Love, loss and the last days of humanity – why ‘A Pineapple’ is a must-see play

If you like a good a good dystopian drama which takes you somewhere strangely familiar, then Olivia Mace’s new play A Pineapple should be on your must-see list.

It takes the audience on a trip to the future; what our lives might be like? Will global warming finally take hold? Who will be in power? What will we eat? 

It is set decades into the future, the planet is rocked by a perpetual storm. Survivors are placed in government issue pods to match their wealth and live in isolation to await gradual extinction. Remind you of Covid?

The pod is all Nia has ever known. When her grandmother Connie decides that her time might be coming to an end, this isolation ends and with it, a world unexplored, is unlocked.

Olivia Mace’s Pineapple at 53two

Mace’s play arrives at 53two in April. Director Simon Naylor said: ‘‘ A Pineapple’ is unlike anything I’ve ever read before. Olivia has managed to create a truthful world in a fictional future, that is so multi-layered, it’s one of the most gripping plays I’ve ever read. Perfect for 53two and with the help of venues like The Dukes theatre, who were there at the first read, it will propel us to the next step in producing new writing.”

Interview with Olivia Mace

We caught up with Olivia to find out more about the play, writers she admires, why she loves 53two and how she wants to buck the trend with her version of the dystopian drama.

How did you start writing?

I was an actor first and wrote myself a one woman show and performed it at the Vault Festival. I invited a producer along in the hope they’d offer me the chance to extend it.  Instead, they invited me to write a new play. I wrote a piece of promenade theatre for four actors and about an hour in, I realised this was all I ever wanted to do.

What writers do you admire and why?

I’ll never tire of Shakespeare. He drops you straight into a world and within a minute the ground is shaking. I adore Arthur Miller.  The Crucible and A View From the Bridge are still incredibly relevant.  How are all these plays still speaking to us after so many years? I do read the works of living people too!

When you write something, what comes first the plot or the characters?

Characters stuck with a set of circumstances.  And these characters sit in my head, stuck in their situations for ages, before I write anything down. They come with me to work and follow me around the house, until I realise what needs to happen. And then we start.

How did you come up with the idea for A Pineapple?

In the early days of Covid I read an article about the first city in China to go into lockdown.   I thought about families living in complete isolation and wondered what it would be like to be born into that, and grow up knowing nothing else. I sat with that idea for a while, then the character Nia wandered into my mind and I just wrote down everything she said.

The best dystopian stories never seem that far away from the truth. Is that how you see this one?

All too often, dystopias are a bit glamourised. My beef with apocalypse movies is that humanity always gets wiped out in one big blast, leaving a couple of sexy people to roam the planet with machine guns. It won’t be like that.  It will be slow.  And there will be paperwork.  In A Pineapple climate change has made the planet uninhabitable and the surviving people of the UK have resigned themselves to something called ‘Gradual Extinction’.   This is a dystopia managed by civil servants.  The real stuff of nightmares!

What was the last thing you saw on stage that you loved and why?

Princess Essex at Shakespeare’s Globe. It was a beautiful piece of storytelling and importantly it really used that iconic space so well.  I love productions that embrace both their space and audience.  They’re intrinsically linked.

What do you like about 53two?

There’s love in the walls of that theatre. It’s great to work with a venue that serves its community and champions artists. It’s a place for everyone.  As a theatre should be.

Tickets for A Pineapple at 53two

A Pineapple is at 53two from 23^rd April – 3^rd May and tickets are now available here. BSL / Captioned shows will take place at 53two on: Monday 28^th April at 7:30pm and Thursday 1^st May at 7:30pm

It is being performed for night on 7^th May at the Lawrence Batley Theatre. You can get tickets here 01484 430 528. It then it moves to The Dukes Lancaster on 8^th & 9^th May. You can get tickets here or call 01524 598 500