The Palsy Podcast - Episode 14 - Athena Stevens

Ciaran is joined on Episode 14 of The Palsy Podcast by playwright and actor Athena Stevens. Athena is an American playwright, author and actor currently based in London. Athena talks about her experience as a writer, not only of plays, but also her memoir 'What's Done Cannot Be Undone.' She is currently studying for a Masters in Psychology at Havard University. 

What's Done Cannot Be Undone

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Hello and welcome to the Pulsey podcast with me here in the show. I will play like uh um the podcast Soy Winners. I decided to interview interesting people who have so many every day and if you like this episode, please take a look throughout the month and like and share now. Enjoy this episode of the Palsy Podcast. Hello and welcome to the Palsy Podcast with me, Keelan Fitzgerald. This is episode, what episode we are now, episode 14 of the Palsy Podcast. Um, raising awareness of South Palsy for Silver Palsy Awareness fans every day in March. Uh and today I'm delighted to be joined by someone who was on my list at the beginning of this project, so I wanted to get one from so I'm so glad she said yes to doing it. Um I think to call you just a playwright is a bit reductive because of the amount of stuff you've done. But I'm delighted to be joined by Athena Stevens. Hi Athena, thank you so much for doing this.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

Hi, thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

We've got so much to go through and very little time. I'm so grateful to you to for being on. But to start off I wanna kick off of what I kick off with every episode. Like what was it like growing up with cerebopalsy?

SPEAKER_02 1:57

Gosh, you know, when you said that is how you kick it off at that one unique cerebopolity question because it is known as the most common childhood disability and there's something so childhood center about it. Um what was it like? And then on the one hand, the answer is probably gonna be what m most people say I didn't know any different.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:35

Um, but it was I was forced to grow up very, very quickly, I would say. Um there were moments where I felt like, you know, this is under control and this is fixable for lack of a better word. You know, I'll need RAMs, I'll need computers, but it it's something where the solution is in sight. And there were uh other moments where you felt like, oh my god, there's no end to this until I die. Um and of course as an adult it is both.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

Yeah, I and like what's the moment when you first realized that you were different to your peers?

SPEAKER_02 3:36

Like I don't it's interesting because the moment I realized I was different to my peers is probably not what uh one would think. And that is I was shipped out of my regular education and into special education immediately. Um and I would play in the class with severely, severely cognitively disabled children. And uh it was children that were massively different to me, and I knew and I had language from about the age of four that that wasn't right, and that I was learning much faster. Well, I was learning, and I was learning much faster than everyone else. So my yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

Is that because the school system in America is different to what we have in the UK, or was it just a practice than for people with CP to go into specialized education rather than mainstream school?

SPEAKER_02 5:05

So I've spoken a lot to lawyers and solicitors about this. Um now you have to fight to get your child into special educational services. Yeah. Thirty-five years ago, full forty years ago, you had to fight to get them out.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Right.

SPEAKER_02 5:33

So that's one of the big differences, and from my understanding, it's like that in the UK too. So it's not unique to America. The fight has literally flipped flopped from getting people into regular education that needed to be in regular education to getting people out of regular education into special services.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

And there needs to be a middle ground, right? Because uh disabled people need that support and it shouldn't be an IO, it shouldn't be a binary thing.

SPEAKER_02 6:19

Yeah. Yeah, it's of course, but we don't seem to be able to land in that middle ground. We just like to swing opposite ways. You know, and they tell us that we're the ones with the erratic movement. Have you seen UK politics lately?

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Let's not get into that because it's God. It's it's it it's fact, basically, it's it's all falling apart. But like for you that must have been so frustrating to be in a specialist classroom and knowing that you weren't you were able to then you should have been in mainstream.

