played the Pantomime Dame so it’s all about audience interactions, so I learnt how to play with the audience and how to adapt for different audiences, which is the same as with street theatre. There’s a lot of pantomime that’s in this show, there’s some mild, optional audience interaction in this as well so. It’s definitely different to screen work, but you have to be real and authentic. Even in panto, you have to find the authenticity and the realness in it, so in the moments when I’m having a sad time or a delighted time, you’ve got to find that realness, whether it’s on screen or on stage.
It’s not just your performance, you’ve got such a wide variety of skills including speaking Indonesian, you’re a qualified massage therapist, stilt walking, acrobalance, open water swimming…the list goes on! Do you practice all of these regularly, and how do you acquire such a wide range of really strange skills?
I know! I keep thinking “one day, will I find the job where everything comes together”!
Maybe you should write a show that brings it all together! It could be your next one!
Yeah, I need to make a show that brings it all together, because the job’s not going to exist out there where you need to be able to speak Indonesian, and all the other stuff, teach children how to ride bikes. So the open water swimming, I started that during lockdown, as did many people and I went to the Lakes in September 2020 with a friend of mine, we swam everyday, and when I came home, I started swimming once a week and that has been one of the most consistent things in my life for the last few years.
And sometimes, I get to Sunday night and I think “shit, I haven’t swum yet this week, I’ve got to go out and swim!”. But it’s something that’s shown me “look Ruth, you can be consistent”, and I just make it happen. I’m at a festival [last] week massaging, so I knew I’d have to go for a swim before I go, so I made sure that I went. I don’t think it’s because I’m a Gemini, but I am a Gemini; it’s good to have a bit of variety!
There’s another part of you which people may not know about, that is that you are a survivor of a brain haemorrhage, which struck you in 2017 when you were 36. I was wondering if you’d be able to share a little bit about that & how it’s affected you & your work since then?
Well, everything had to stop initially. Well initially, I thought I was going to die, but then I didn’t because [surgeons] drilled a hole into my skull and drained off the fluid. I was off work for three months, but I just really wanted to get back to it. I really missed it, I really missed the street theatre, I really missed the audience, I just really really missed it. I didn’t know how long the recovery was going to take because I kept looking online for stories of perimesencephalic subarachnoid brain hemorrhage survivors, and I just couldn’t find any stories, I could only find studies and statistics, but that doesn’t give the full picture.
Eventually, I found some Facebook groups, but then I was like “I want to write my story” so that other people aren’t in the same situation as me, where they’re like “what hope do I have?”. So I wrote my blog about my bleed and my recovery, and its been shared by brain hemorrhage charities in online spaces, and that’s been really great to be able to give that to other people. And people get back in touch saying “Oh, I just feel so reassured having read your story”, and I’m able to give back exactly the thing that I needed but couldn’t get.
That kind of got me writing again and reminded me what I’m all about, which is the same both for massage and for performance really, just so that people don’t feel alone, so people feel cared for and like they matter, which is what a good performer should do; make the audience feel like they matter (and that’s what a good massage therapist should do as well!). I’m going to give you what you need – you ask me for what you need and I will give it to you. If the audience stop laughing, then you stop doing it. If they carry on laughing, you carry on doing it. It’s responding to the audience or to the client.
Thank you for going into that. I know it must be difficult at times
I’m absolutely fine talking about it!
To shift back to The Beauty of Being Herd towards the end, why should people, and our readers, come to see this show?
Here’s where I need a producer to come and give me a flashy answer! I don’t think there’s anything else like this out there. It’s a totally bonkers idea but, at the same time, it’s full of truth, and it’s going to speak to everyone, because we’ve all felt like at times in our lives that we’re not wanted somewhere, we don’t belong, we’re an outsider or we struggle to fit in. We’ve all had that feeling, and this show is about that feeling but it’s funny, it’s silly. It’s like “where did that idea come from”, “it came from my head! What a weirdo I am!”. You should come and see it because even though it’s a story about a woman who goes to live as a sheep, it will speak to you, whoever you are.
I found it very strange when I was doing my devising period because I ended up having two weeks in Swansea with Volcano Theatre, and whilst I was there, I was like “I’m not amazing at organising my time, so I’m going to book in two Zooms a day to share something with someone”, and I’ll hear their thoughts on it, and do it again to see what they think. And I had nearly fifty people, gorgeous people, give me their time for free, watching. It went from middle-aged men to young women, everyone, and I just found it so interesting when I shared one of the pieces. I had this theatre director who I really respected watching, and he said “Yeah, I’ve been there”, and I asked him “you’ve felt that awkward at a party?”, and it really surprised me. There’s something there for everyone. We don’t all fit in all the time, sometimes you just haven’t found your people. It’s for everyone who’s ever been somewhere and thought “these aren’t my people”.
Finally, what would your advice be to prospective playwrights, thespians and everyone else who wants to write their own play but doesn’t know where to start or how to get into the industry? What advice do you have for those people who want to do what you do?
I’m really obsessed with deadlines and accountability. The reason I started this was because there was a new writing night in Leeds, called Leeds Pub Theatre. There was a theme, ‘Darkness to Light’, I had a little nugget of inspiration, and it had to be five minutes long. There was a deadline which I had to get the writing in for, and that’s how I’ve done it – just give myself deadlines. When I was in Swansea and I had booked in those Zooms, I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I knew that someone was going to be there at a certain time, so I had to give them something. You’ve just got to give yourself a deadline, and then you’ll be amazed at what you can do with a bit of accountability, especially if you have someone else who is relying on you.
Those Zooms were bonkers, the people in Swansea had never seen anyone work like this. And for me, I’d tell myself “I don’t want to share this, but people are coming so I’m going to just do it”. Knowing that you’re going to feel horrible and awkward and not wanting to share it, even opening by saying “I hate this, this is a piece of shit, but here it is. It’s in early stages”, but being clear about that and about what feedback you want, such as only ‘What did you like?’ or “Which moments did you feel something’, just being really clear.
But just because you’re feeling rubbish doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. You’re always going to feel rubbish about sharing new work.
Ruth Berkoff is starring as Hannah in the U.K. tour of her original play The Beauty of Being Herd, playing at Crookes Social Club on September 5th
