Mike Leigh
Interview here. Leigh has managed to straddle film and theatre, very successfully. In the interview, it describes his very particular process:
“For the uninitiated, though, it’s important to know that when he begins auditioning actors, he has only vague ideas about the nature of what lies ahead; the material is conceived and honed by Leigh and his cast over months of improvisation. Even in projects where the territory is predetermined – such as Four Days in July, set in Belfast, or Topsy-Turvy, which drew for the first time in Leigh’s career on factual material – nothing is fixed until just before the cameras roll. “We had shot four-fifths of Secrets and Lies before we did the massive improvisation that yielded up the barbecue scene at the end. Similarly, I couldn’t have told you the ending of Naked until two or three days before we shot it because I couldn’t work out what it was going to be. Then I was driving to the location one morning and I thought: ‘Fuck!’ Or, put another way, ‘Eureka!’”
Any actor chosen to work with Leigh will have a fair idea of the process, which is one sign of how things have changed since the early days. “I remember sitting on the phone to agents and saying endlessly: ‘No, there’s no script, you see, what we do is …’ Eventually they’d say, ‘My client is not getting involved with this.’ Now it takes me months to get through a tiny slice of the people who want to audition.”
I’d love to be able to try working that way at least once. But, given that the powers that be are still hesitant to give money to Leigh for films, I think it would take quite an intrepid set of people (and time and money) to try it out.
“The whole thing about making films in an organic film on location is that it’s not all about characters, relationships and themes, it’s also about place and the poetry of place. It’s about the spirit of what you find, the accidents of what you stumble across.”
Mike Leigh
Exquisite Pain
Forced Entertainment’s Exquisite Pain and I got off on the wrong foot. The Riverside suffered a change of policy, so I couldn’t take my full plastic cup of wine in (they really should tell you this at the bar or the ticket desk) and then the first scenes I catch sight of are; other people with drinks, and the performers with drinks. OK, so maybe the performers should be allowed drinks. Then so should I. Slightly irrational rant over.
Over a red telephone, in a hotel room in India:
“I wanted to come and tell you”
“Have you met another woman?”
“Yes.”
“Is it serious?”
“I hope so.”
“Poor me.”
Sophie Calle’s break up, when she was about 30 and caused partly by her decision to go to Japan for 3 months, is told and retold (with the variations memory and time give) about 90 times.
5 days ago, I broke up with the man I love
8 days ago, I broke up with the man I love
10 days ago, I broke up with the man I love…
90 days ago, I broke up with the man I love…
98 days ago, the man I used to love…
Interspersed, alternatively, with the echoes of her story, are the stories of friends and acquaintances of the most traumatic event in their lives, most often involving death, suicide or break up.
I liked the piece but I do wonder if it could have been staged more effectively. Note, I have a bias in that a piece I created called Confessions that uses very similar devices to Forced Entertainment (but based on confessions), so I made several decision in my work which are different to FET’s but which address the same problems.
[Not to suffer from hubris, FET have been creating this type of work for longer and much more successfully than me, but not using some one else’s (Sophie Calle’s) text.]
Performatively, the two actors sit at desks with the text. High above them a small screen with images. The woman actor speaks Sophie’s story first. The man speaks a friend’s story. Then the woman tells Sophie’s. Then the man… They start, purposefully I believe, with very little emotion in their readings but also at very even, fairly slow pace.
This even rendition and slow pace may have been a good choice. It allows the text simply “to be”. However it also takes the tonal range and emotion out of the stories. It’s of note that late on the man seems to slip into emotion but, in my view, in a haphazard way. My conjecture is that some stories would be more engaging at a musical pace and emotional range, but that other stories may not. Those choices of how to tell the stories could be made in the moment, but would need to be made clearly.
My other thought, was that the piece was funnier than it came across on the night I saw it. [A few people left half way through, which probably didn’t help]. The even handed narration killed some of that. Lastly, the images could have had a larger presence as they provided an important counterpoint to many of the stories.