SPEAKER_02 7:04

Massively. And it was massively isolating because I d would excel at what we would now roughly call masking. So the perfectionism that was placed upon me and I adopted myself to avoid being sent back to special education was massive. Um because just getting a wrong answer on an exam felt existential because it felt like in to be fair, it was reality, they were looking for reasons to disend me that special ed all the time.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

And guy, I I can identify with a lot of that that feeling of wanting to feeling that you've got to prove yourself every time that you deserve to be in the same room as neurotypical people. Or and having this almost imposter syndrome because visibly you stand out and physically you think people are gonna think are I on the right track here.

SPEAKER_02 8:31

I don't know if it was imposter syndrome because I always knew I was smart and capable. It was just extreme pressure.

SPEAKER_01 8:47

And go back to my question. And when you managed to get into the mainstream classroom, what was that feeling like for you? What did you begin to enjoy? What did you excel at in school?

SPEAKER_02 9:02

I loved it. Um I, you know, I had boys who had questions on me. I was class president at the age of ten. Um I really thrived. Um, you know, one of your questions is, were you bullied? No, not by the other kids at all. Part of that is we had a huge, huge immigrant community in Chicago. So in the school district was about 65% first generation and second generation Jewish immigrants. Right. So they came from European backgrounds where, you know, great young Golder was sent to die in the heart. So there was no tolerance at all for bullying amongst the kids. Um I d I actually, you know, maybe someone will disagree. I don't remember anyone really being bullied on the front of. It just wasn't tolerated. Now that the administration were nasty and looking for ways to make my life miserable, but not the other students.

SPEAKER_01 10:41

That's that's really interesting and quite different from the other experience I get from.

SPEAKER_02 10:47

Yeah, I mean I often get and like when people ask me this, I'm like, you realize you're sticking your foot in it. I'm thinking, well you must have been bullied all the time as a kid. And I'm like, so basically what you're saying is, if I knew you as a kid, I would bully you. Because there's something to make.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

Um, so when when did writing come into your life? When did you start writing? When did you just go that it was something you enjoyed and something that you were good at?

SPEAKER_02 11:31

Well, uh, I always joke that when I was born, my dad held me to the sun like the beginning of The Lion King and said, She will be a rider. Um, my dad actually, when I was three, I really wanted to keep a journal. And so my dad, because he had to be like twenty nine and maybe thirty, um, cut dication for my journal when I was three. And so we have a journal that I wrote that is in my dad's handwriting from the time I was three. Um and what a three year old I do journal about. I think a journal is about like wanting to be an archaeologist and w watching Indian Germanies and um child of the eighties that I am. But you know, even from that age, when you think about it, it's really remarkable that you have this adult man taking temptation from a girl about her hopes and dreams and thoughts. Um but I remember that vividly and so I never doubted that I would be a writer. In fact, I specifically did not take writing classes at college because I wanted to use my educational opportunities to become a professional performer because I already knew I knew how to write.

SPEAKER_01 13:45

So had you done much uh acting before university or was in college that you discovered acting and added up to what you're doing.

SPEAKER_02 13:55

I I was always a performer and that really is like my primary love because uh writing feels like so much biologically a part of me that it's not really an effort.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

Um so I was always performing, but I didn't really have the opportunity to pursue it s and to pursue it at a level that I found acceptable until you and I'm guessing that was because of structural abolitionism.

SPEAKER_02 14:42

Yeah, and it's very clearly read my memoir. Um in a bit in a in a way, it's a bit silly that he's interviewing me. Because you can find all the answers if you just read my book. But yes, um I was yes. I was not allowed to um be in ballet classes, which is a very, very American girl thing to do, um uh because ballet teachers didn't know how to teach me. I was never selected for the school musical. Um I really I kind of used the fact that I got um the opportunity for private education to go, I'm gonna take acting classes and there's nothing I can do about it. Nothing you can do about it, but rather because I'm paying you to it then. Um I did.

SPEAKER_01 16:03

And like I I that that attitude of I'm going to do anyway. Like it it is so important, I think. Because so often as disabled people as people see me, we get told, no, you can't do that. No, that's not accessible. No, you shouldn't be in these faces. You've gotta say, no, this is what I want to do. That takes a lot of energy, physical and mental energy.

