Hopeful
So I've seen the play. My play. The one that's on in the Mac next week. The one that's touring Ireland.
I've seen it before, of course. It was on in Edinburgh and then did a couple of shows in London, so its the play that my friends from London and Basingstoke have seen. It was on in the Mac in a very different production last year. It's my hit. I'm hoping its not my only hit - I've written other things, lots of other things. But this is the one most people have seen. If I'm known at all this is the one I'm known for. And this newest version is extraordinary.
I'm amazed by actors. They're dead ordinary. They don't wear crushed velvet and throw queeny strops. That's more the sort of thing that I would do and I'm not an actor. One minute you're chatting to them, and they're sipping a cup of tea, or they're staring out of the window wondering what the weather is going to do. The next minute they are transfigured. Its like they've suddenly rolled away a boulder and appeared in raiments of white.
Writing is an odd lark. You never know whether its any good, not really. You spend long hours fiddling with it, deleting it, moving it around, despairing of it, turning it off and going for a long walks in the rain. You stare at writing and it stares back at you. There are bits hanging off it: odd lumps, whinnets. Its a tree stump that you need to carve into something recognisably representational. Is it worth writing? Is it worth writing that way? Is that supposed to be a style? Style is dictated by what you can't do rather than what you can. Its ownership of your limitations - this is the best I can manage at this point in time. I think this is a story, I think this is worth telling, and this is the best way I can tell it. I hope it works.
But when an actor performs it, when a really good actor inhabits it, it becomes something else again. It is transformed. When a good actor performs you aren't hearing the writing, it isn't those cramped little scribbles that you fiddled about with, an actor just breathes it out. You don't hear awkward clumps of writing or peculiar stresses, you hear the story, you hear what they are saying. I sat in Prime Cut's office and saw the play that I've seen more than any other rendered a thrilling proposition. I wanted to know how it ended - and I already knew how it ended because I wrote it! And I still wanted to see how it ended. It kept me gripped. That is the joy. This new thing. This wonder.
Simon O' Gorman is the actor. He's brilliant. He will break your heart. And he'll do it on purpose to get your applause and you'll give it willingly. Rhiann Jeffrey is the director and she has done great things. Her choices, her instincts have been exactly right. We've cut the script back to the bone and, where usually that would see me toe-punting a cat over a church roof, she's been spot on throughout, so much so that I've been suggesting cuts. I know! Me. Lopping bits off like a pissed surgeon. And its been for the good. The script is fit for purpose. It really works now, its humming like a perfect machine.
I'm really pleased. I can't wait to see this on stage.
I've seen it before, of course. It was on in Edinburgh and then did a couple of shows in London, so its the play that my friends from London and Basingstoke have seen. It was on in the Mac in a very different production last year. It's my hit. I'm hoping its not my only hit - I've written other things, lots of other things. But this is the one most people have seen. If I'm known at all this is the one I'm known for. And this newest version is extraordinary.
I'm amazed by actors. They're dead ordinary. They don't wear crushed velvet and throw queeny strops. That's more the sort of thing that I would do and I'm not an actor. One minute you're chatting to them, and they're sipping a cup of tea, or they're staring out of the window wondering what the weather is going to do. The next minute they are transfigured. Its like they've suddenly rolled away a boulder and appeared in raiments of white.
Writing is an odd lark. You never know whether its any good, not really. You spend long hours fiddling with it, deleting it, moving it around, despairing of it, turning it off and going for a long walks in the rain. You stare at writing and it stares back at you. There are bits hanging off it: odd lumps, whinnets. Its a tree stump that you need to carve into something recognisably representational. Is it worth writing? Is it worth writing that way? Is that supposed to be a style? Style is dictated by what you can't do rather than what you can. Its ownership of your limitations - this is the best I can manage at this point in time. I think this is a story, I think this is worth telling, and this is the best way I can tell it. I hope it works.
But when an actor performs it, when a really good actor inhabits it, it becomes something else again. It is transformed. When a good actor performs you aren't hearing the writing, it isn't those cramped little scribbles that you fiddled about with, an actor just breathes it out. You don't hear awkward clumps of writing or peculiar stresses, you hear the story, you hear what they are saying. I sat in Prime Cut's office and saw the play that I've seen more than any other rendered a thrilling proposition. I wanted to know how it ended - and I already knew how it ended because I wrote it! And I still wanted to see how it ended. It kept me gripped. That is the joy. This new thing. This wonder.
Simon O' Gorman is the actor. He's brilliant. He will break your heart. And he'll do it on purpose to get your applause and you'll give it willingly. Rhiann Jeffrey is the director and she has done great things. Her choices, her instincts have been exactly right. We've cut the script back to the bone and, where usually that would see me toe-punting a cat over a church roof, she's been spot on throughout, so much so that I've been suggesting cuts. I know! Me. Lopping bits off like a pissed surgeon. And its been for the good. The script is fit for purpose. It really works now, its humming like a perfect machine.
I'm really pleased. I can't wait to see this on stage.
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