Writer Eva Hudson talks upcoming play ‘855-FOR-TRUTH’: “Listen to young people”

London’s Hope Theatre hosts the world premiere of this philosophical drama exploring the conflict of science and religion by building bridges between them both. Guillermo Nazara chats with its playwright, to learn more about the creation of this spiritual piece guaranteed to give us one hell of a journey.

855-FOR-TRUTH, Eva Hudson Interview for First Night Magazine

How did the idea for this play come about?

Back in 2022, the summer I graduated, I was travelling by bus between states in the US. Bored and looking for entertainment, with no headphones and a passenger next to me who kept repeatedly offering to read my palm, I was jolted when I saw a huge billboard out the window which read ‘LUST IS A SIN. BURN IN HELL OR CALL 855-FOR-TRUTH’.

Weirder things had happened on this journey: there had been a physical fight, someone had stolen another passenger’s shoes when they were asleep, and the man behind me was proudly smoking a joint. I decided – based on this, and a desire to fend off the non-consensual palm-reading attempts- that I would call the number. I was connected to a Mennonite preacher, Dale, who told me that, were I not to join his ‘community’, I would, indeed, burn in hell.

We spoke about everything from a woman’s place (childbearing), climate change (not real, trust God), and what family meant to us. We agreed on nothing. He told me the world would end in a blaze of fire, and I should listen to the truth. I returned home in England, and read an article in The Guardian that told me the world would end in a blaze of fire, and I should listen to the truth: that climate change would lead to the world’s burning – the language of the article was similar to what Dale had predicted, with a completely different system of logic. I became interested in what happens when science and religion point to the same end, with hugely different methods of arriving there. What the truth is beyond storytelling.

A story themed after the conflict between religion and science. Which kind of existential journey are audiences going to be taken through?

The story is more about knowledge: who owns it, who gatekeeps it, and what it means to know someone or something through loving it rather than through inherited frameworks of religion or science. It’s less about instilling any sense of existential dread than it is a look at what it means for younger generations to write our own story, or find our own lenses and ways of looking at things that aren’t inherited from the Old Men.

Can both realities actually coexist in one single perspective?

I think the only way through crises like these is through positive action, listening to one another, and hope. In the play, Meredith and Isaac, despite having vastly different worldviews, backgrounds and systems of belief, find affection, care, and support just by listening to one another. They decide to create a new belief in loving one another and do away with the systems they’ve inherited – how successful that is, I don’t know, and you’d only really know by watching the play. Ultimately, sometimes we echo the people who have taught us and the beliefs we have been brought up in – even when we are trying to resist them.

Is this play intended to provide us with any answers or to raise further questions instead?

I think the only answer – in the play and in life – is admitting what we don’t know; deciding to commit to listening to other people who have different life experiences to you; to remain open and willing to change and do what we can, always. It’s definitely a questions rather than an answers play, but I think the right questions can provoke more inspired action than works that overly preach or talk down to its audience.

How has the process of developing this show been like?

It’s been incredible, because I have been working with such inspiring people from day one. I met Lydia McKinley, our director, and Molly Hanly, who plays Meredith, at drama school, at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, and our designer and stage manager are both graduates of the school, too. Lydia and Molly read the first 10 pages, then the next 10, the first, third… and ultimately, the final draft. Molly has shaped Meredith – she brings a lightness, a curiosity to the character, which allowed me to be more playful in my writing. Max, who plays Isaac, I met years ago, and he’s read everything I’ve ever written and been a collaborator I trust hugely. Lydia has been a huge engine under the show and she shares the 855 brain with me: she’s understood it and brought new textures out of it from day one, and been so determined to get it on. It’s hard staging new work when so much funding has been cut and with so many ladders vanishing, but she’s had such conviction. I’m truly so grateful to be lucky enough to work with them all, and it’s truly such a testament to the culture of collaboration at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and why it’s such a tragedy that it’s so up against it.

Have you found any particular challenges from a creative point?

Rewrites can be difficult, especially when you are working across multiple projects, and I find that often characters’ voices can take over and it almost feels like they’re writing themselves, and then have left me by the time I go to revisit and rewrite. It was hard coming back into the spirit of the play and balance structure and all of the more mathematical stuff that goes into writing a play at the same time. But I was able to find a way back in through listening to much of the music I was listening to at the time I wrote the play, and through bringing the work back into the room with Molly and Max.

What message are you trying to convey through this piece?

Listen to young people.

Why come see 855-FOR-TRUTH?

It’s beautifully directed, and the two performances are really quite special. It’s tender and has so much heart and hope – it gives a voice to young people when the crisis the world is in has unfairly become our problem.

Headshot picture credit to Stewart Bywater.

855-FOR-TRUTH will play at London’s Hope Theatre from 11 to 22 February. Tickets are available on the following link.

By Guillermo Nazara