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British playwright Ella Hickson, who has been described as a voice of the new generation for her state-of-the-nation works, took seven years to write Oil. The play explores our relationship with the black stuff through the fractious bond between mother and daughter May and Amy, whose names suggest they are inversions of each other.  

It begins with the arrival of a new-fangled kerosene lamp, lighting the way to a better life for Cornish farmer’s wife May. As time lurches forward, May’s circumstances change dramatically  – from servant in Tehran at the turn of the century to CEO of an international oil company trying to keep control of Libyan interests, to war-mongering politician – all while struggling to contain her increasingly belligerent daughter. What will May lose in her relentless pursuit of a finite resource? 

Oil opened at London’s Almeida Theatre in 2016, with The Guardian describing it as “bold, playful and scorchingly ambitious” and Time Out singing the praises of “an audacious piece of writing”. 

Adam Mitchell directs Black Swan State Theatre Company’s production, which opens at Heath Ledger Theatre on 5 November and stars Hayley McElhinney (Doctor Doctor, The Cherry Orchard) as May.  

“Oil is everything great theatre should be; ambitious, exciting and brimming with heart,” Mitchell says. “Spanning empires and centuries, it takes us on a journey of big ideas in the search for light. It’s the kind of play that comes about once in a decade.” 

Who better to give us some insight into this epic tour through history, empire, motherhood and freedom than the playwright herself?  Nina Levy asked Hickson to share her inspiration for the groundbreaking play.

Nina Levy: Oil attempts the ambitious task of canvassing our complicated relationship with one of the world’s most precious commodities in a two and a half hour play. What drew you to the story? 

Ella Hickson: I had been looking for ways into writing a big geo-political play for a while. My father worked in the oil industry his whole life and I had been fascinated by it as a kid. As an adult, I became increasingly interested in global warming and what was going to happen to the world as finite resources came to their end. Would the market solve the problem? Would governments? Would humans have to react pre-emptively? All this led to a play which is, I think, in some part to do with whether we ever really act selflessly – can we ever act beyond our own personal interests, in order to save our species or our planet?  

NL: The play spans an epic time frame of more than 150 years, despite following the lives of the two very human central characters, May and her daughter Amy. How did you decide which moments to tell and which to leave out? 

EH: I was interested in finding the greatest moments of conflict, or tension, in the characters’ lives. But I wanted to make these decision-making crossroads line up with the most significant developments in the history of oil. That way, the dependence of Western countries on oil-producing countries was charted through the co-dependent mother/child relationship. It works as a metaphor. 

NL: Has anything changed about your outlook on where we’re headed with our dependency on oil after having researched and written the play over so many years?  

EH: I was really interested in when developments that were charted in the play came to be in real life. Mining on Mars is now a reality. Equally, the move away from fossil fuels that is happening now, towards electric cars – that hadn’t started, really, when I wrote the play. The uptake feels strong and relatively swift, and yet, in climate terms, I fear it is too little, too late. The speed (or lack of speed) with which extinction-avoiding behaviours are taken up really fascinates me. The fact we know we’re in peril, but that we’re not acting quickly enough, I find that a fascinating piece of human behaviour.  

NL: You’ve previously mentioned your intention with Oil isn’t to lecture audiences, so what do you hope people will leave theatres with? 

EH: I think the play says things about inter-human relationships – and about human relationships to the earth. I think, or hope, these are interesting areas to mull on as you drive home.  

Oil is at the Heath Ledger Theatre, 5-27 November 2022. 

Pictured top: Hayley McElhinney stars as May in ‘Oil’. Photo: Frances Andrijich