Criticism of the performance aside, the work itself is a thought provoking, fully realised piece of live art. It takes you through the pain, humour, boredom of trauma and break up. It examines an event through the lens of time and memory and through the stories it touches on many stories and emotions the listener empathises with. I think that qualifies as good art in most people’s books.
There’s not that much work out there like it, and although I’d like to have seen different renditions or staging of it, I fully recommend it.
Gladiator Games & Prison
Went to see Gladiator Games dramatised by Tanika Gupta at Stratford Royal East. It’s a superb piece of verbatim theatre. See earlier post. It’s about Zahid Mubarek, who was an Asian teenager sentenced to 90 days in Feltham Young Offenders’ Institute for stealing £6’s worth of razor blades and interfering with a car. On 20 March 2000, the day he was due for release, he was attacked and killed by his violently racist cell-mate, with a chair leg in his sleep. Lyn Gardner review here.
Verbatim theatre can lapse into dullness very easily, but this play doesn’t. Not only is the story very compelling but the unpicking of the problems with the prison system and the situation which led to the death of Zahid.
The short description reveals some of the problems.
1. Ziad was sent down for stealing razors and interfering with a car. To be fair, he also had a drug problem and had missed two meetings with a probation officer. However, I believe, this to any reasonable person is an extreme over reaction. The problem is, the system demands prison. As Ben Bowling, Crimonologist at the panel discussion after, argues prison is not the answer for the vast majority of youths. Neil Gerrard, MP, believes sentencing needs to be changed.
2. Mental health. Zahid’s violent and racist cell mate, was mentally ill. This was not only obvious with hind sight but should have been picked up many times through the system. However, many people in jail suffer from mental health problems. One panel member suggested is was about 75% of prisoners.
3. It costs about £35,000 a year to maintain an adult prisoner in jail. £50,000 or more for a youth. Yet, what are the gaining in prison? Nothing except an education in crime and hate. Bowling believes, money has to be spent in rehabilitation and not in sending youths down. The arguments don’t stack up either economically or for society.
However, politicians are aiming for more sentencing and less freedoms (eg ASBOs, new terror laws) seemingly as this wins votes from society. I would conjecture, however, that society at large doesn’t realise the economic and social harm being done by this new sentencing regime. Certainly, I didn’t.
It is almost universally acknowledged that there’s too much overcrowding in prisons and that it is not the best way. However, as Suresh Grover of Monitoring Group said, we have to believe we can make a difference. Unfortunately on such a large problem, I don’t know if I believe I can. I can keep writing. Make some people aware. But actual change? I understand why so many young people no longer vote.
Bird flu [Avian, H5N1], what risk a pandemic?
When not pontificating on theatre, I happen to know quite a lot about drugs and pharmaceuticals. All these media articles on bird flu and comparing it to 1918 are beginning to get me a bit antsy.
It is possible that the virus could mutate and leap to humans (maybe via pigs) and cause a pandemic, but the actual risk is very low, in my opinion. I’m not going to go into detail about the stats involved in getting the virus to a pig or human, then getting a mutation, and then getting it to sprea to a pandemic. Expect to say there have been less than 200 documented [exact number I think is closer to 120 but let’s add some more on for undocumented cases] cases of bird flu in humans since 1997 when the virus first appeared. There’s nothing that different this year from last. Furthermore, that’s not a very large population of people for the virus to make a mutation and jump easily 9especially with the whole world looking out for it).
It is possible. It’s just not very likely. You are more likely to get hit by a car.
But, let’s say, we do get a “pandemic” – will it be like 1918?
A few points, one mixed and the others positive.
1. The world, particularly the developed world but also the less developed counties, is in a much much better state of health and nutrition. Access to reasonable healthcare or even just being looked after properly will be a huge protection from dying from ‘flu.
2. Very few people actually die from ‘flu. People die from pneumonia after ‘flu. [And in fact pneumonia and pneumonia waves remains big killer today]. In 1918, we struggled to do much about pneumonia, but today we have antibiotics ie a cure, and a way of looking after people. Far fewer people will die from the secondary infections. True, the young and elderly will still be at more risk, but the adult population (so decimated in 1918) will likely resist.
