FRESH from playing Donald Trump for three years, Simon Jay has no illusions about the direction of Western society right now, especially when it comes to minorities.
As an autistic person, he is particularly concerned about attitudes to disabled people which is why his new play balances comedy with deeper reflections on dignity and human connection.
Premiering in Glasgow this month, The Sunshine Spa is set in vibrant Marrakesh where wheelchair-user Iain meets Moroccan therapist Zainab and develops an unlikely friendship.
The play was inspired by Jay’s own experience of a hammam in Morocco which he found “transformative” and made him think more about how disabled bodies are viewed and treated.
“Especially in the care system here, people are washed yet they’re not seen as people but in Moroccan culture, the hammam is the most spiritual wash you can have,” he said.
“It is like being washed like when you were a child - it’s so sort of intimate and makes you feel really safe.
“Having my body treated in that really respectful, kind, soft way by a stranger brought back all those feelings of childhood that I had sort of forgotten.
“Touch is so important but we don’t treat our bodies and disabled people’s bodies, in particular, with enough respect.”
The comedy drama will run as part of Òran Mór’s A Play, A Pie and A Pint series and Jay believes it is going to be unlike anything the venue has seen before.
“It’s not confrontational; it’s very sweet and gentle but you’ve got to let yourself go and just let yourself experience it,” he said. “I don’t think there’s ever been a play which so foregrounds intimate touch, where you have almost naked, disabled bodies on stage and a Moroccan woman talking about her experiences, her inner life.”
Conscious of being a male, white British writer, he did a lot of development with Moroccan British writer Fatima Serghini.
“She gave me so much homework and I listened to so many Moroccan women’s voices that she said: ‘I’ve never seen a Moroccan woman speak like this on a British stage about how they feel’.
“It’s interesting when we look at other cultures to see how they react to disability and things like that.”
As far as the UK is concerned Jay believes we are at a crossroads when it comes to disabled people’s rights.
“They’re about to pass a law in the Westminster parliament that is probably going to push 700,000 more disabled people into poverty, so the situation is not great,” he said.
“I think it’s a bit better in Scotland because the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is devolved and the Adult Disability Payment is not done in the same way.
“I’ve been on PIP and that’s very humiliating and very aggressive. The devolved version is dignified and you are treated as a human being and you have a much more of an equal conversation about it.”
He believes the new play will directly challenge audiences with issues they perhaps don’t really think about.
“People might not be aware of the practicalities of someone with cerebral palsy coming to a spa on holiday and all the things this character would have had to gone through to get to this place, physically, mentally, emotionally,” said Jay.
“It can be very undignified even getting through an airport. It’s all the little things - the way people look at you and talk to you.
“It’s a window into a world that maybe, if you don’t know anything about it, you can watch and learn and be pleasantly challenged.”
The play is a result of a joint writing commission by A Play, A Pie and A Pint and Birds of Paradise, launched to discover fresh disabled writing talent. It is written by Jay, regarded for award-winning Trumpageddon, which toured in the UK and Australia and is directed by Bafta nominated Robert Softley Gale.
Sign language interpretation, captions and descriptive audio will be embedded within this production to make it accessible to blind, deaf and hard of hearing audiences.
The Sunshine Spa runs from May 19-24 at Òran Mór in Glasgow.
