Interview: Stalking, stereotypes and self-discovery

Gawa Leung discusses Open Source Intelligence and Counterinsurgency for the Jobbing Hater

Gawa Leung is a London-based neurodivergent Chinese actor, writer, photographer, producer and translator. Her show Open Source Intelligence and Counterinsurgency for the Jobbing Hater follows actor Lil as she stalks another actor, Eve, who is the same casting type. This comedy explores jealousy, self-hatred and C-PTSD using a wide range of creative approaches.

Ahead of playing at The Space (19 – 21 June) we sat down with Leung to talk about creating the show, industry stereotypes and exploring difficult issues safely on stage.

I must say your show has an amazing title: Open Source Intelligence and Counterinsurgency for the Jobbing Hater. I wanted to start by asking, what inspired you to write the show?

A lot of it is lived experience. A lot of it is stemming from self-hatred and a lot of the jealousy and anger issues that stem from that shame and self-hatred.

Your main character, Lil, stalks another actor because she thinks they’re the same casting type. Is this a satire on the industry?

It definitely is. It started off as a short piece that is just about how when you’re in a pool of a similar casting type, and especially a casting type that’s quite rarely seen on TV or film or on stage, you feel like the competition is more fierce, at least from your own perspective. You feel, well, there’s only three of us in the industry. One of us is gonna lose out.

Do you find you are invited to audition for similar roles or stereotypical characters?

Absolutely. The funny thing is, Lorraine [Yu], who plays Eve in the show, I cast her in a WhatsApp open casting call, but ever since then, we’ve found ourselves doing the same self-tapes. Sometimes we’re doing self-tapes for different roles, but from the same company. One thing that we do a lot is medical role-play, and we end up in the same room.

Your show combines Muay Thai, Shakespeare, anime music and puppetry. How do you blend all those different performance styles together?

Our show uses a lot of metaphors and distance storytelling. So for example, when we’re exploring Lily’s past we use puppetry to get that sense of distance from that history, because a lot of the time our memories aren’t accurate to begin with. Sometimes it’s very difficult to talk about certain things from a first-person point of view, so we use puppetry. Muay Thai is part of this heightened stylistic conflict between Lily and Eve.

Your show is addressing C-PTSD (Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) which is quite a heavy topic, but it also uses toilet humour, which isn’t so heavy. How do you go about balancing the serious with the not-so-serious?

Humour, a lot of times, for a lot of people who’ve experienced complex trauma, is a coping mechanism to distance themselves from certain things in our past. It’s a defence mechanism to have that layer of pretending that you don’t care, pretending that it’s all fine, and joking about it.

I was worried about walking that fine line of not pathologising people who have been through complex trauma. A little caveat, everyone who’s been through complex trauma is not going to get C-PTSD. I don’t want to pathologise people’s feelings, but also I don’t want to shy away from the more shameful aspects of it. I find that to be very difficult. I hope that we have done it justice, because one person’s experience is not everyone’s experience. It’s a whole spectrum of very different experiences.

You’re exploring some emotionally heavy issues. How do you keep yourself mentally healthy, while getting in touch with those difficult emotions in a safe way?

I have to say, it’s been difficult writing the play and putting it on. We’ve done a short run at Brighton Fringe, and it feels very exposing. It feels very vulnerable, and it nearly sent me into a spiral. For this run at The Space, we’re working with Tricia Gannon from the Artist Wellbeing Company, who’s a licensed therapist, but not acting as a therapist in this regard, just acting as an artist well-being practitioner with all of our cast and creatives who are involved to keep everyone emotionally safe and have that boundary around the process. I found that really helpful.

Our director, Tess [Adèle Glinert] is also great in terms of making sure the rehearsal room is a safe space. One thing that’s really helpful is to put down the writer’s hat once we’ve started rehearsing, to try and stop thinking about how people are going to perceive it and say: “The story’s here, let’s just tell the story.” That’s been a healthy way to try and do that.

You’ve done scratch nights, fringe and now a run in London. How has the show evolved through all these different incarnations?

It started off as a three-page joke about obsessing about another actor, but I tried to dig deeper into why that jealousy is there, and so many different venues to explore opened. I was writing with my friends, and we were doing a lot of exploration around where the show could go. The scratch nights became a way to test out if the jokey bits were working. The more serious stuff only came into being towards the second scratch night. Most of it was explored in the Brighton Fringe version, where we added in the puppetry moment and added in the serious stuff about the main character’s past, but we’re adding even more of that in this version.

You’re a neurodivergent performer. I’m also someone who’s neurodivergent myself. I’m always interested in other creatives’ experience of working in the industry as someone who’s neurodivergent. What’s your relationship to the language around neurodivergence and mental health?

As someone who was diagnosed with ADHD quite late, I found discovering the discussions around neurodiversity really helpful and really validating. In terms of navigating the industry, I find that opportunities are opening up, but it’s still definitely not there yet. I’m seeing more and more stories by neurodivergent creatives, and for neurodivergent creatives and that’s a really hopeful thing, but given the current social climate I’m also really worried about regressing when we’ve barely taken a step forward.

There’s also a sanitised version of that story you can tell. Then there’s also a lot more that we can explore about the actual lived experience of being neurodivergent and the trickier aspect of confronting the less sanitised version of neurodivergent lives and all the whole spectrum of different kinds of neurodivergence.

You are part of a theatre company, Brava Guava, and you describe yourself as a home for “slightly problematic voices”. What does it mean to you to be slightly problematic, and is that politically necessary right now?

Instead of being politically problematic, and trying to offend or stuff like that, what I’m trying to do with Brava Guava is trying to show there’s this model minority myth, especially with East Asians and Southeast Asians. A lot of the time we can perpetrate a lot of harm by trying to serve the status quo, and I want that to be shown. People who have been through trauma sometimes do harm themselves, and I want to be able to show that.

There’s a very fine line that’s very difficult to walk in terms of trying to take the shame away from some of the uglier actions that people who have been through complex trauma might do. Sometimes, if that shame perpetuates it actually makes it harder to break out of the cycle. Then also at the same time, you can’t be excusing those actions, because what is wrong is wrong, and we need to take accountability for that. I find that it’s very important to try and have that conversation and not shy away from the problematic things that we do.

Social media is a part of the show, are you looking at how fandom and obsession work on different social media platforms?

Absolutely, 100%, because there’s a lot of different ways we consume content. Different lengths of attention span that even the same person can have on different platforms. I hope to explore that further in another production. Originally, I was hoping to explore the whole spectrum of online experience, and not just TikTok or Twitter, but also Reddit and online forums and all of the different ways that we engage with the internet. In the end, the storytelling didn’t quite go there, so I couldn’t fit that in. Originally, I was also hoping to have more references to open source intelligence, but it didn’t end up fitting into the story. So that was a shame.

If you had to give Lil one piece of advice as a friend, what would you say? And would she listen?

Oh, would she listen? I might say, try and just sit in the discomfort and explore connecting with your body. It’s something that I’m still discovering myself, so I can’t say that I have the answer, but just sit in the discomfort. I think eventually she will listen, but at the start of the play? Nope. Nope.

Open Source Intelligence and Counterinsurgency for the Jobbing Hater is on at The Space Theatre from the Thursday 19 to Saturday 21 June. Tickets and further information available here.