Remember penicillin wasn’t developed until past 1929 much too late to help in 1918.
3. 1918 was the end of world war I. Soldiers and many of the general population were not in good shape and constantly exposed to any airborne disease. I believe many in 1918 did not die from the war but from ‘flu exacerbated by conditions of war. Soldiers also helped spread the disease fairly effectively. These are not conditions in 2005.
4. The possible negative and what has caught the imagination of the media, is that no one knows how virulent the virus (currently H5N1) would be in a human pandemic. It may be very strong, or quite possibly it may not be. We simply do not know. There is no reason to believe it won’t be very virulent but then we could equally well guess that it will not be so.
Therefore, I conclude the circumstances today are very different from 1918. Not only is a pandemic unlikely, although admittedly possible, but if one were to occur, in all likelihood the death rate would be much much lower than in 1918. Furthermore, I would conjecture it would not be as bad as those suffering from malnutrition in Malawi at the moment, those suffering from HIV in Africa and those living in malaria zones.
Antsiness over. I feel a bit better.
Some stats
Supposedly The Department of Health’s contingency plan says that between 21,000 and 700,000 deaths could be expected in Britain from a flu pandemic. It does also point out that quite a few people die from ‘flu (or ‘flu related disease) in a non-pandemic year.
DoH is using about 48,000 only as their base case scenario.
More than 1,000,000 die annually from malaria [Who stats].
“Black”
I’ve been drawn in, like light into a black hole, in to the “black” or as now termed BME – black minority ethnic – theatre debate.
The Arts Council are holding consultation meetings at the moment, see here. If you feel you might have something to contribute, make a written submission or turn up to a meeting.
I met some interesting people, I didn’t fully realise the cross over concerns into circus arts or opera. I was glad to hear that one composer, Dominique Legendre, has been commissioned by the Royal Opera house on the back of work shown through NITRO.
One of the first questions raised, wasn’t on the list, and that is why is there a need to be labelled and pigeon-holed as “black”, why can’t it just be British? There are so many shades and culture with in the term ”black” that it’s offensive for some to be all lumped together.
I’m not sure, I have robust answer but one which was given was the idea of having to work with/against the system and that for now that is the label the system is going to produce, so as starting point for debate let’s keep using it, as ill-fitting as it is.
I think there’s some merit to this argument. It reminds me of one that Wittgenstein (presumably amongst others) gives and I paraphrase
It is no good simply pointing out that a theory is wrong, unless one has some thing better or at least alternative to replace it with.
Ie something is better than nothing.
The problem with this being, what happens if the something is more harmful than the nothing?
Paul Miller is back
Paul Miller is back in the blog world. I, for one, say “hurrah”.
If theatre is to remain vital, we need good critical thinking about theatre, which is aired in a thoughtful way. Paul provides that and as some are arguing there’s a lack of sophisticated critical voices out there.
Paul has his own take on Ravenhill’s “fewer new plays” assumption, which I have also had a comment on.
Also, his point on the two versions of Coveney’s article on criticism dying, and my thought on the matter.
Welcome back, Paul.
National Theatre of Scotland
NToS is launched today. Vicky Featherstone, ex-Paines Plough, writes about it here.
She says:
“I have spent many hours debating the notion of a “national theatre” and the responsibility that entails. It is not, and should not be, a jingoistic, patriotic stab at defining a nation’s identity through theatre. In fact, it should not be an opportunity to try to define anything. Instead, it is the chance to throw open the doors of possibility, to encourage boldness. I hope our programme goes some way to realising these ambitions. I hope we will make Scotland proud.”
in the debate of a “black theatre” I think one could replace Scotland with Black or minority or non-mainstream and have an equally valid statement. However, where does it stop? Does everyone deserve a theatre? I think everyone probably does deserve one of some kind. [In fact, maybe we all do have a theatre of some kind...]
