Hannah Moss tells Stuart Macbeth how a play has helped her come to terms with the death of her father

A desire to make something positive out of her grief was the main aim for Hannah Moss, who appears in So It Goes at the North Wall Arts Centre this week.

Created and performed with fellow actor David Ralfe, So it Goes is the story of how she came to terms with the death of her father, when she was only 17.

Six years later she says: “I hope that by watching the show, audiences are able to relate it to their own suffering, or the suffering of people they know.”

In the play David helps Hannah on her journey through memory, laughter and sorrow, to come to terms with grief.

So It Goes is performed entirely without speaking. Instead words appear on a whiteboard. “I found it easier to write down how I felt than to say it out loud,” Hannah explains. “It was a sort of relief when I first started to use the board because I didn’t know how to speak about the strong emotions I was feeling.”

Hannah, who trained with the National Youth Theatre, was inspired by a production in which a young girl wrote on large chalk floorboards.

“Something about watching her write connected with my own experience of struggling to talk about my dad. I took the whiteboard into my first rehearsal with David and felt freed by it. I was able to say things I hadn’t said for years.”

Hannah found that her words had more weight when written down: “The audience read them in their own time, and hear them in their own voice, which creates a sense of intimacy.

“In a way the show is about language, and how we can’t quite find the words to describe what’s going on for us emotionally.”

Hannah worked intensively on the show with David for their company On The Run.

Ralfe was trained at the LeCoq school in Paris, famous for its pioneering focus on movement and mime.

She said: “We used improvisation to get the devising process under way. For example if preparing a movement sequence on happiness we would allow ourselves to try to inhabit that emotion freely for a bit. Then we would pick the moves we liked and put everything together.”

After being conceived as an idea in 2012, So it Goes debuted at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival last year. The results were extraordinary.

Hannah was heartened by how clearly audiences understood and reacted to her grief for her father, to whom she was especially close: “My dad was a very clever, kind and thoughtful man,” she reflects. “He was a primary school teacher, specialising in science and had a workshop full of wood and tools.

“I remember going to his school and playing and making things for hours. He taught me how to make a kite from wood and paper. He was great fun.”

As you’d expect, performing the piece continues to be an emotional experience. “When I first re-enacted scenes, it helped me to understand my memories and how I felt.”

“No two shows are the same and the show always feels different depending on the audience. I want them to laugh, and feel, and learn something about my dad.”

The North Wall performance forms part of a nationwide tour, ahead of London dates.

Meanwhile Hannah and David are working on their next show, also autobiographical, but this time based on David’s experiences. They promise a coming-of-age story about young love and punk music.

Hannah says that touring So It Goes will help her get closer to a sense of closure, even though new questions have arisen.

“I never knew my dad as an adult and often want to ask him for advice,” she said.

“But I’ve been able to start talking about him without feeling sad.”

SEE IT
So it Goes is at The North Wall, in Summertown today at 8pm.
Tickets are £13/11/5 from thenorthwall.com