SPEAKER_02 16:34

I don't know what I'm saying here, but like it you've And it does really weird things to your brain, and I can say that now because I'm studying neuropsychology, so it really does do weird things to your brain.

SPEAKER_01 16:52

And like on on the topic of writing, like what was your first play and how did you come to write it? So are you talking about my first professional play or like Well, I I was thinking about this myself, like I was writing a question at the top my first play was absolutely terrible and no one saw. Anyway, well, maybe the first thing you were proud of, the first thing you've written, the first play you wrote that you were reading.

SPEAKER_02 17:25

So the first play that I wrote professionally, kind of how I made my debut in London. Because don't forget I came to London to be an actor and a playwright.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

How did you come to move to England and what was that process like?

SPEAKER_02 17:52

So I went to a very small lib what they call a liberal arts college in the US, which is where you basically learn how to think. Um and you take ever you specialize in one subject, but you you're still taking math and science and language and everything. But half of your classes are in what's calling your major. Um tiny little liberal art college that I majored in theater. Um had the financial resources to win a bid against Harvard and the Ives to give the Royal Saints Field Company over to do a residency in the uh the tiny little Liverpool College in North Carolina. Royal Saints Field Company was like, uh, we were really looking for, you know, Harvard, but here we are Davidson. Um, and I was a theater major already, left theater, always in the theater building, um, and I basically made myself indispensable while the Royal Shakespeare Company was in residency, to the point that the dreaded Dominic Cook um saw something that I dreaded and went, You're coming over to London because you had the chops to make it.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 19:51

Um, and I am forever in his debt. And so I came, I got my master's in creative entrepreneurship, I started a production company, um, and I finally went, I can write. No one's writing plays for me. Um, I really wanted to perform uh and I can do this. So in 2011 I have my first fan called The Amazing Vinchetti Sisters. Takes place in the Mojave Desert. Um is weird and wonderful and crazy. At the end of it, um the elder sister sets fired the home with the creme bret torch. Um very, very, very um I didn't know it at the time, but very Sam Shepherd. Right, okay. Um just that kind of weird Western what the hell is going on, and I wrote it because my family lived out in Vegas. And so it was a positive kind of environment because I knew the American West so well.

SPEAKER_01 21:35

Yeah. And that was part of the motivation that you've briefly touched on it. You there weren't parts for you to play.

SPEAKER_02 21:45

Yeah, it was a vehicle for m me to be a performer. And I think on the whole, just that everything I've written is a vehicle for my performer. And and then is it as another life, the performance of others. Um I really love performing. Um and I don't get to do it enough. And it's the same because I think that we should be allowed to be jobbing at us and being so that we don't have to be the central motor of we shouldn't have to write all our damn plays. We shouldn't have to produce everything. We should be allowed to be in advertisements. Do not come.

SPEAKER_01 22:53

They don't. I I'm as a writer you're probably up against this. Well I'm gonna jump into one of the questions to try it later, actually, because I I think that there's this expectation that disabled writers very often expected to write exclusively about their own experiences and their own trauma, more so than non-disabled writers. I think you see this also with writers from the other underrepresented communities. And I I really think we need to reshape this in the industry.

SPEAKER_02 23:34

Yeah, I mean I try on the whole to write about universal things. So if there is something when there is something disability related, um it better be part of the universal human condition. Um so I'm not interested in plays that are just about disability. I try to use the disability as a metaphor for something else. And I think also like you've read my book, so maybe you can say no and say now you've got this wrong. But I'm interested in adding to a literary canon. I'm not interested in uh writing about identity politics at all. Um, and so if I have an experience of being excluded at school, let's say, I want to tap into everyone else who has had that experience, which is everybody. I really because my disability was caused by someone else, because it isn't a genetic thing, it's not part of me. Yes, it shaped my character, but it's not found in my core identity. So I'm not interested in playing identity politics.