Interestingly NToS doesn’t have a building:
“The National Theatre of Scotland has no building; there has been no great capital project involving architects or contractors. Instead, the idea is to take theatre all over Scotland, working with the existing venues, touring and creating work within the theatre community. We have no bricks-and-mortar institutionalism to counter, nor the security of a permanent home in which to develop. All our money and energy can be spent on creating new work. Our theatre will take place in the great buildings – Edinburgh’s Royal Lyceum and Glasgow’s Citizens – but it will also take place in the Tramway, in site-specific locations, community halls and sports halls, car parks and forests”
Vicky is helped by her experience of Paines Plough, but in the debate for other companies to follow, perhaps a “building” is not only unnecessary but maybe a hindrance?
Criticism is dying?
We lack enough good criticism. Michael Coveney’s argument here here says essentially that.
Other art forms may also bemoan their critics. Modern photography has very little thoughtful criticism (John Berger, Susan Sontag aside), dance and poetry are too rarefied and often ‘art’ (in all it aspects) criticism is either too academic or too facile.
One point to emerge from the Talawa discussions, was the lack of a “black” theatre criticism,. I say “black” as I mean that on many levels. Essentially, the theatre practioners were suggesting that there were not enough people to tackle their work in an informed and intelligent way. This in turn was hampering the development of good work and artists.
I think a good critical response is vital. A first stab in trying to put an artist and their work in the context of today and of the history of where its coming from.
It’s very alarming that Coveney believes it is failing in mainstream theatre, for that makes it much harder for the non-mainstream.
However, I can’t help wondering if it points to a wider problem in the critical form and its interactions with the art mediums of today.
TV probably remains our most pervasive form, however most artists in tv aren’t striving to push boundaries and form. There’s film. Film criticism is developing, however I wouldn’t say it was a large body of work as yet. I believe, the forms brewing on the internet mixed with digital media, whether you call it dv, film or tv, will be the next most pervasive art forms and our critical language in that arena is, I believe, virtually non-exisitant in the wider domain.
So does this suggest that although good critcism is vital and can envigorate an art – it is not some thing which we can readily expect going forward?
Verbatim theatre: Gladiator
Zahid Mubarek was an Asian teenager sentenced to 90 days in Feltham Young Offenders’ Institute for stealing £6′s worth of razor blades and interfering with a car. On 20 March 2000, the day he was due for release, he was attacked by his violently racist cell-mate, Robert Stewart. Mubarek died a week later.
Tanika Gupta turns this into, I think, an important piece of theatre particualrly in terms of what “verbatim” theatre can do and where it might be heading. It seems that it is dramatic, political, enlightening and inherently theatrical (which can be a problem for this style of theatre eg Hare’s Stuff Happens although not so much his Via Dolorosa). I grappled myself with some of these problems in Lost in Peru.
Furthermore, the piece is important in highlighting the varied culture that England is made up of (I guess we could call it “diversity” if we must) and some of the problems of white racism.
Lyn Gradner reviews it here and says:
“… The title of this piece refers as much to the family’s David-like tenacity in taking on the Goliath of the government and the prison service, as it does to the suggestion raised during the inquiry that prison officers saw it as sport to put ill-matched prisoners – such as a white racist and a black inmate – into the same cell and bet on the outcome… The power of this evening, staged with effective restraint and beautifully performed, is not just in its excavation of the failings of the prison service and the Feltham regime, but in the way it puts the victims centre stage… ”
Gladitor is on at Stratford East (and Sheffiled Crucile until sat) from 2nd to 12 November.
Ten points for happiness
The BBC are trying to make Slough happy.
Led by Richard Stevens, a psychologist of well being, he’s distilled his philosophy into 10 ideas just for the Slough experiment:
They run in no particular order:
-exercise three times a week
-count your blessings at the end of each day
-talk for an hour to your partner three times a week
-grow a plant and keep it alive
-cut TV viewing in half
-smile at strangers
-phone a friend you have lost touch with
-have a good laugh every day, even if it is at yourself
-give yourself a treat
-spread some kindness by doing a good turn
so if you’re feeling down, why don’t you try some of them out.
