Quote of the day

I like to create each production as a piece of theatre in a way
that has never been conceived or imagined before, as if there
had never been a theatre.

Steven Berkoff, Free Association p1

Quote of the day

Theatre can and should hold the mirror up to ourselves in the hope

that we will dislike the reflection sufficiently to wish to change it,

or else to show an image which is so desirable that we would wish

to become it.

Glenda Jackson.

Quote of the day

"Even if we do not make theatre, we are theatre: To be theatre is to be human."

Augusto Boal

Writer's Block

After reading over an articles on Theatre Notes, I composed this blurb as a reflection on the topic of writer's block. The original article was commenting on writer's writing about writer's block and whether such a cultural phenomenon really existed. Such a rant in response that deserved to re-appear here in a slightly edited version

I was wondering whether writer's block was more a matter of a personal psychological perception rather than a universal clinical condition. If someone identifies their predicament as writer's block, then is it not writer's block because they identity it as so and that is enough.

I'm sure the term brings up different connotations for different people but is writer's block just one name for some one's struggle / inability to successfully express and communicate some unknown ideas or stories despite their desire to say something.

Whilst I've know some people who write / paint/ create/ like turning a tap on and off, I'm quietly jealous of this instant flow of creativity. I have "this friend" who finds the physical act of sitting down and starting to actually put pen to paper / fingers on keyboard the most difficult part of the writing process. "My friend" needs to get on a roll, to build up some momentum, get confident, to be in "the zone" before the writing flows. Sometimes "the zone" is just around the corner with a big flashing light and rock music blaring but other times, the zone has disappeared off the map and can not located despite the most aggressive and intensive search. Maybe, upon reflection "this friend's" inability to get into the zone is another way of saying writer's block

Okay, to get back to my original thought, I was wondering about the possibility of how a play about a playwright could be engaging if you focused on the conflict and tension behind the writer's block - the reasons?. "My friend" often gets so worked up about the disappearance of the zone that he becomes afraid to look for it in fear of another disappointment.

I reckon we could set a blog challenge to "wright" the good short monologue about a writer's block - a Tropfest for playwrights?

Looking Back With Chubb Head

In one of my previous careers during "the recession that the country had to have", I spent alot of my "employed" hours engaged in the art of credit control (accounts receivable / debt collection etc) for a variety of organisation including a bank, a finance and an insurance company, two levels of government, manufacturing, and a little retail. After a series of quick transitions, most of this time was spend with an arm of multinational insurance firm. Now, I have to confess that these years of banility and boredom made an impression upon me, generated of a traditions and games that continue to inspired me.

Playwrighting

I have always loved the term "playwright" as a description for the process of writing play scripts! The "wright" places an emphasis on the building and construction of the object as inferred in words like "cartwright" and "shipwright".

"Playwright" is evocative of this process of construction, of building a representation in some dramatic form, using an understanding a dramatic time, space and dialogue to shape character and action into theatre. The playwright is a builder of dramatic action and not just a writer.

I continue to grow a cast of threads, loose ideas, half finished scripts, scribbled notes and failed attempts. These pieces physically turn over in my head, calling, haunting like ghost beckoning to be released from the purgatory of theatrical limbo. To be finished, killed off or polished off, for better or worse

Therefore, I am taking a break for the nex year from directing other playwrights' work with the intention of developing something out of my own threads into a script that resembles a state of completion.

This decision aside, I still need to elect which idea to pursue. Each one regularly calls upon me periodically, reverberating and echoing into new connotations, reasons for revisiting. This regular of cast of working titles are fighting for attention amongst the pack, only to be occasionally overwhelmed by another, new exciting contender. Already, these projects beg, fight for notice as a I write"

• Crust
• From Here
• Hideous Hours Spent
• Small Talk (and dirty knives)
• Half Way House
• Corpse on the Roadside
• The Home Front
• West to Whatever

I think I'll try to introduce a couple of the script and go from there.

Crust: Capture an impulse

"The dignity and value of a man is not in his labour or abilities, it is in his worth as human being."

from Bob Geldof - "Is that it?" (1986)

I've been kicking this concept for a play around for nearly twenty years since I first started in theatre. It kepts changing as I incorporate new interests and draw on new theatrical experiences, but the general scenario has remained the same.

The original seed:

On a quiet night, a group of people in a bar decide that forming a band might bring meaning into their lives. With little talent and no experience, the idea of the band rises to heights of excitement before falling apart out of frustration all in the course of one night. The group finally breaks up sighting artistic differences as the reason for their break up, not being able to agree on a band name or music style to perform. Each character looking for different things from the band.

Notes behind the idea.

I liked the idea that people are often culturally identified or framed by their occupation or what they do for work? Take the quint-essential phrase, what do you do for a living? and ask do you make generalised observations or judgements on people based on their answer to this question. Do we categorise people’s intelligence, morals, values, dignity, ambitions, dreams through our knowledge and expectations of that job.