Writer and director Dara Beth sparks curiosity with her brutally honest reflection on love, desire, and poor life choices in “all my ex lovers are dead”.

In a chat with Beth, they revealed that they were just writing short stories and bad poetry as a cathartic way to process the terrible dates she kept going on.

“I was just trying to find some meaning in all the nonsense. This story has been a long time coming, written slowly over six years, pieced together from scrap paper prose scribbled at the edges of receipts, woven together with unfinished voice memos saved on and downloaded from multiple phones, and laced with more internal monologues than any single person should allow themselves to indulge in," Beth shared.

“I had no intention of writing a play about all of my ex-lovers. I had no intention of writing anything about all of my ex-lovers. And somehow, after all that, I stumbled upon this one-hour one-hander, which romanticises, poeticises, idealises, dissects, analyses and criticises every poor life choice I’ve ever made and called loved.”

And Qondiswa James became the perfect conduit to deliver her life story this time around.

“This play has had many iterations with multiple performers, and each time it's staged anew, something fresh comes from the text that I couldn't bring to life by myself.

“Qondiswa saw me perform the text at a staged reading for feedback when it was in development as part of STAND Foundation and Vrystaat Kunstefees' Pen-To-Paper Programme in 2022 and approached me after, asking to perform the piece.

“By that point in time, I'd already cast the production for its debut but always had dreams that multiple performers would embody the text, so when an opportunity arose that I could recast, I immediately reached out to Qondiswa.

“I knew she would bring a vivacity and tenacity to the script, a subtle confidence and grounded presence that would bring out the playfulness that is built into the text but can often be overlooked if someone were to look too hard for the seriousness and melancholy that co-exists in the stories," they said.

heartbreak

Laughing through heartbreak: Dara Beth's candid take in 'all my ex lovers are dead'