A NIGHT OF “STUFF AND NONSENSE”

[As I first dipped my toe into Blogfordshire with thoughts that it might be a useful device to keep a small group of writers I'm involved with motivated between gatherings, I hope you'll forgive this slight lapse into self-indulgence. Blame the insomnia if you like... (normal service will be resumed).]

INT. THEATRE BAR. EVENING.

The scene is busy. A performance area is marked out and people are going about their business. Lights are being tested. Sound is being checked. The bar is being prepared for a busy evening. A few early arrivals sit chatting. An organiser frets.

A writer enters. He’s made an effort - put on his other jacket so as not to be seen wearing the same one yet again. He greets the director and buys a bottle of mineral water from the bar and takes root in the obscure corner spot he plans to occupy for as much of the evening as he can get away with.

The bar fills up. Fills up! Performers arrive and are greeted warmly. A few last minute hitches are smoothed over by the organiser. Time ticks by. In the obscure corner spot, the writer is joined by two more writers. They chat, but as these newcomers are also scheduled to perform their own material, the conversation eventually falters as other things need to be thought about.

The general “house” lights dim. Spotlights pick out the performance area. We’re off…

On the outside the writer seems calm. On the inside, it’s quite a different story.

Okay... okay… People have turned up at least… God! I’ve got enough nerves for the lot of them… Don’t know how these performers do it… Shouldn’t have had that pizza earlier… Yep! Just belched the lot up… Rancid pepperoni… Marvellous… I hope I’m not standing close enough to anyone for them to get a whiff of that… Seems a pretty good crowd… Better than the dozen or so who came to the last one of these I saw… Hope we don’t have to lock them in… Of course they might just stay for the half-time food and then disappear…

Well, the introductions went okay… Warmly welcomed… Mind you, he’s a popular chap, people like him… What’s this…? A spoof theatre meeting… Did he mean to do that at the start or was it just some actorly “business”…? Went well though… In-jokes though, isn’t it…? Bound to work well with this crowd… Suddenly my foolish bits seem wrong for this kind of event… Keep it light hearted in future… “frothy”… My bits aren’t on until the end anyway… Maybe if we’re over-running I can get them to pull them… That’s it… I’ll ask him to drop them at the interval… No harm done… That new Kenyan piece was warmly greeted… Dignity… Gravitas… Yes, that works… Should have done something more like that… The poor woman having a coughing fit… Hope she’s okay… Ah! Someone’s taken her a glass of water… I should have thought of that myself… What is that strange humming noise I keep hearing…? Oh and sirens, too… the Saturday night soundtrack… And the planes… I forgot that we were right on the flight-path… Nobody else seems bothered by them though… Ah now we’re on to some old favourites… That’s more like it… That’ll keep everyone happy… Yes, they’re warming up now… Ah! A lot of swearing in that one… Still… Theatre crowd… Probably used to it… I think there’s a “ruddy” in one of mine but I generally thought it best avoided… These actors, they’re all doing this very well… There was me thinking it’s all just a bit of fun and they’ve taken it all very seriously… Never expected that… Must learn not to always have such low expectations… Okay… We seem to be running late now… Another new piece to end part one then we’ll see how many come back for part two… Powerful, dramatic… and wonderfully received… Can’t follow that… I’m definitely asking them to drop my pieces now…

Intermission… Food available, but I can’t eat… “Well done’s”  to the various performers I know… Brief chat to one of the actors playing in my pieces… He seems to like them… Seems to have enjoyed doing it… So much effort put in, I’ll have to let them go through with it now… Seems interested in doing some more work… Could this thing be actually working…? Still not hungry… I can still taste the pizza anyway… Why did I forget those mints…? Buy more water… and a spare bottle to help get me through part two… Brief chat to yet another writer… Why doesn’t he seem to have any nervous tension…? And he’s another one who’s performing as well… I’m such a lightweight…

We’re back… At least no one seems to have gone home… Maybe they’re enjoying it… Nah! That’s too much to expect… A sense of duty perhaps…? I’m such an idiot… Why can’t you just accept it might be going okay…? Those new monologues went down a storm… A lot for me to learn from them… Surprise twists, yes I like that… and that ironic one that just felt like a little bit of “stand-up comedy”… Why didn’t I think of that…? Uh-oh… My first one’s coming up… Should I try to record it…? Will the machine bleep…? Mind you, there are enough bleeps coming from God knows where… Again no one else seems bothered by them… Maybe they’re in my head…? Well that’s going well… Surprisingly well… These guys are really good… The allegedly funny bits seem to be getting laughed at and they’re not laughing at the allegedly dramatic bits so that’s promising… Actually, it seems to have actually gripped the audience… You really could hear a pin drop… Guys, you’ve done a terrific job with that… I’m so pleased I can feel an unfamiliar sensation… I think I’m grinning… Another new piece… funny… poignant… Goes like a bomb… Then it’s my other one… and that seems to have worked too… Couple of fluffs, but you can’t have everything… and no-one else will have noticed, I’m sure… Nicely done, chaps… nicely done… Couldn’t have asked for more… Relief… The final item… A few glitches but by now it really doesn’t matter… I think we’ve done everything that could have been asked of us…

House lights up… Just got time to track down as many actors as I can find and thank them personally… Think I found all the ones who performed my bits anyway… Got to dash… Not sure I can take it if I overhear any bad stuff… Some kind words, however… Got to learn to take a compliment… A brief post-mortem with the organiser… He’ll let me know anything he hears over the next few days… And information about another writing group… I’ll read it later… Text home: “I’m on my way!”

