Yearly Archives: 2009

Reason No. 2

This entry was posted in Reasons For Listing and tagged Reasons For Listing Rehearsals Writing on by

It was one of those quirks of timing that on the day that my (and indeed Charlie’s) results for our Masters degrees were released we found ourselves putting Reasons For Listing through its paces for the first time.

I’ll be honest – I love and hate first readings in probably equal measures. Maybe it’s just me as a writer but the desire to crawl under the table at some point is fairly overwhelming. Because – however witty or poignant or clever you think your words to be when you sit in front of your computer screen chuckling to yourself there’s nothing like putting them in the mouth of an actor to make you reach for the delete key. Or the rubbish bin, depending on which is nearer (the latter also being handy for the overwhelming desire to vomit). Conversely, when you’re not jabbing things into your eyes, there are also those moments which just work. And when you hear those for the first time – and everyone in the room stops and has the same feeling too – there’s a tiny (okay, a huge) amount of joy in that.

Aside from the time a few years ago when I got together a group of friends in the backroom of a pub, made sure everyone had alcohol in their glasses and got them to read the first draft of a play I was writing, the first reading of Reasons has probably been my most pain-free of first readings. It’s a pleasure really to sit around a table and know pretty much instantly that everyone is on the same page (literally and metaphorically). Putting a script at what is a relatively early stage in its development (in my strange numbering system the script for today’s rehearsal was labelled 0.75) is a new experience for me. But I felt very much when Charlie and I decided to start Write By Numbers it was because we (and other writers we knew) wanted to work in a different way. It feels entirely natural and liberating to open the script up at this point, a collaboration between all of the people sitting round the table.

And, wonderfully, it pretty quickly became apparent that we’ve got a bloody brilliant actor at the centre of it playing Joseph.  Which always helps.

Now, after a day of imagining all the places Reasons could go, tomorrow it’s back to the computer and, word by word, getting down to finishing Draft 1.0.

Museum In A Day

This entry was posted in In Response and tagged Crazy Plans Museum In A Day Web Stuff on by

There are few things I like more in life than ideas which can be filed under ‘I’ve got this crazy plan…’ and thus when I heard about ‘Museum In A Day‘ I immediately loved the idea. As the name (almost) suggests this crazy plan was to build a museum website (from scratch) in 12 hours and document the entire process. So not only could you follow along, the tools will be there to help you go out and build a website for your [fill in blank as appropriate]. Crazy and helpful – it’s a winning combination.

The resultant 12 hour website for the fictional The Future Museum (incidentally, what a cool idea for a museum) is here and though its creators admit that there’s still things they’d like to have done it’s a testament to what you can achieve with very little money and even less time.

On Courage 1

This entry was posted in Thoughts and Flirtations and tagged Mother Courage and Her Children National Theatre Reviews on by

It was pointed out to me this week what an absurd thing it is for people to do to sit in a darkened room with a group of strangers and be transfixed by a person on a stage pretending to be someone else. And I’m sure if you thought about it too hard you’d have to nod and say – yes, it is an absurd thing. Make believe and all that.

But me, I always liked make believe.

And this week I had one of those reminders of how stomach-churning, hairs of the back of your neck raising theatre can be during the last twenty minutes of Mother Courage and Her Children at the National. To be entirely honest I’d gone out of curiousity rather than expectation (in one of those random gaps that occur in theatre-going I’d never seen a Brecht play on stage). The most used word about the production from those I’d asked about it was “long”. And long doesn’t bother me – once you’ve sat through a Wagner opera then “long” isn’t something that scares you – but when the first thing that springs to mind about a production is its length? Not so good.

And yes, Mother Courage is long. With a first half of two hours I don’t think I’m being controversial in saying that it is too long. And, yes, having a live band on stage (and slowing up the action even more) was a little self indulgent. Okay, rather a lot.