Free Speech
David Edgar writes about defending free speech in the performing arts. I didn’t think it was so under attack, still Edgar writes convincingly:
“…Behind all of this is the idea that there are subjects too important, too profound, too dangerous for writing (and painting, and performing, and even reporting) to touch. Behind that is an assumption that fiction writing in particular has no positive value, that it is a trivial pursuit, a luxury pastime which if it proves to be dangerous to its consumers should be suppressed for the greater good, like high-risk sports, keeping attack dogs, or eating meat off the bone.
We have been intimidated by such accusations – aided and abetted as they have been by post-modern critics in the universities – to ignore or devalue the positive role of art in our lives.
The telling and hearing of stories (in whatever medium) is not an optional extra or a trivial pursuit. It is central to our being as humans. Indeed, certain crucial aspects of humanness could not exist without it.
The most obvious is our ability to imagine other worlds and other times through stories told either from or about them.
The second is our capacity to plan, which relies on the ability to imagine a series of actions and their consequences and, on the basis of that speculation, to choose between them.
But third, fiction teaches us to empathise….”
Theatre blogs
Strangely, there are not many theatre blogs out there. Especially, in the UK
The Stage has one by Mark Shenton
There’s
http://opoorrobinsoncrusoe.blogspot.com/ playwright, Stephen Sharkey’s blog
The director, Paul Miller’s blog, http://pm67.blogspot.com sadly now not updated.
And http://encoretheatremagazine.blogspot.com/ [also a little out of date]
and http://blog.theweddingcollective.org/ again not updated much
When will more theatre blogs start appearing? And why aren’t there more?
Spat on Radio 4
Spat on Radio 4 between Joan Rivers and Darcus Howe, moderated by Libby Purves.
What amuses me is imagining all the R4 listeners as this spat erupts…
Darcus Howe: … since black offends Joan.
Joan Rivers: Wait. Just stop right now. Black does not offend me. How dare you. How dare you say that. Black offends me? You know nothing about me. How dare you.
Howe: The use of the term black offends you.
Rivers: The use of the term black offends me? Where the hell are you coming from? You have got such a chip on your shoulder. I don’t give a damn if you’re black or white. I couldn’t care less. It’s what the person is. Don’t you dare call me a racist. I don’t know you. I want an apology.
Libby: Purves I don’t think it was personal, Joan.
Rivers: Oh, I think it was, when someone says the term black offends Joan. I will not sit here and be told that. How dare you say that.
Howe: I think this is a language problem.
Rivers: No, I don’t. I think it’s a problem in your stupid head. You had a child, you left them, your wife said you weren’t there, you married a woman, you deserted her, now your son comes back and he has problems. Where were you when he was growing up until he was eight years old?
[...]
Howe: Normally I wouldn’t ever meet you in my life.
Rivers: No, nor would I choose to meet you.
Howe: No, she is not a racist.
Rivers: Thank you. Now please continue about your stupid film.
Purves: Can we talk about your tour Joan?
Rivers: I’ll talk about anything you want.
Howe: I don’t think you brought me here to be insulted.
Rivers: Nor was I brought here to be insulted by someone and to be called a racist.
Purves: I think we have to move on to Joan.
Rivers: Please go to Andrea because I’m so upset.
Purves: Andrea, shall we talk about plant photography while Joan and Darcus glare at each other?
Language: animals vs humans
Nadia makes a good point in animals vs. humans. She suggests animals do not have a sense of justice.
I think others might also argue for:
Reason, inquiry, wonder, longing, religion, morality, aesthetics, creativity, imagination, aspiration, humour…
and other “human” qualities.
However, the counter-argument would then run that all of those qualities including a sense of justice only comes from the ability to form language and the abstract ideas that language can bring.
Without language to describe the concept of justice, would we still have a sense of justice?