EXIT.

Another evening of wordplay and "stuff"

Week two of the gathering of writers and performers starts with a running order being mulled over and then working through the "new writing" pieces in reverse order. This means another outing for my THE BITTER END, Peter's lively new reflective piece (including a snazzy micro workshop) and lovely performance pieces from David (a Martin Crimp extract) and Ian before we revisit my own ALASKAN ALLY.

I was very pleased with how THE BITTER END read. The 5 characters (as read by Peter, Barry, David, Marcus and Ian) seemed distinct and the sinister aspect of Melvin's personality has crept in nicely. Not bad for two readings and I'm genuinely pleased that they seem to actually have some confidence in the strength of the piece now, so I don't have to feel quite such an idiot.

Peter's new piece was rather pleasing (I get a kind of Merseyside Raymond Chandler vibe with a hint of blues saxophone and a roomful of smoke) and is hopefully going to properly workshopped at some point. Ian's performance of the piece he first shared last week is turning into something special, and once again, I'd love to do a proper line-by-line workshop of it someday soon.

Caroline and Marcus are impressing me (as well as everyone else present I hope) with how they've "got" ALASKAN ALLY, because I really thought no one would quite get what I meant, but once again they're playing it pitch perfect to the point where even I might be convinced that it actually works.

Alice held off from rereading her book extract this week, but I get the impression that she and Martin are working quite closely on that, so I'm looking forward to hearing how that's evolved.

Marcus and Martin were both very encouraging about my scrawlings afterwards and seemed to approve of them. It's still quite difficult to know where to go with complete dramas that last less than ten minutes. THE BITTER END was written to help me discover the characters so I can use them for something else at some point, but ALLY seems so complete and self contained that the back story might almost be redundant. It's just a bit short to use for anything else, really.

Ah well. Sadly, I was shooting my mouth off about performance - in a positive way I hope (as if I know anything about it) - in the bar afterwards. The usual self-loathing I always get when I say pretty much anything to anyone else really. Why can't I just shut up and listen? I might just learn something. I'll just have to blame the adrenaline rush I got from my usual "having my stuff read" angst mixed with the caffeine I always forget is in Diet Coke... Still, Ian did mention "pub theatre" which is a concept I will have to explore further. I was all for getting half a dozen actors in a front room and just doing readthroughs whilst I did in the kitchen squirming as I listened, but that seems more ambitious. Strange. I can't do "ambitious". Not sure I could corral half a dozen actors either, truth be told. Maybe my strengths lie in areas other than "motivation"...

Still, after that digression into the darker corners of my mind, I should return to the point. I still maintain that it would be interesting to carry on workshopping all these pieces and then perform them again at some future date to see how they evolve. I guess that'll just come down to how they go down on Saturday and whether we can get beyond the "Been there... Done that... Move on!" thinking...

Actually left the house and met up with the all-new writing group

I attended the enjoyable first “proper” gathering of the embryonic “Writing for performance” group last night, which promises much, despite the fact that “new” or rather “unproven” new writing is always such a hard sell. Luckily there’s a plan to use some published “proper” works to hide the shortcomings of our own chaff in and amongst. At least things are looking good for the first time out of the starting blocks for this kind of event in a new studio space.

Ian’s monologue on voices in the head has the potential to be a very powerful performance piece and Alice’s extract from her autobiographical novel is a charming little tale much enhanced by being performed by the writer. Very talented people that made me quake in my shoes at the prospect of pulling my own efforts out of the bag. Ten minute self-contained dramas… what was I thinking? “Only an idiot would bring a drama to a monologue reading” as Jim Malone never quite put it…

My own humble offerings at least read rather well I thought, especially for a cold first viewing. Caroline (? – I’m still awful at remembering names) was pitch perfect as “Ally” and the lads made a decent fist of the other piece and at least people seemed to get what they were supposed to be about. They seemed to understand the various different characters too, who all appeared to have distinct “voices” at least, and even if these pieces are never going to slot easily into the pantheon of great works, I was happy with how they were sounding.

So that’s one of me, then.

I must suppose again that new stuff is always going to struggle to get much enthusiasm for itself until the performers feel comfortable and secure with it, and that only comes with the work actually being experienced by an audience of sorts, so there’s a bit of a “Catch 22” thing going on. Still, I suppose the only way to find out is to pop your head above the parapet and wait for the inevitable flurry of arrows, and someone has to do that. I only wish that somewhere in the dim and distant past I’d managed to browbeat someone into some kind of mentoring role, then I might have some confidence that my tappity-tappings were not the complete “bilgeage” I always suspect them of being.

I also met up with an old (school) friend and renewed some acquaintances too, and didn’t immediately have the usual meltdown I always fear in these circumstances, so all-in-all a pretty productive evening.