Mules

What our readers said

Mules is about desolate women, trying to survive – they have all been dealt a very difficult hand through race, class, sexism and poverty. It explores how quick fixes (drug-mulling) become so appealing and exploitation seems inevitable. Also explores sisterhood through fractious situations. Also, these women are chosen to become ‘mules’ because they are black and won’t look like tourists in Jamaica – which feeds into ideas of identity and belonging.

What is it like reading the play now?

This play zips throughout and you really get a chance to know and care deeply about the characters, it’s all achieved through heart and humour. I feel it’s aged very well – there are countless of drug smuggling documentaries on TV and Netflix at the moment, (huge interest for the theme) however this is all through the lens of Black women -which I feel gives it a very fresh perspective.

What did is it tell us about the past and present?

This story could be set today and would still very much resonate – women being exploited through drug trafficking. As it’s set in 1996, there were many of the characters in the play, that didn’t get caught (at the time didn’t have the technology to detect?), so this leaves open a huge gap for these women to be taken advantage of and it tells us about the way they are hooked in and how the offer becomes so appealing. Tells us about the devastating impact of austerity at the time.

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