We can then argue from patients who have lost “language” and mentally ill patients, but then we often have to start making tricky assumptions. This also leads us into the hotly debated area of the origin of language…
Another way of debating this is “No animals have language. Discuss.” This is easier to answer but is by no means definite either.
One more string to argument, is the (arguably) general difference in how humans raise children compared to most animals (eg we willingly adopt etc.)
Bruntwood Royal Exchange playwriting prize
Article in Guardian annoucing the “Booker prize for Playwrights”
The Manchester Royal Exchange theatre announces the Bruntwood Playwriting Competition, a “national contest to discover and celebrate Britain’s best writers for the theatre”. Launching next month, the competition has a prize fund of £45,000 and offers the winner a fully staged production in the Royal Exchange’s 750 main house theatre. A runner-up play will be staged at the theatre’s smaller, 120-seat studio.
Entry to the contest is anonymous.
The only criteria is that submitted plays must not have been produced already.
The final panel has: former culture secretary Chris Smith, Nicholas Hytner, actor Brenda Blethyn and playwright Kwame Kwei-Armah.
The winning playwright receives £15,000, while runners-up get £10,000 and £5,000. T
This is an amazing opportunity. I better keep at my next play. It being anonymous gives unknowns a really big chance…
Ravenhill says produce fewer new plays
The headline goes: “Theatres must stop producing so many new plays and focus more on the classics”
says Mark Ravenhill in the Guardian
This isn’t quite what he is trying to say. It’s better summed up by:
“It’s time for a shakeup, for a new wave of energy in our theatre. And we shouldn’t look to this from just the new work, or just the classics. The best actors and directors have always worked in both. They present different challenges. It’s only by having a theatre culture that continues to explore and expand our relationship with the past, as well as presenting the best of the present, that we’ll have a theatre that is fully alive.”
ie, Don’t just look at the new work but also the old, to get a complete sense of theatre. OK, not that controversial really.
In this, his argument could be seen to run counter to the monsterists who believe new work should be treated to the same standards as old work (and that there should be more large scale new plays).
Old work has stood the test of time, and allowed itself entry into the canon but without new work that canon will not expand.
Still, much depends on what is actually being produced. A bad old play is still a bad play as is a bad new play.
Furthermore, if you look at the data (here and here) from the Monsterists, it would suggest that still far more old work gets produced than new work:
Sep -Dec 2004
-Total number of plays (incl. Shakespeare)? 236
-No. of original (not trans/adapts) new plays: 42%
- No. of original new plays – adult? 88
- No. of original new plays – children? 12
- Average run for original new plays (adult& child, ex RNT = 95): 4.7 weeks
- Average cast size for original new plays (as above): 4.3
so with 6/10 plays being old, I don’t think Mark has to worry about newer work taking over from old.
I’d be maybe more worried about:
Authors: Women? 38 Men? 180
which means only 18% of the plays were by women….
Harold Pinter wins Nobel prize: an interview
listen to this almost comic telephone interview with Pinter. Telephone interview with Harold Pinter after the announcement of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Literature, October 13, 2005. Also Pinter’s response in the Guardian.
– Hello. Good morning.
– Good morning, good morning, Mr Pinter. Congratulations. I’m calling from the official website of the Nobel Foundation.
– Yes. Well, thank you very much.
– It’s fantastic news for us here; and I would like to hear what your thoughts were when you received the news.
– Well, I’ve … I’ve been absolutely speechless. I am … I’m overwhelmed by the news, very deeply moved by the news. But I can’t really articulate what I feel.
– You didn’t have any idea it could come your way, did you?
– No idea whatsoever! No. So I’m just bowled over.
– There’s so much to talk about. But I would like just to ask you what, in your career, you think has been the most important, what has the most …
– I cannot answer … I can’t answer these questions.
– No, I understand.
– There’s nothing more I can say, except that I am deeply moved; and, as I say, I have no words at the moment. I shall have words by the time I get to Stockholm.
– You will be coming to Stockholm?
– Oh, yes.
– Okay. Thank you, Sir.
