FEATURED interview
Interview: Odyssey Theatre's Laurie Steven Talks About THE GIRL WITH NO HANDS
Odyssey Theatre’s Theatre Under the Stars premieres its new play, The Girl With No Hands, this weekend at Strathcona Park. I was lucky enough to sit down with Laurie Steven, the show’s writer and director, to get a deeper understanding of the story, its inspiration and some of the design elements and characters that bring it to life.
I understand that The Girl With No Hands is based on a Brothers Grimm folktale. Can you tell me a little bit about the story and what inspired you to do this adaptation?
I read the story years ago. Most folktales have a male hero, so I was delighted to see that The Handless Maiden had a female heroine. In the original story, the girl with no hands has an unpleasant father and a deal is made with the devil who takes her hands. The story deals mostly with trauma and a pathway to redemption. The story was quite popular in the 1980s and, now looking back on it, I can see how wonderful the handless maiden is as a representation for what women have to conquer in society in order to get ahead. Despite this, the original story still has an underlying message that kind men will give her what she needs; first, the king who married her, and then after she escapes with her baby into the forest, a
woodsman takes her in and grows her hands back. I asked myself; how do I see a feminine path to healing and empowerment? I started with a heroine who is mad, instead of a kindly girl who just accepts things. My maiden doesn’t want to get married and have kids. I also found it interesting that, in the original story, the devil just disappears whereas, in real life, our demons don’t disappear; we have to deal with them.
In what other ways does The Girl With No Hands differ from the Grimm fairy tale?
My girl starts out no hands and is traumatised by the experience. She goes into an imaginary world, where her demons follow her and she has to confront them. When she comes back, she still with no hands, but she has a different outlook and is now ready to face the future.
When you start writing you are supposed to ask yourself, what are the strengths of your heroine? I said, I’ll bet if she has no hands, she has channelled her energy into her imagination, and her stories have kept her afloat. Now she goes into a real, but imaginative world where she has to face unexpected challenges and that might be a way to empower her. But the imaginative world she goes into won’t be a fairy tale world. I tried to think of the type of world that might represent her life. I thought she might go into a post apocalyptic world and when she gets there, she is going to find out her journey isn’t going to be easy and there are people who need her help to save the kingdom from a mysterious substance.
As I wrote, the piece got further and further away from original story and became both more fun and more serious. I read the tale many times for inspiration when I started writing, but then I let it go so I could focus on this story, which has taken on a life of its own.
Read the full interview here.
