Barry McStay is the writer and star of Breeding which returns with a new production for a four-week run, following its acclaimed world premiere at the King’s Head pub theatre in 2023 as part of Guest Artistic Director Tom Ratcliffe’s A Queer Interrogation season.
Barry McStay and Dan Nicholson (Sleep No More – Punchdrunk, The Man Who Would Be King – Dawn State) will reprise their roles as ‘Eoin’ and ‘Zeb’ respectively, with Offies-award winning actress Nemide May (Foxes, Theatre 503) joining the company as ‘Beth’.
Breeding, written by Barry McStay (Vespertilio) and directed by Tom Ratcliffe (Fame Whore), will play at the King’s Head Theatre from Thursday 21 March – Sunday 14 April.
Breeding returns to the King’s Head Theatre for a new run, how would you describe the play?
A hit with audiences and critics alike when it first opened in 2023, Breeding is a dark romantic comedy telling the story of Zeb and Eoin, a married gay couple, as they navigate the path to adoption alongside their social worker, Beth. With secrets emerging over the course of the play, it turns out that these three people have met each other at a crucial moment in all of their lives.
It begins as seemingly one tale and turns into something very different, unexpected and gripping, asking just how far you’d go to find your perfect family. Breeding is a snappy, contemporary piece and a funny, moving and uplifting story.
What first inspired you to write it?
A couple of gay friends who had been through the adoption process told me just how invasive and lengthy their journeys were. One story particularly stood out, where the couple were taken into separate rooms and quizzed by their social worker on their sex lives, their taste in porn and – like a weird, bureaucratic game of Mr and Mr – what each other’s tastes were too.
This struck me as both very funny and highly exposing, immediately suggesting itself as a scene. I then browsed the adoption workbooks which parents need to fill in, and again they were both unnervingly clinical and accidentally hilarious. A story grew from there and I’m very grateful to the various parents who have shared their highs and lows with me which have helped inform Breeding.
It’s had a few previous iterations, what’s new about this version and what keeps you passionate about telling the story?
The North star for Breeding has always been to tell a story of expectant parents – so often the preserve of straight couples in art – but to centre it on queer people. I wanted audiences to understand just how difficult it can be to have children in non-traditional ways. I wanted to examine the notion of what makes “appropriate” parents – appropriate being quite a loaded term when applied to queer people.
Ultimately, it’s a play about queer lives in the aftermath of “liberation” – after Stonewall, and HIV, and marriage equality. What is the next page in the canon alongside AIDS plays and coming-out plays and chemsex plays? Now we’re “the new normal”, what does that mean and what are our new pathways? Those aims haven’t changed. And while this is a full-heartedly queer play, it is also a play for everyone – these stories are becoming more commonplace, and they need to be shared and seen.
When I first set out to write the play (about 8 years ago!) it was a 2-hander called Zeb And Eoin, with a voiceover serving as The Adoption Panel. It has gradually gained a lot more depth, complexity and a third character in Beth – whose story reveals itself to Zeb and Eoin until she becomes the heartbeat of the piece.
It had a reading in 2022 under the old title, before last year’s premiere as Breeding at the old King’s Head. This new production has an updated script – reordered in places and with a couple of new scenes which we felt would clarify plot lines and deepen the audience’s understanding of all the characters. Even more excitingly, we have a new design team, a new director and a new cast member, with Nemide May joining us as Beth, alongside myself and Dan Nicholson who return as Eoin and Zeb.
It has been so inspiring to hear new ideas, to explore the piece in a new setting, to find new approaches to the same material, to dig deep and find new treasure. And, with it being the first play performed in thrust in the new King’s Head Theatre, we are excited about breaking new ground in that space and channel a sense of intimacy with the audience even as the piece scales up into a shiny new production!
What’s it been like working with director Tom Ratcliffe, who programmed the last run of the show?
I’m genuinely so thrilled to be working with Tom. He’s been a friend of mine for nearly 5 years, and I was already a fan of his work. I had seen his writing in Evelyn and Fame Whore, the latter of which he also directed at the King’s Head. He came to see the 2022 reading of Zeb And Eoin and was very kind about it. In early 2023, I went to Tom’s house for lunch, having sobbed my eyes out at his gorgeous writing and performance in Wreckage at the Turbine Theatre the night before.
Over his kitchen counter, Tom asked if he could programme my own play for his upcoming Queer Interrogation season as Guest Artistic Director of the King’s Head. It was my first play to be programmed outside of a festival setting and a great vote of confidence. So when Tom’s name came up as a possible director for this new production, it made so much sense – as someone with deep links to the King’s Head, who I admire as an artist deeply and who has a heartfelt love of this play.
Already he has sparked new ideas in me, honing the dramaturgy of this new draft. He has assembled a brilliant design team who are all singing from the same vibrant hymn sheet. And his work with us in the room as actors has been rigorous, intuitive and caring – hardly surprising given his own multi-hyphenate experience in theatre. I feel like the play is in very safe hands and I can just focus on my performance. As well as which, he has the best and dirtiest laugh of anyone I know so it’s always great making him guffaw in the rehearsal room.
You also perform in the play, what do you enjoy most about performing your own work?
My plays usually start with a small idea for a story and I find my way through that story via the dialogue. And as an actor who writes, I always strive for that dialogue to be natural, sparky and very playable.
So getting a chance to see if I’ve succeeded in my goal is definitely a bonus – and if I’m not enjoying saying the words, at least I can change them! I’ve not actually performed my own work all that often! I trained as an actor and when I started writing, I consciously decided I didn’t want to be in my first couple of plays. I wanted to hone my skill as a writer before attempting both roles. But I knew I would want to double-job at some point and I very much wrote the role of Eoin thinking “I could definitely play this guy”.
Performing in the 2023 production of Breeding was a great challenge as the script was still being heavily worked on through rehearsals and previews so, in many ways, this time feels like a bit of a release! The great work that we did last year, with then-director Matthew Iliffe, gave me a great foundation and the new draft feels strong. It means I can really dig in as an actor, which is very freeing.
As much as possible, I’m approaching it as if it’s a play I’ve been given rather than one I’ve written. That’s allowing me to discover stuff even I hadn’t fully understood I was doing as a writer – proving, of course, that the truth of plays is discovered through play!
What would you say to anyone thinking of booking to see Breeding?
It’s really good! I think I’m allowed say that! As an artist, it’s nice to occasionally feel confident in my work – especially when I’ve been blessed with so many talented people who have helped get Breeding to where it is now.
The team of designers, directors and actors who have forged this show are all fantastic and I can’t wait for their work to get in front of an audience. I’ve already said why I’m passionate about this story and why it’s important, but the first thing is that it has to be a good story. And it is.
The 75 minutes are filled with moments of joy and despair, laughter and tears – sometimes within the same scene. I promise if you book to see Breeding, you’ll be entertained, moved and, most of all, you’ll be glad you came and shared this journey with Zeb, Eoin and Beth. Their story is one worth hearing.
