Boots

Amanda Boxer (Mosquitoes, National Theatre; Blue Heart, Orange Tree/Tobacco Factory; The Arab Israeli Cookbook, Gate Theatre/Tricycle Theatre) and Tanya Loretta Dee (Eastenders debut; One Life Stand, Paines Plough; Offside, Futures Theatre) will star in Sacha Voit and Jessica Butcher’s Boots. This dynamic female-led production is a funny, heart-breaking adventure through forests, friendship and FemFresh that reveals the loneliness of age and the power of Mother Nature.

Boots is a story of personal revolution and rebellion following Liz and Willow as they meet in Boots and form a powerful cross-generational friendship. The production explores the understanding we can gain from putting ourselves in someone else's shoes.

Using the environment and the amazing synergy and connectivity of different species of trees as a metaphor for our friendships, Liz and Willow come to realise that while they may come from different worlds their shared experiences connect them. When they learn that the local woods are to be cut down, the two women unite in attending a protest against the buzzing chain saws. Through their friendship they find the bravery they need to begin to feel rooted within themselves as they fully embrace their potential and find their own true voice.

Boots questions what it means to be a woman and what it means to be a mother. Is it waxing and facials, or is it wiping bottoms and caring for the sick? Why, for so long, has it not been about adventuring round the world and making new discoveries? How have women learnt to silently oppress their desires, their hurts and their hungers? Women and mothers have been conditioned to endure in silence and suppress their personal desires in order to care for others; Boots offers them a story of consideration, time, trust and friendship.


Jessica Butcher comments, For me, Boots is a story of female friendship. Between two women. And also between all women. It is a story of self care and love for yourself and the world around us. The play holds many unspoken truths that have been silenced for thousands of years. It is a release, a celebration of the female voice. And that female voice is strong, sensitive, intelligent, chaotic, emotional and loud. This is a play about feelings, I believe the more we examine those feelings bravely and honestly, with an audience, the world becomes a kinder place.

Sacha Voit says, Boots is about the courage that kindness gives us to release ourselves from silence, because truthfully telling stories and being heard is the only thing that will heal and change the world. Kindness and friendship. Boots is about questioning and rebelling against our conditioning, our habits and repeated thoughts. And forging new connections. Only friendship, understanding and kindness can allow us true revolution within ourselves, and therefore, in wider society. Alone, we cannot change the world. Together, we can.

Through their shared love of trees, and their relationship to nature, Liz and Willow find a friendship that takes them to night vigils and burning protests.