SPEAKER_01 25:32

That's really interesting. But I think this could be a podcast in itself. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:42

Probably there's a lot of people yelling at me, but what else can we do?

SPEAKER_01 25:47

Well, if this is the episode it gets me cancelled by the disabled community. So But I think it's really interesting that people have different like approaches to it as well.

SPEAKER_02 25:59

Yeah, it is I think it is different than many identities out there where you go. This is how I am. Uh this isn't a genetic thing. This my condition was caused by someone making bad choices. Yeah. Yeah. And so it can not be part of my identity.

SPEAKER_01 26:28

And and how does that the idea the idea of being caused by medical not the idea, but the fact that your CP, my CP also for the record was caused by medical malpractice. Like, how does that affect you and how does that define your existence? Like, maybe you've covered it already.

SPEAKER_02 26:54

That's a great question. Um, I am very aware of complicity. I am very cautious when it comes to the British attitude of oh we'll just hope for the best and think positive thoughts. Yeah, no. Um, I'm also very well aware of statistics and being outside that standard deviation that has gotten worse since I've uh been uh studying at Harvard because now I've taken like full statistical analysis. Um but I will not just sit there and hope for the best. And that flies in the face of so much of the English culture.

SPEAKER_01 28:03

I'm glad you left the Welsh after it.

SPEAKER_02 28:08

Very, very aware that it's not the British culture, it is the English culture. Um yeah, I'm keenly aware of that. So it is also not the Irish culture or the Scottish culture, so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:26

But his attitude of let's keep doing the same thing over and over again. Exactly. Um So let's talk about the memoir then, because you're probably aware of my obviously read it. You mentioned it maybe say like why it was published last year. So why now? Why did you decide to write this? But now, why did you need to write this? No.

SPEAKER_02 29:00

Um so it's funny, the memoir is called What's Done Cannot Be Undone, it's published by Herbert Collins. Those of you in America that are listening to this, it's actually coming out in two weeks' time in America, so it's available worldwide and an audiobook as well. Um when Harvard Collins came to me, I explicitly said I don't want a memoir. And so we were going to do a wonderful historical research nonfiction book. And my publisher, Albert Collins, said, Don't write it yet, let me get you money for research. And then she was there's no money for research. Um and within that time between Don't Write It Yet and There's No Money, I was working with Andre Dubuse, who is a fabulous American writer. Um via the Arts Council. And I was working with him as a mentor, but also the project was for me to start typing with one finger and learn how to write creatively via someone else taking dictation. Um and even then I was like, I don't want to write a memoir. And the reason why I will just say is there's a lot, and by a lot, I'm gonna insult some people because I've never seen it. There's a lot of crap and memoirs out there written by disabled people.

SPEAKER_01 31:17

They are not well edited, they are not well written, they do not have a good song arc, and they don't understand- Are you are you are you talking about inspiration poems?

SPEAKER_02 31:32

Yes. Um but also they d they don't understand the difference between an autobiography and a memoir. An autobiography is a timeline of events. A memoir is about a thematic cohesion within the piece. Right. Um and so you get a nice little timeline. And you also have never had a memoir that I've seen at least, about someone dealing with the reality that their disability was caused by other people's actions. You know, it usually is, oh I got hit by a drunk driver and that sucks by everything in Greek now. I'm a talent by Catholic. Full set. Um and so I really did not want to write it. And I wrote a piece for Andre. Um and he said, you know, Dana, I think I really think it was a memoir in you. And it was like, yeah, yeah, everyone said that I don't do it right when they could crap. Um but then the disaster with Shakespeare's Glove happened. And that resulted in his own lawsuit. And that really was the first time for me personally that I said, I am not going to fix your mistakes as an institution for you. And so was up until that point in my life I did everything possible to avoid conflict. That was the first time that I ever went, no, you felt about you need to deal with it. You need to deal with it. And with that, every soy needs either a false friend or a false ally. Okay, there's one of the stories that's one of the things that a story needs. So, you know, several sniped in Harry Potter is a perfect example. You think he's a bad guy, and he's a good guy. Um Doss Vader is another example, you think he's a bad guy, he's a good guy. You've got loads of people that you think are good guys in the double agents. And so all of a sudden with that, I had my false friend. I was an associate artist at the globe, and was working to make theater a benefit place. They dropped the ball in really big ways that are very public. So nothing I am saying is a scandal. And I went, if this is the false friend, I can build a story that how I learned that it's not my job to fix everything. Is that what is fine of the story?