But – and this is one of those huge, clunking buts – I was never less than engaged. I loved the invention. I loved the humour. I loved the money I could see had been spent. I loved, loved Fiona Shaw as a Mother Courage that you were at once compelled and repulsed by.

And I would have gone home happy enough with that. Then in one of those moments that only come around every so often everything just came together in the last twenty minutes of the show in such a way that it split my world a little. Brecht’s story, the acting, the directing, the sound, the lighting and then, oh, the music – and I wanted to scream. Wanted to jump up and bang with Katrin. And then in the play’s dying moments as eternity stretched out in front of me I wanted to melt into the sound of the voice, and the drum beat, as Mother Courage continues as she must continue. Wanted this not to finish as I cried and my heart broke a little and I saw something that I can’t articulate but which I understood completely.

Could that moment have been written? No, of course it couldn’t. It compelled me so completely because it was a product of more than words. The effect of light into darkness, of a rhythm in a song, of a quiver in a voice.

Which is probably why I find myself here, writing for performance and not writing a novel because all of the stuff you can’t control, all the places your words can go – that’s what excites me.

Around the Blogs: Number 2

This entry was posted in Bloggery and tagged Blogging on by

Once again taking the lead from The Clyde Fitch Report to take a tour around what all those theatre bloggers in the UK are going on about.

At A Hectic Phase In The Life there was a reflection or two on Howard Barker.

At A Younger Theatre Jake revealed why he really, really doesn’t like one man shows.

At Carousel of Fantasies Matt brought some urban decay to the BAC.

At Confessions of a Playwright our attachment to the idea of the lone genius was questioned.

At The Corner Shop Blog it was almost time for opening night (plus a rather spectacular to-do list)

At Fin Kennedy Fin broke his hiatus to tell us his blog was going on hiatus.

At HannahNicklin.com Hannah blogged about apathy (or rather the myth of apathy), something which after the reaction to that edition of Question Time seems even more pertinent.

At Helen Smith Helen had her second dream about Playwright and one-time blogger David Eldridge.

At John Morrison The Power of Yes proved that it was continuing to underwhelm bloggers.

At Killing Time Dave Windass stepped into Annie Hall. Well, almost.

At Life in the Cheap Seats Webcowgirl saw rather a lot of one of the stars of Silence: The Musical, and rather liked what she saw.

At Miching Malchio it was the proliferation of reviews which was up for discussion.

At Nabokov NewsBlog there was some rather impressive packing going on.

At Paul in London Paul suffered for his art and went back in for the second half of Carousel: The Songs of Jacques Brel at the Barbican

At Pirate Dog Alex Sierz responded to Matt Trueman’s thoughts on liveness and in his effortlessly concise way maybe hit the proverbial nail on the head.

At Russell’s Theatre Reviews it was all about the touring production of Beauty and the Beast. I saw UK Production’s version when it was last doing the rounds 18 months or so ago and would rather have my fingernails pulled out while watching Waiting For Godot than repeat the experience. But, with the brand behind it, it seems like there are many more regional audiences to traumatise before it dies.

At Shenton’s View Mark Shenton had a timely reminder about the problems of buying theatre tickets.

At That Damn Yankee Jason Ferguson continued to explain British Theatre to Americans, this time with the aid of a fire curtain.

At The Guardian Theatre Blog Andrew Haydon considered his relationship to (man of the week) Howard Barker and, subsequently, the terms by which we judge theatre. My (limited) experience of Barker in performance has done nothing but leave me cold – though the other half of Write By Numbers would say the opposite of that – and as anti-intellectual as it might sound for me theatre is at its most compelling when it engages my heart as well as my head. In that way the title of Haydon’s piece is a no-brainer: yes, of course we should watch plays for pleasure because I can stay at home, save my money and read dry critical theorising on the internet for free.

At View From The Stalls the task was to puzzle out what actually happened in Memory Cells with even its Director getting in on the action…

At West End Whingers it was a trip to the almost universally adored Enron which which was on the cards and, perhaps inevitably, it just couldn’t live up to the hype.