Discussion: My Name is Rachel Corrie; Auster
George Hunka, who I don’t quote enough (as I assume most theatre blog readers will be aware of his blog), writes extremely intelligently about theatre matters.
He has a post on Rachel Corrie, which is link back to Mark Armstrong’s (Mr Excitement) report on the post-play discussion between Tony Kushner, David Hare, Robert O’Hara with contributions from Alan Rickman. Makes interesting reading particularly along side David Grossman’s recent speech (in post below).
“…David Hare talked about the rise of documentary theater, of which he called My Name is Rachel Corrie “a distinguished example”. Interestingly, he placed the impetus for the phenomena squarely at the feet of writing teachers “who don’t write plays themselves” and encourage pre-formulated “fictions which are shaped too crudely”. Documentary theater is powerful, he claimed, because “stories take a different shape from the rules dictated by studios and dramaturgs”, which he said favor “rules that are imposed on the imagination rather than truly imaginative work”.“
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Paul Auster in an acceptance speech for the Prince of Asturias Prize for Letters, Spain’s premier literary honour, spoke about the impulse to write – in his case novels – but I think his passion probably applies to many artists (full article here):
I don’t know why I do what I do. If I did know, I probably wouldn’t feel the need to do it. All I can say, and I say it with utmost certainty, is that I have felt this need since my earliest adolescence. I’m talking about writing, in particular, writing as a vehicle to tell stories, imaginary stories that have never taken place in what we call the real world. Surely it is an odd way to spend your life – sitting alone in a room with a pen in your hand, hour after hour, day after day, year after year, struggling to put words on pieces of paper in order to give birth to what does not exist – except in your head. Why on earth would anyone want to do such a thing? The only answer I have ever been able to come up with is: because you have to, because you have no choice.