Interview with India Rose Olsen

Ahead of the premiere of Darling, I Think I'm Turning Into a Chicken, I caught up with writer, director and lead performer India Rose Olsen to discuss creating such a deeply personal piece. Blending dark comedy, surreal transformation and emotional honesty, the production explores generational trauma, inherited survival mechanisms and what happens when the body begins expressing the truths the mind has buried. I spoke to India about developing the show, balancing multiple creative roles, and why now felt like the right time to tell this story.

What first inspired the idea for Darling, I Think I'm Turning Into a Chicken?

The play was born from a curiosity about how to solve challenging family dynamics. I was thrown into an unconventional family life filled with grief that ultimately led to disconnection. What's interesting about grief is that it is a reaction to how much we love, and yet it can bring people closer together or disconnect them entirely. I never understood how to translate an individual response from the events of childhood into a deeper connection to those who shared them with me. The play grew from a need to take the first step of connection, exploring how this disconnection propels us into our independent survival and the effect it has on us subconsciously.

The title is wonderfully intriguing. How did you arrive at it?

The play started with the title. It came to me, funnily enough, after watching Honey, Shrunk The Kids, combined with my love of feathers. It started with a story about a woman growing feathers, being perceived as a chicken and, ultimately, transforming into an eagle. The title expressed a challenging dynamic of growing feathers and this affecting the relationships to the people around us.Darling, I Think I'm Turning Into A Chicken, already poses a tension within relationships. A confrontation of becoming and how this affects the lives we have created.

How did you balance the play's darker themes with its absurd humour?

I often find that the events we experience in life are absurd. One event can shift your entire life, identity and understanding of the world. That's wild! Some parts of life can only be truly expressed within the world of the absurd to understand them. Absurdism is an extension of the darker themes of the play, an extension of the realism. Discovering this has been a journey of understanding how to utilise absurdism as an extension of translating reality.

The production asks whether healing is ever truly possible. Has working on the show changed your own perspective on that question?

Yes definitely. I'm starting to consider that we may never be truly healed, but we can learn to accept ourselves and those around us just a little bit more. Healing often comes from releasing the tensions we carry. I realised some of the challenges within trying to see and understand each other after shared traumatic events occur.

Healing can come from many places, but sharing yourself with the people around you can make it less isolated, relieve tension and create a deeper understanding. I still don't have the answer to how to heal a family after such events occur, but I have a different understanding of what survival patterns can evolve and what needs arise from disconnection.

It's just one step at a time to un-peck them to become more fully human.

Family relationships sit at the heart of the story. Why was that something you wanted to explore?

I lost both my parents to cancer as a child and was adopted when I was sixteen by my school therapist. Inevitably, this was an unconventional upbringing. I've spent a lifetime trying to heal and understand relationships to family and beyond. I wanted to utilise the play to understand my own journey, let go of the past more, and encourage connection. What discovered is that moving from the pain of an injured child into womanhood encompassed a deeper empathy for those around me. We are all surviving something.

The body almost becomes another character in the play. How important was the physical theatre element during development?

It has been a beautiful journey. We started with the body for the first two weeks of rehearsals and then moved into text. I wanted us to explore how the bodies create the intention of the words. The body is the bridge to the subconscious, knowing before our minds can catch up. The physical theatre allowed the body to communicate beyond the mind; Florence is someone who has pushed down the past to survive and create a future. What the physical theatre does is allow what's below the surface to arise and confront. The physical theatre is the dreamworld, the spiritual calling to face what has been ignored, the call to home.

What has collaboration with co-director Lauri Rihiaho brought to the production?

Lauri has been an immense support on this journey. He's assisted with not only directing but with editing redrafts, casting and bringing the play to life. As I'm acting, writing, directing and taking on some of the producing roles, Lauri has held space for the actors, to discover the essence of the play when I have needed to focus on the acting most. Bringing added exercises to discover our relationships and an external perspective to guide us through scenes throughout our discussions of the vision. We've learnt a lot on this journey together after two years of working on projects with him directing me, I am immensely grateful for the support he has graced me to step into these roles.

How do the original music and lyrics enhance the storytelling?

The sound and lyrics of the play are utilised in enhancing the characters Journies. Our sound team assisted in establishing the relationships to the characters and the call to face what has been unfaceable. There is a spiritual element to the music, utilising gongs and singing bowls from a film project we worked on previously called, Portal, written, directed and starring our lyricist Tess Mclee, with sound by our sound designer Michael Fristot, a story of healing and transformation of individuals in a romantic relationship. The sound and lyrics are an extension of the subconscious, like the movement it allows us to enter the world of the play beyond the mind.

Were there any particular writers, artists or theatre-makers who influenced the piece?

Yes, I feel very inspired by the works of Gecko theatre, Complicite and frantic assembly. I feel that their work establishes connection beyond words and has influenced the rhythm, the sounds and the movement of the play.

Butterfly Eye Productions focuses on work that inspires empathy and change. How does this production reflect those values?

The play shows that as we grow through pain, as we deepen in our response to the past, we can learn that our elders aren't perfect. That the people we look up to, who create stable environments, can't necessarily have that resolved within themselves. The play suggests that connection comes from empathy for the experiences of those around us rather than focusing on the blame from the situations we are left to deal with. As previously said, the play isn't a resolution; it's a first step for connection. It also brings empathy for our individual journeys. We can often think we need to have everything together and carry the world on our shoulders.

Florence's journey encompasses a transition of letting go of the pressure to be perfect, and that connection forms through sharing our experiences.

What has been the biggest lesson you've learned from making your professional writing and directing debut?

There are so many lessons that have emerged from this experience. The biggest lesson l've learned is quite similar to Florence's character arc. That I don't have to be the one carrying everything by myself; that sharing something with others adds layers of connection and deeper meaning to a narrative. Theatre and film are some of the most collaborative professions you can be in. Learning how to trust, to let go and step into a leadership role with empathy and inspiration on a deeper level has taught me so much about myself and the world around me; I'm certainly not the same person I was when I started the writing process.

If audiences could take away just one message from Darling, I Think I'm Turning Into a Chicken, what would you hope it would be?

I want people to leave the theatre inspired to take this initial step to deepen the relationships around them. To say the things they've been holding in, to understand that pushing it down can affect us on multiple levels. Many of us are experiencing challenging family dynamics, and the world is becoming more and more disconnected. What I hope is that through the communication that art provides, we can utilise it as a powerful tool to shift our relationships and bring our homes and the world together just a little bit more.

A huge thank you to India for taking the time to speak with me about Darling, I Think I'm Turning Into a Chicken. The production runs at Upstairs at the Gatehouse from 14th–26th July, with performances at 7:30pm. More information can be found via: https://upstairsatthegatehouse.ticketsolve.com/ticketbooth/shows/1173673009/events/428781261