Otherwise

cast of October 2009 production

Otherwise opens with Harry Holland being interviewed in a police cell. It is the morning after a heavy night, one that Harry can’t quite remember. He isn’t sure what he’s done, but in re-telling the parts he can still recall, he tries desperately to control his account of events and ensure that he gets away with whatever he’s done. But his battle for control is doomed to failure as everything unravels, and he finds that he is fighting with his own memory for the life of the woman he loves.

Gytha collected the Geoffrey Whitworth Trophy in 2009, the prestigious prize awarded to the best new play from all the drama festivals across Britain each year. Her winning piece was The Funeral of Macie Loverett, also premiered in Girton. It was tagged as a play about “Death, relationships, feuding families, potato salad… and a bit more death.”

“It isn’t just about death, and it certainly isn’t about gore,” Gytha says. “My last full-scale production achieved a body count of thirteen, but I deliberately kept six of those off-stage, and it was Renaissance Italy. Really, it’s just that I love taking characters and putting them into strange situations. Everything has been caused by people and their different aims, desires, frustrations and secrets. But the events end up controlling them in return, and it’s extremes and breaking-points that interest me the most. I always wonder what I would do if something horrific happened and I felt like I was to blame, or if someone betrayed me totally.”