Tag: Playwriting

Hello There! So, I am now oficially post rough-draft-1. Finished about an hour long version of the play late Sunday night/early Monday morning, printed off, and duly took it to the Court with me on Monday. So yes… obviously massive things wrong with it and most of it doesn’t make sense, but not bad for 2-4 very painful days work!

My main concerns…

• Structure- the piece struggled out of one structure (very short scenes) into another, chunkier one halfway through, all of which are structures that I’m new (and thus not sure about how sucessful I can make them) to as before now I’ve always written closed time/space pieces

• Characterisatlon. It feels like only Ona has any. I think that Dominic’s journey isn’t clear, and that he and Ona are both currently vying for protagonist- to a degree that serves a purpose and illustrates a journey in itself, and to another, it’s just confusing, argh!

• Content. Obviously the play is completely different to how i imagined it, this is what happens when you write something- it twists and turns under your gaze as the characters grow and start to make their own decisions (sounds hippy-ish but it really does work like that) Although I think that is to be expected, it now feels like Maria is now tacked on, though I’m not sure how to involve her more. It was going to be a story about women trapped by male expectations but now it’s a story about the damage done by commodifying humanity. Also, I still feel passionately about the aims of Sci—Fi theatre, but sometimes the play seemed to just want to be about trafficking-not extrapolated into a single—child future… in which case it’s a very different, much grittier, and much more responsible, research heavy piece, none of which I’m afraid of- but it would be good to be able to decide a direction.

• Dramatic Action. I felt like there was very little, and too often found myself forcing my characters to speak to fill the page, naturally a product of an intensive first draft, but need to work on heightening dramatic action, and avoiding it being a solely stylistic/genre piece

• Form- The piece feels like a one act-er stretched too thin, (from previous experience of this script template, I’d say it was 60-70mins at the minute) does it need more story, or more characterisation? Or does it just need to be a one act play…?

So Yes! Bit scary, but good to have soemthing. We took 3 copies of the script into the Court, and exchanged with two others and the course leaders – in groups of 3 we produce a reader’s report of our pieces and discuss them next week- and Leo and Natalie get their feedback as soon as they can.

We also did something really interesting asa whole group- basically each person read out the first 2 pages of their script, and then everyone else wrote down frist reactions/questions etc on a little piece of paper anonymously, they were then shuffled, and handed over to the writer – Leo read out a first draft of his too. So we each left the session with 14 or so pieces of instant reaction to the first moments of our play- which was definitely very helpful! In general my feedback was that the piece was intriguing and full of detail, very vivid in terms of place (can also mean too many stage directions), the one which was clearly the course leader’s said it had a great sense of dramatic action and build of tension and that the “dialogue feels authentic and dangerously compelling” which is cool! though obviously some negative points, the most interesting of which was from one of the other class members- who suggested that I be careful the piece doesn’t make Georg a ‘big-bad-Lithuanian-wolf’, and that I could be construed as racist. This person also thought it was set in Lithuania (they said that the UK has brothels too, so in itself maybe I need to be clear that it is the UK in the first few pages) but still a good point- I am concerned about Georg being a stereotype, but I hadn’t thought about the implications of his being foreign, he just was- so perhaps something to be aware of? I have been concerned about him being a stereotypical pimp, but then it could be argued that part of being a pimp is playing to stereotype? And how do you be a nice pimp? interesting stuff, and having never knowingly met one myself, might be worth some kind of research (how do I do that?)… food for thought.

So, only two more weeks of London – this feedback session, and then a session on redrafting- then a month to redraft to a solid first draft level and we hand it in ont he 15th of January! Phew!

Oh I also went to the National Portrait Gallery – very cool, saw an awesome portrait of Emmeline Pankhurst which took my by surprise, and quite an astonishing picture following the passing of anti-slavery legislation where black people sit amongst politicians and peers in the 19th century houses of parliment. Stunning, really makes me want to pick up my paintbrush again- it’s been a while, I really want to work with oils but I can’t afford the paints/brushes/linseed and whitespirit that is required… ho hum!

I also need to earn some money, I’m just too poor. Especially now, around Christmas time… being poor isn’t nice :-(

Sometimes I don’t half wonder if just sacking it all off and doing a PHD wouldn’t be a hell of a lot easier. But that’s just the draft 1 blues talking- I don’t know enough of my play to be comfortable with it, and I haven’t got the confidence and experience to know for certain that I’m traveling in enough of the right direction to find it. I seem to have started writing a love story. So far nothing else has come into it. I know there’s lots of stuff simmering away, and it’s really good that I’m approaching it character and feelings first, but it’s hard to feel like it’s going to come together into saying something new, I feel like I’m like trying to give a boulder a transfusion, if you’ll let me take the metaphor to an extreme. Ona has become much more bolshie than I remember, well not remember, imagined, in my head, there’s a stoicism in her which would make you wonder why she didn’t just run away, but I think they keep her drugged a lot. And not every woman that gets trafficked can be a defeated mouse, people react in different ways don’t they? I think a lot of why I feel particularly weird with this draft is that before I’ve been very plot heavy to begin with, and this time, the characters are just talking, getting to know each other, and in a way that makes me feel vulnerable, as a writer certainly, and as a general control freak doubly so! I should really get back to it, think I’ll do some on the train tomorrow because that means no internet, and no internet means no hours of endless distractions. In the meantime, do check out the following wonderful things that I have found during hours of procrastination:

1. Sarah Haskins. She’s amazing. Yoghurt, Cars, and Chick Flicks particularily worth a look, but heck, they’re only 3 mins long each, and all hilarious.
2. Outnumbered – back for a second series, and just as brilliantly understated and true as ever, loving yet acerbic semi-devised script, and just the right amount of precosiousness make this worth looking out for
3. Icanhascheezburger cheers me up, every time
4. Swearing in Lithuanian – this was technically research, and so I didn’t even feel that bad! my favourite? Kad tau ezhys kelnese ishdygtu – ‘let the hedgehog appear in your pants’.
5. Trevor Goose and His Dark Night of Lights – which I’m going to see in Warwick in a couple of weeks “Is it a gig? Is it a panto? Is it a misjudged Danish cabaret? Well, it’s all three, as local heroes Talking Birds bring to Warwick Arts Centre a Christmas Show for those who want their festive entertainment skewed and a little bit heartbreaking.” Well looking forward to it.

So yes… back to writing I guess, I just struck upon the idea of using seasons, as well as Ona’s varying baby-bump, to let you know where you are in the story… might talk more about the struggles of temporal structure another time, but for now,

Adieu.