SPEAKER_01 35:32

It's God, it's it's so b there's so much to discuss here because it's endemic. What you discuss in the book is endemic to society, to the way the world functions.

SPEAKER_02 35:45

Well, in the way that we are trained and disable people to function.

SPEAKER_01 35:52

Yeah, yeah. And to accept when you say bad treatment, negligently. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:00

Yeah. And to make it better and to fix other people's mistakes.

SPEAKER_01 36:09

And and that was one of the things that hit me was how much I related to what you were writing about. To be like we've talked about performing and acting, and to be forced to perform every day as a disabled person. That's alright. That that doesn't quite suit my needs, but that's alright. I'll manage. I'll it's fine.

SPEAKER_02 36:32

It's fine, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:34

And that takes so much energy, and eventually one thing leads to another, and it all gets too much and unmanageable and oh it's unsustainable.

SPEAKER_02 36:46

I mean, there's a reason why I'm studying neuropsychology now, which I'm so we'll get on to in a minute. But it's completely unsustainable and we are being trained like puppies to take on a load that is not easy to take on.

SPEAKER_01 37:11

So what specifically are you looking at within your masters? So, um that's a lot.

SPEAKER_02 37:23

No, I mean I think this is fair. I went. So in part of the lawsuit um with the globe, we got a document that was their argument against us. And number one argument was it is admitted that Athena Stevens is terrible Paul Bay. Number two, it is not conceded that Athena Stevens has a neurological condition. What? What? Makes that make sense. Well, I ended up going to Harvard to make it make sense and you know somebody needs to take my degree, in my opinion. That is what drove me to go to Harvard. Because uh I was being gasless or I'm gaslighting myself because I would say like, what am I missing? Very full body is a brain injury. You can't admit that and then say there's no neurological condition. And I received this letter the day after my 39th birthday. So I was like, here we are, 39 years later, and we're still arguing about what happened to me 39 years ago. Um, so I got angry. Um, and Harvard Extension School is a school within Harvard that you don't have to apply. You earn your way in. You take three courses and if you get a good enough grade in those three courses, you're in hybriding in the program. Um and it's almost all online. And so I was so despondent at that point, and that was the only time in my life where I felt stupid. Um, the only time that I was like, I want to study this, I don't know if I'm smart enough. Right. I'm gonna start auditing these Harvard classes and see if I can make it. Um I can make it as it ends up. Um so my I am now starting to research my thesis. Um this kinetic cerebral poly is makes up between 20 and 30 percent of c all cases of cerebral poly out there is a weird one because everyone thinks that if you have cerebral poly, you you have static cerebral poly, which is the cortex. We're special. Uh we have the basal ganglia, and the basal ganglia is that inner stem of the brain, which is actually five parts of the brain at least, um that is its own circuit. It's basically I call it the King's Cross of the Brain, because there's systems going in and out and around, and what we realized, which we didn't know when we were children, is it affects behavioral emotion and of course physical. So all about you know, oh, there's nothing wrong with your mind. Uh the this stuff wrong with your body is actually bullshit.

SPEAKER_01 42:08

Of course it is, because that explains why I get emotional more easily than the research people. Yes, it does. Very, very happy and excited, but also very, very depressed and upset. Yeah, it's very difficult to regulate.

