Tom Holloway - interview

What is Love Me Tender about? How sexuality is infiltrating childhood.

We hear you were inspired by the Euripides play Iphigenia in Aulis, which is about a father who sacrifices his daughter to the gods. The Euripides play is about a father and daughter relationship that is challenged by a father's responsibility to his wider community. I got interested in [whether] today we are ‘sacrificing' a child's ability to grow up normally by putting a lot of pressure on them in terms of sexuality - dolls that wear heels and miniskirts, etc. And how we deal with our children exploring sexuality and how difficult it is to let that happen naturally.

Bushfires also feature prominently... I was writing in Melbourne at the time but this play is not about the Black Saturday bushfires. I did not go out to the community and talk to them like I did for the Port Arthur Massacre in [my play] Beyond the Neck.

The script is exciting but has no actual characters and can be performed by "any number of actors". Please explain. It's about finding a new way to tell stories. There's been a big push away from story the last ten years in this movement called ‘post-dramatic theatre'. They're very fragmented and experimental, these plays. And in Love Me Tender I'm taking what I love about those plays and feeding narrative back into it.

How did you become a playwright? I grew up on Tasmania. I had a great, crazy drama teacher in school who introduced us to playwrights like Sam Shepard. I did the usual thing of thinking I was going to be some great actor and then realised I was totally shit at acting. At that stage there was no professional theatre company in Hobart, it had gone bust, so there were theatres available. A friend wanted to put something on, so I wrote something, and it just kind of snowballed from there. ND

Love Me Tender is a Griffin Theatre co-production with Company B at Belvoir St Theatre, 18 Mar-11 Apr

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