Laurie Ward and Charli Cowgill’s theatrical reputation precedes them like a glittery, glamorous monster. The first I hear of them is from a friend, who reverently recalls the first iteration of 52 Monologues for Young Transsexuals at the Corpus Playroom in June 2022 as the “most intense and beautiful show” they’d ever seen, necessitating hours of processing afterward. Indeed, speaking to Cowgill and Ward about their process and impetus for creating theatre makes evident their many layers, which in turn inform the theatre they create together. Under their newly formed collective “Nothing More to Say”, they recently brought 52 Monologues… to the Vault Festival in London for a successful fringe rerun. We sat down before their London run and after the premiere of Scratch Me (a night of new writing) to dissect and discover why they make theatre.

They first met working on a student theatre production. They’d been forewarned by mutual friends that they were cut from the same cloth; this is evident in the way they finish each other’s sentences and in their cohesive vision for the devised theatre they create. What is that theatre? It’s in-your-face, vulnerable, exhilarating, exhausting, rambunctious, and debauched. In turns, and at once.

“We get real pleasure from never letting the audience know where they’re going next”

It’s a theatre of flowers inserted up the ass onstage, of a cup of communal saliva collected from the audience at the door which is then flung in the performer’s faces, of audience participation in the “Allyship Games” to test the limits of their liberalism – if answers are unsatisfactory, you might just get left on stage alone whilst Ward runs to the bar demanding a shot of tequila before she continues performing. In many ways, their use of shock as a performance vocabulary is illustrative of the tension that Ward and Cowgill relish exploring.

That tension manifests as the destabilising sensation of laughter caught in the throat: a tenderness interrupted by extravagance which mirrors the dichotomy of life as trans women. Cowgill mentions that the most “insidious response” she has had to her existence as a trans woman has been from “politically liberal” folks: who’ll smile at her, use she/her pronouns, but say something completely different behind her back. Their work reflects their experience of confidence in and control over one’s presentation coexisting with the debilitating anxiety of not knowing what people really think. Performing is then, in a sense, restorative for the duo. Ward says they “create work about being disempowered as trans women. But, present in our dramaturgy is this real sense of absolutely dominating the audience… we get real pleasure from never letting the audience know where they’re going next.”

“They are fascinated by the thin line between debasement and revelation”

They want to apply some heat to the culturally tolerant culture that theatre is often made in. The theatre they make isn’t then capital-P Political. It shuns didacticism: they are not interested in bluntly instructing their audience on what is and is not permissible or correct. They want to create a space for the audience to weigh, consider, and be confronted with their assumptions, but what an audience makes of that is entirely up to them. What they are really fascinated by is the thin line between debasement and revelation. What lenses have the audience viewed trans-women through before? Ward and Cowgill share that for most people it’s through the eroticized frame of pornography. What happens when the way you’ve always looked at someone is called into question?

Both Cowgill and Ward acknowledge that their work is not guaranteed to meet their goals. As much as they consider themselves to be “dramaturgical dominatrixes”, they know the audience might leave their shows completely misinterpreting them. And they’ve experienced the vitriol their work has inspired. In a world where trans people are treated more like topics to debate in bad faith, why continue to engage at all? Cowgill says it’s only natural: when the world is constantly engaging with their identities, the options are to reply or stay silent, and when has change arisen from silence? They point to theatre’s unique qualities as reasons to keep making their work despite the intensity involved in reliving some of their trauma onstage and the potential futility of it all. When audience and performer are both present and, therefore, in a form of agreement, their bodies are not as Cowgill says “mediated through text, or other people’s voices”, but are fleshy, unedited, and unapologetic – not nebulous concepts for people to fight over, but real people staking the space to exist as they are.

To watch a show by “Nothing More To Say” is to bear witness to theatre at its most alive. Having been in the audience and behind the scenes on hundreds of shows over the years, I know how rare it is to come across theatre-makers as alive to the possibilities of their art as Ward and Cowgill. I admire their commitment to cut through the noise of the world we live in with their incisively chaotic theatre. That they can hold all these different factors, ideas, and aspirations at the same time is a testament to their burgeoning brilliance. One gets the sense that they are really on track to discovering something singular – a novel feeling when sat in a theatre. They say they named their company after the feeling they wish their audiences to have after watching them perform; it’s one more delicious twist that their work is a conduit to comprehending the world we live in. There is so much more to discover through them. You’d do well to keep an eye on them – these girls have big plans, and you’re only missing out if you don’t come along for the ride.