SPEAKER_02 42:26

And that that really is my the the hardware I've begun to study is I'm looking at emotional regulation and patal ganglia injury. And then also I'm looking at this thing called aboulia, um which is uh different than depression, but it's been classified in depression for a long time and it's an absence of will. Right. So um it's an absence of initiative towards will. So you might want to write a story, but you can't get going because there's no fuel in the gas tank. So um the way I describe it is it's like um the Hilly Party scene in the last bug when they see Voldemort on platform nine and three cards and it's just white. There's no stimulus at all. Um, and it can edge into a functional catatonia. Um So it's I'm looking at the reality of where this depression and this lack of initiative comes from. And guess what? It's not depression. It's not because we can't ride a bike. It's it's actually physiological.

SPEAKER_01 44:26

Um so from it's can that from birth it's present from birth.

SPEAKER_02 44:34

Yeah, I mean all that like I said, all of that, oh mentally they're fine. No, they're not. And then psychologists say, oh, you're you're depressed because you can't do what you're supposed to. No, there's there's physiological brings gently read reasons, including impaired dopamine production that might be causing it.

SPEAKER_01 45:09

That is so inter so much so much that's so interesting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:14

My next book, I hope, is actually studying my brain and going, what isn't affected by this brain injury? And of course, having a brain injury and studying the brain at all is its own wonderful story.

SPEAKER_01 45:42

I'm really looking forward to reading it. Please let me know when it's out and I will let everyone else know. And good luck with with the rest of working out. And it's been a fascinating conversation. I've really enjoyed this.

SPEAKER_02 45:55

I'm really so glad that we could catch up.

SPEAKER_01 46:00

If we wait too long, um the last question, which now feels a bit reductive because of the conversation we've had, is what is one thing you wish people knew about CP?

SPEAKER_02 46:16

Yeah, I think it's that. I think it's it's the whole it's the whole brain. And I wish people knew this about the brain as well. We are meant to be full, complete human beings. It's like you can't just change one thing about the brain. And that goes for you don't like your players that are having head injuries. That goes with ADHD, autism, all of it. Like, there's no such thing of she has a normal brain. Except you can't isolate the seed of what it means to be human like that, I don't think. And so if someone just has the physical disability of stable volume, or just has all to them, you're not looking good enough. You're not looking well enough.

SPEAKER_01 47:44

Well, thank you so much for your time. It's been a genuine pleasure to talk to you and thank you for contributing to this and hopefully this conversation will continue. Um, and I can ask people for any questions that they've got and I can answer them in the next two episodes or ask them to my future guests. But Athena, thank you so much for your time today. I'm glad that could be here. Uh that's all for this episode of Proposed Podcast. Please uh stay tuned on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for more episodes going out every day throughout the month of March. Um got some exciting guests coming up in the next few days. Got Lizzie Annis, who is another actor. Very like creative heavy uh I've seen so far. Lizzy, you know something about that, Athena. Do you know if there's anything like biologically which means that people would see people likely to be creative?

SPEAKER_02 48:53

So I do know I have seen studies, particularly with disconnected self apologies, that if cognition isn't detracted they are more likely to be linguistically above average.

SPEAKER_01 49:13

That's really interesting.

SPEAKER_02 49:15

And then the question is, is that because the brain is being re-related with the myelination or is that because we are more dependent on language at an early age compared to, you know, children that can do third camera syndrome than punch people.

SPEAKER_01 49:43

Yeah. Well, yeah, that's that again is really interesting in terms of not having that memory, having to rely on language dad. But yeah, as I was saying, a lot of creatives we've interviewed already and lots coming up, so yeah, please tune in for those. But um, for now, it's goodbye for me and goodbye from a Cena. Goodbye. Bye, see ya. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Palsy Podcast with me, Hugh and Fitzgerald. I want to thank my guests for joining me, and I hope that you'll stay tuned for the next episode. Thank you.