Category: Uncategorized

• Artifice/realism, detachment/immersion – I’m definitely interested in audience engagement. Making audiences feel is critical for writers. I also want the audience to be critical, to think, to question, to be uncomfortable. I think theatre should call for active participation by the audience, otherwise, they may as well be sitting in front of the television.

• Risk/control – My preference is dependant on the type of work being created. In a fringe theatre environment, or theatre as social practise, audience participation and using random stimuli makes sense. In more conventional theatre, a certain about of improvisation and development during the rehearsal process also makes sense, but this is more about contextualising the work to the time the place and the context it is being performed.

• Linear/non-linear – I tend to prefer non-chronological narratives but I tend to write more chronological circular narrative, I’m not sure why. Maybe because it’s a more accepted convention. I need to think more about this and try to break the habit.

• Near-far/scale –In film scripts I tend to use a wide view and use urban settings. In plays, I tend to create urban or domestic scenes, much more close up than films and much more internally focused.

• Soothe/disrupt – I think I fit in a cynical, provocateur storyteller category, or at least I aspire to be.

• Collusion/manipulation – Technology is really important. The digital disruption that seems to have occurred in most areas of our lives still hasn’t deeply affected theatre. This is inherently risky, with audiences of the future being digital natives, there are questions to be answered on how to harness technology to both engage these audiences, and to keep theatre craft current. The challenge is, I’m not sure it’s possible in film at least, to use technology in a way that keeps the work current but doesn’t badly date it over time.

• Physical/intellectual – how important is accessibility to you? Accessibility should be a standard consideration when creating and producing work. In truth, I don’t think I consider it as much as I should in the writing process. Something to work on.

• Rough/glossy? Familiar/exotic? Heightened/realism? Comedy/tragedy?Black comedy seems to be my default approach, with characters that are a bit gritty, with lots to say, and loads of feisty women!

• Individual/community – I love the idea of art as social practice, and am inspired by its use in history; the happenings of the ’60s, and the all the political theatre prior, from Brecht to the ancient Greeks. In previous years, I would have firmly put my interest in this space, but over time I’ve moved more towards the hero’s journey, with social/political themes, but in a more mainstage theatre style.

Header image photo courtesy of Hannah Jacobson on Unsplash

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about stripping back dialogue in my scripts. I am constantly locked in battle with my arch-nemesis, exposition, but it’s a battle I will win, one day, or so I keep telling myself.

I’ve been reading lots of scripts and watching lots of theatre and film that create powerful scenes and character dynamics using minimalist dialogue. Then, I came across All That Jazz, released when I was too young to notice, but just recently discovered, and stumbled upon an opening scene that needed no words at all to create a world.

Directed by Bob Fosse, the film is a thinly veiled autobiography, peppered with dreamy scenes and show-stopping numbers, where Fosse creates art reflecting life, reflecting art, reflecting life.

While there is debate on the artistic success vs self-indulgence of this film, there can be no doubt that this opening scene must be one of film histories best. Through these first 4 1/2 minutes, we are taken deep inside the world of Broadway. We see characters, we see conflict, hope, love, loss and potential, overlayed with a soundtrack that both neatly juxtaposes the music of Broadway musicals, and reinforces the New York vibe of the late ’70s. Brilliantly cut, this scene reminds me that we can create a whole world with no words at all.

I’ve just discovered Bachelard’s work, Poetics of Space.

I feel like I’m really, really late to a party.

Bachelard’s idea is that real-world spaces evoke spatial archetypes and that we all experience primal emotional responses to different types of spaces & archetypes.

Doors, it seems, are a particularly big deal, and reading an extract of Bachelard’s work made me think about the way I’ve used doors in my writing, particularly my plays, completely subconsciously.

Reflecting over specific pieces of writing doors in my work, in addition to the expected exits and entrances, I have used doors to signify hesitation, relief, composition, a revelation of truth, and a threshold of change from one life stage to another.

Other concepts on doors offered by Bachelard include temptation, desire, security, welcome, respect. He talks about oblique angles of doors and the psychologies that they offer, the concealment, the half-truth and that a gentle push could unveil a destiny.

The idea of the door as a threshold is really interesting, the space between two different lives, two different worlds, two different selves.

It makes me think about the old trope of carrying a bride over the door threshold, as a symbol of one life stage to the next, and also the often-used analogy of opportunity where one door closes and another opens. The book also makes me think about Alain de Botton’s thoughts on the hotel rooms, as another domestic space, which Botton describes as another world- a neutral space to think, like a monastery.

Fascinating stuff. I’ll look at domestic settings differently from now on.

Bachelard, G. (1994 [1958]) The Poetics of Space, (trans. M. Jolas), Boston, Beacon Press,

Featured image courtesy of  Dil on Unsplash

THOUGHTS ON WRITING. I’ve was recently asked which writers have inspired my work. More specifically, to write a critical reflection on works of one or more writers who have informed or influenced me. Two names sprang to mind instantly, job done.

Later, I was driving to a meeting, listening to a radio conversation on current theatre, films and books. Of course, another name popped into my mind, then another, then another. I’ve narrowed it down to eight -today.

Michel Houellebecq – Ever controversial this brilliant satirist makes me feel strangely alive with his brutal, dark humour and courageous themes.

J.B. Priestley- I saw An Inspector Calls on stage in London as a youngster and it ignited my political leanings and made me want to be a playwright. I’ve seen this play a few times since and although it’s never quite had the impact of that first time, it is still a touchstone for my ideological themes.

Linda Aronson-A Brit who moved to Australia, she shares a multi hemisphere lens. I saw Dinkum Assorted, a play about Australia’s social history, in my last year of high school and I knew from that moment I wanted to work in theatre.

David Williamson-Having spent a few years working in the Sydney Opera House, Williamson’s work was the constant of the annual artistic programme. His work taught me about mainstage productions, situational drama, how to draw on current politics, social history and satire and create deeply flawed characters.

Caryl Churchill- The writer I’ve always wanted to be. Her surrealist narratives and postmodern style make her plays courageous and exciting. Top Girls first act is just genius. Layered characters, historical references, feminist themes. So much still to learn from Churchill’s work.

William Shakespeare- The first time I heard music in language was studying Romeo and Juliet when I was 13. Studying Othello and Hamlet in later years only added to my obsession with his incredible works.

Sofia Coppola- I still think Lost in Translation is one of the best film scripts ever. Her character-driven narrative brings all of those quiet questions to the fore when she submerges her characters in an isolated world.

James Graham- Just brilliant political writing. I wrote a little Brexit based stage play that I was rather pleased with, but Graham just smashed my pride to a million tiny pieces with his screenplay of Brexit: An Uncivil War.

August Strindberg- Miss Julie is an extraordinary work. This naturalist piece, a brutal unveiling of the inner world, of intimacies and class structures.