Inspired by the events of and around the Depp v Heard Defamation lawsuit, The Defamation by Jen Tucker visualises an afterlife where a woman’s fate is decided by trial. But something is rotten in this court. When Charity, loosely based on Heard herself, arrives in the afterlife and encounters several of Shakespeare’s heroines, the true injustice of the court is revealed as patterns begin to emerge. Written in blank verse and combining past and present in a thought-provoking collision, The Defamation explores the treatment of women in the legal arena in the 17th and 21st centuries alike.
The production is the inaugural adventure for Itchy Feet Theatre Ltd, a nomadic production company dedicated to platforming queer artists and promoting non-traditional work which questions the world it portrays.
‘I wrote The Defamation during an exam period during which I was writing about Amber Heard for a Language and Feminism module, as well as Hermione from The Winter’s Tale for an Early Modern Drama module. It struck me how linguistically and thematically similar these women’s experiences were in the legal and domestic spheres, and I felt compelled to write a play where these women could coexist. I feel passionately about placing real female conversations onstage and demonstrating the beauty of genuine female friendships, which is something I don’t feel we see often enough.
I think we’re at a turning point as an online society in terms of how much we believe dominant discourses we see online. I want The Defamation to encourage people to think for themselves about women like Amber Heard who’ve become online pariahs; for me, the play’s feminist impulse comes purely from its insistence to view women as people who can be flawed and deserving of respect at the same time.’
Jen Tucker, Writer and Director of The Defamation The Defamation’s 2023 production features a cast and team of recent graduates and early-career artists. Itchy Feet Theatre hopes to continue creating ground-breaking work with early-career theatre makers; contact the company at
info@itchyfeettheatre.co.uk or on Instagram at
@itchyfeettheatre with any enquiries!
The Defamation will be performed at Applecart Arts, E6 1BX, from the 1st-4th November at 7.45pm.
Run time: 60 minutes.
Tickets can be found
here.
