A good read

A very happy Sunday to you all. Today I’ve been reading a number of good things, two of which I care to share with you so that you can read them too.

Firstly, a novel that I know I’m very late in raving about and have pretty much missed the raving boat. But, what the hell, I’m going to rave a bit about it anyway; the literary canon was not made by people refusing to be late ravers.

So, the novel is Room by Emma Donoghue – look I’ve even included a link straight to Amazon so you can order it, or at least read a summary. I’m not going to say much about it, other than it really is one to read in one sitting. It’s an emotionally charged story that will alter your perspective, and is guaranteed to be one of the tensest reading experiences you’ll have in a long time. Read it, go on.

The second read I’d like to recommend to you today, and the reason I sat down to write this post in the first place, is another blog post. So how do we produce? is written by David Lan, artistic director of the wonderful theatre known as the Young Vic. It’s a wonderfully informative piece that rather than set a list of producing rules, opens up producing as a creative space. As well as this it shows Lan to be remarkably insightful about our society, and theatre within this society and the sorts of questions we need to be asking ourselves, or forcing ourselves to consider.

Lan asks us to question what it is that we value, and whether society’s relationships we echo in the theatre are those that we value and want to be portraying? Other brilliant and inspirational words are these: “we only produce shows we don’t know how to do. Every new show has to be a new adventure … do the crazy thing, come take a leap into the dark”.

Well, if you make theatre and you don’t follow those rules then all I can say is that you’re an idiot.

Tennessee Williams: A Streetcar Named Desire

I’ve never seen a performance of A Streetcar Named Desire and so perhaps it’s strange that I’m writing what appears to be a review of the play. Reviewing plays as plays, before they’re plays (if you see what I mean?) isn’t really done is it? Perhaps with good reason, as a play isn’t a play before it’s brought to life on the stage… or is it?

This week I read A Streetcar Named Desire, first performed in 1949, for – shockingly – the first time. Why this reading event hadn’t occurred before is beyond me, but there we go – I just hadn’t taken the time to read it. Now I can’t get enough of it, and so I wanted to share some comments on Williams’ work.

Peter Shaffer has said of Williams: ‘Whatever he put on paper … could not fail to be electrifyingly actable’ and this is something that certainly jumped out at me, and made the play so readable.

As a director I like reading plays, I have to. But rarely do I enjoy them in the same way as I do a novel, hooked on plot and what will happen next. For me it often takes time to bring a play to life in my head, and see how it can be brought to life on stage. Not so with Streetcar; this is playwriting so vivid and effervescent that the characters, the scenarios, scream out from the pages passionately desiring to be given fully fledged life on the stage.

The dialogue strikes just the right balance between theatricality and real life. It’s a heightened situation, sure, and the characters are perhaps slightly exaggerated, but the catalyst of real emotions – real madness in the world – doesn’t fail to make its mark.

It’s a play written with a clear knowledge of theatricality, of art in general and of symbolism. A knowledge of the fact that art is always representing real life, can never be it, and the best – and varying – means through which art can represent.

The extremely detailed – Beckettian in this way – stage directions also stood out to me. I even feel I’ve learnt something about means of expression and representation on stage from them. Williams’ directions do differ from Beckett’s in the sense that they seem to be offering more creative scope, rather than limitations, for a director.

A Streetcar Named Desire also holds surprises, or it did for me anyway, as what appears to be a narrative and character driven drama degenerates – loses the plot – as the famous Blanche does the same.

Suffice to say, A Streetcar Named Desire has inspired me as a director and as a writer. Now I just to need to see it, and read some more Tennessee Williams.