A classic coming-of-age novel spurred this writer to 'blow up' her life

In 2022, Grace Chapple visited Florence, Italy, and was listening to the audiobook of A Room with a View. Solo travelling for the first time at the age of 27, she found herself in the Uffizi Gallery, where Botticelli's The Birth of Venus hangs, feeling unsure about her life. Chapple recalls, "I was thinking, Do I even know who I am?" As she wandered the city, a bit hungover, she felt the same introspection as the novel's protagonist, Lucy Honeychurch, in EM Forster's 1908 novel.

Forster's novel was more than a romance; it was Lucy's coming-of-age story, poking fun at turn-of-the-century English society. Chapple was so inspired by the novel that she adapted it for Sydney's Belvoir St Theatre, where it opens this month. The novel hit Chapple hard at the moment in her life when she needed it most. Listening to A Room with a View in Florence not only inspired her creatively but also encouraged her to "blow up" her life.

Returning to Sydney, Chapple broke up with her long-term boyfriend and wrote her debut play, Never Closer. The play, set during the Troubles, premiered as part of Belvoir's independent 25A program and later opened on the theatre's main stage. Two years later, a new production from indie company Patalog Theatre will return to Melbourne, after earning rave reviews in May.

Never Closer tells the story of five schoolfriends reuniting for Christmas Eve in Northern Ireland in 1987. As many of them left Northern Ireland for work and study, unresolved tensions rise, especially after Niamh brings home her English fiancé Harry. Chapple's own experiences of leaving home and the estrangement from her mum, who grew up in Northern Ireland, influenced the play.

Belvoir's team saw Never Closer during its 25A season and wanted to know what Chapple was going to do next. They asked her to adapt A Room with a View for them. Chapple was struck by the novel's theatricality, with its focus on conversations and relationships. She saw the novel resonating with a modern audience because it explored the journey of learning to think for oneself in a world trying to dictate how one should think.

Chapple's next project is The Landlord, a second original play that will feature in Belvoir's 2027 season. Set across two Surry Hill terraces, it breaks down intergenerational inequality and features John's two Surry Hill terraces, only one of which is falling apart. Chapple, armed with a degree in economics, is tackling the subject of rent and inequality with expertise. She sees the housing crisis as a subject many millennial artists are grappling with in their work.