– Okay?
– Thank you.
– Thank you very much.
– Thank you.
***
The great man has done it and I feel this gives support to his politics (an issue I believe the judges were arguing about).
***
But, maybe his interview should have read more like (!) :
-Hello
-Hello
-Congratulations.
Pause.
-You had no idea.
-No idea.
Pause.
-I would like to…?
-I can not answer. I can not answer.
Pause.
-I understand.
-I do not have the words.
Pause.
-I will have the words when I come to Stockholm.
-Rotherhithe?
-Stockholm.
-You’re coming to Stockholm?
-Oh. Yes.
-Okay.
-Okay?
-Okay.
-Okay.
Silence.
-Thank you.
-Thank you.
-Thank you.
What makes us human
One more thought on whether language defines who we are (see application key words).
For my final exams, a question which often comes up is of the form:
The only defining difference between animal behaviour and human behaviour is the ability for humans to use language. Discuss.
It’s actually a lot harder to argue against than it might first seem.
Ancient noodles
Researchers have found 4,000 year old noodles, in North-West China
I ought to write this in my food/resturant blog, but I can’t get on to blogger so easily, so I’ll count this as part of “life”.
The noodles oxidised immediately when exposed to the air, but there was still enough to figure out they were made from millet. Now, I wonder what the recipe was?
Also, is it almost definitive evidence that the Chinese were the first to the noodle?
“The prehistoric noodles were on top of the sediment cone that once filled the inside of the inverted bowl. Thin, delicate and yellow, they resembled the traditional La-Mian noodle that is made by repeatedly pulling and stretching the dough by hand…”
Sarah Kane
Mark Ravenhill (see previous posts) writes very thoughtfully about Sarah Kane, here.
I don’t think I would have had as much courage to stage Lost in Peru if it wasn’t for Kane’s work earlier.
Like Kane’s work, Lost In Peru draws its inspiration from events such as “the disappeared”, torture, Kosovo and the darket parts of humanity. I’ve not delved there so deeply since but I think I will at some point. It’s important and difficult, just like Kane’s work.
Ravenhill writes:
“…Kane’s work wasn’t just some outpouring of the soul. It was immensely crafted. She wrote the first draft of Blasted while studying in Birmingham. But, she told me one day in her basement flat in south London, that draft was very different. It was full of long, rich sentences, inspired by Howard Barker. When a friend suggested that a more edited form of language might be better, Sarah began retyping the play, working on her manual typewriter, each time refining, tightening, honing it. Yes, there was something of the obsessive artist about her. Yes, that retyping, over and over, had a compulsive drive. But it was that discipline that informed Blasted as much as the emotion at its core….”
“…It struck me that she was essentially a modernist – her enthusiasms were Beckett, TS Eliot; work that was flinty, imagistic, not immediately accessible. Whereas I would locate characters in a postmodern landscape of shiny surfaces under which pain was bubbling, Kane was placing her work in an essential, somehow more substantial, landscape. My artistic world was the claustrophobic bubble of high capitalism; Kane’s was a more brutally naked environment. The horrors of Auschwitz and Kosovo provided her with inspiration; mine came from the hollow world of the Big Mac and Disney World. I wrote on a laptop, Kane on a manual typewriter. We understood each other, but our visions were very different. We joked a lot at our first meeting. I teased her about her taste in indie music – she had a particular liking for the Pixies. I bought her several beers and, as she relaxed, her sardonic humour and ability to tell an amusing story came to the fore….”
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About me
I'm a playwright and investment analyst. I have a broad range of interests: food, gardening, innovation & intellectual property, sustainability, architecture & design, writing and the arts. I sit on the board of Talawa Theatre Company and advise a CIS investment trust on socially responsible investments.
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Recent Work
Recent plays include, for theatre: Nakamitsu, Yellow Gentlemen, Lost in Peru, Lemon Love. For radio: Places in Between (R4), Patent Breaking Life Saving (WS).
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Nakamitsu
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Yellow Gentlemen
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