Chekov in Print

Chekhov in Hell is now in print. It’s a very beautiful edition, I think. The cover is a kind of pastiche of those iPod adverts, this time with Chekhov gloomily listening through the white headphones. The main colour is a strong blue wash. Inside - after much back and forth between me and the publishers - the text is set elegantly and clearly. As always with Oberon, the book feels well-bound, with good paper and a pleasing design. It is available in all good bookshops, though I know some bad ones are keen to get in some of the action, so you might be in luck.

PLAYlist

Derek Bond runs a recurrent theatre event at Theatre503 called PLAYlist. It’s theatre in the form of a mixtape; each playwright chooses a song and then writes a play inspired by the song, to the same length as the song. He’s dojng a Christmas edition and he’s asked me to contribute. This sounds like fun.

I’ve chosen ‘Santa Claus in Coming to Town’ by The Crystals. My play’s called He Knows When You Are Sleeping and concerns a couple whose discovery that Santa is coming prompts them to interrogate their own lives to see whether they’ve been naughty or nice. It’s funny, I think.

The event is due to run 14-22 December.

Miniaturists

Declan Feenan, who I met when we were both on attachment at the National, is curating a Miniaturists event. The Miniaturists was set up in response to the Monsterists’ demands for a space for large-scale main-stage new writing; the Miniaturist plays are ten minutes long and performed in fringe venues. He’s asked me if I want to do one.

Stephen Sharkey set the thing up and he did asked me to do one last year but I couldn’t make the dates work. This time I’m glad to be able to say yes.

Not completely sure what I want to do yet, but I have a theatre idea with the stupid but maybe fun title That’s A Nice Hat. It is a sort of theatrical game, because it asks questions about the relationship between the theatrical representation and imagined fiction. Might be too slight, might be too po-faced, not sure. I’ll write it and see.

It’s going to be part of the Miniaturists event on 12 December 2010, 5pm and 8pm at the Arcola.

Chekhov in Hell cast

Chekhov in Hell has been cast and I couldn’t be more pleased. Simon Gregor has the title role and the ensemble company handling around 40 roles between them comprises Jonnie Broadbent, Ruth Everett, Emily Raymond, Geoffrey Lumb, and Paul Rider.

Initially I had thought - and told Simon so - that this play needed to be performed by comedy actors, maybe even comedians. I was kind of proved wrong in audition where it became clear that the parts needed some careful balancing between attraction and repulsion, between satire and sympathy, and it was always the actors who saw that.

It’s a really hefty cast of serious, funny, smart, immensely likeable people and I’m beside myself with impatience and excitement to see the thing on its feet.

Two New Books

Two books that I contributed to have arrived within days of each other. And they look pretty handsome, I’m pleased to say.

The first is The Oxford Companion to Theatre and Performance, which has a handful of entries by me, mostly on contemporary British playwrights. It’s a pretty great-looking volume, I think, and it’s certainly the one I’ll keep on my shelf for reference. It’s an abridgement of the rather unwieldy two-volume Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance that came out in 2003. I hope there will be a paperback edition of the Companion because it really is the book for literary editors, drama students and informed theatregoers to have to hand.

The second book I made a rather more substantial contribution to. It’s the Routledge Drama Anthology and Sourcebook: From Modernism to Contemporary Performance. I wrote the introduction to the section on Naturalism and Symbolism. I also translated Maurice Materlinck’s Interior, his essay ‘Tragedy in Everyday Life’ and Pierre Quillard’s letter ‘On the Complete Pointlessness of Accurate Staging’. I loved writing that introduction; just love that period in theatre history, the budding excitement of the independent theatres, the emergence of Modernism, the battles in the press, the booing, heckling audiences, and more. My original draft of the introduction was twice as long as it was meant to be and was cruelly - okay, necessarily - cut down. I may post up the ‘writer’s cut’ in a few months; it has some more intriguing curlicues.

Very pleasing the see these books out and I’m proud to have contributed to both.

Oxford Companion

Just picked up my complimentary copy of The Oxford Companion to Theatre & Performance, edited by Dennis Kennedy. I wrote several entries for the original two-volume edition, published in 2003. The new publication is an abridgement and an update of the earlier volume. I mainly wrote entries on post-war playwrights, including Osborne, Rattigan, Priestley, Fry, Sherriff, Coward, Brenton, Barker, Stoppard, Kane, Ravenhill, Greig. I also wrote pieces on the Royal Court, naturalism and the well-made play. Something like 35 entries in all. For the new edition, I’ve updated the relevant entries and added Martin Crimp, Dennis Kelly, Joe Penhall, Simon Stephens. It’s a nice-looking volume and is refreshing for its focus on performance.

Blood and Gifts platform

On Wednesday 15 September, at 6.00, I’ll be interviewing J T Rogers about his play Blood and Gifts, a docudrama about the American involvement in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

Weirdly, I’ll be interviewing him on the set of Earthquakes in London. Who knows how that will work out but I’m sure it’ll be fine.

I plan to ask about political theatre, the value of documentary, the personal obsessions that lie within it, the differences between British and American politics and theatre culture and the question of research. Should be very interesting - and I’m greatly looking forward to meeting the man.

In Praise of the Proscenium

I did another piece for the Guardian’s stage blog on the merits of the proscenium arch model of the theatre auditorium. You can see it by following this link.

The argument is that while there is a great deal of interest in site-specific, promenade, immersive and other forms of theatre, the risk is we simplify and take for granted the proscenium arch. Not only - I argue - are most of the things said about it untrue but it also has kinds of power that should not be ignored.

Paper Retweet

The Times has printed one of my tweets. Holy fuck. I have been published by The Thunderer. For your infinite interest, the tweet in question is:

I think David Cameron's 'Big Society' is a GREAT idea. I've always wanted health, education & culture to be provided by religious nutcases.

It’s been retweeted a dizzying number of times. Searching back I think I have Mitch Benn to thank, who retweeted it to his umpteen followers.

In April, my equally incisive contribution to the political philosophy of the nation -

The Tories launch their manifesto from Battersea Power Station. From where the Cybermen launched their takeover of the world. Just saying

was massively retweeted and ended up in The Guardian.

Tweets are public domain, I think, and it’s interesting to see them published in a newspaper. It’s a bit odd for The Times to use public domain material and then stick it behind a paywall. Still, there it is.

The Good Actor

An interesting day spent with Andy Lavender and his company at Central School of Speech and Drama. The new project is called The Good Actor; the good actor in question is John Matthews and he is beloved and feared, brilliant and destructive, everywhere and nowhere. He’s the proposed central figure in a theatre show but for now he will (not) appear through a series of short films that form a constellation around him. Friends, colleagues, acquaintances and associates meet in his absence and discuss him - or not - and slowly a sense of him will emerge through his absence.

Mostly these scenes will be improvised by the actors. Andy’s asked if I might like to script one or two. I have an idea for a Restoration actor on the phone. The scenes are to be filmed guerrilla-style, one 3-minute scene every half-hour through the week. These will be available online initially, but may be a step on the way to - or even a component of - a theatre show.

The Suspect Culture Book

I’m thrilled to say that Oberon Books have commissioned me and Graham Eatough to edit The Suspect Culture Book which will be a record, tribute and introduction to the Scottish theatre company, Suspect Culture.

I’m pleased because Suspect Culture have not had the full recognition that they deserve. Partly because they were based in Scotland; partly because they rarely played London (only Timeless, Mainstream, and Static, I think) and also because their mixture of experimentalism with a strong interest in text and narrative made them hard to place. But their body of work is truly impressive.

I was involved with the company personally from the beginning, but only as a friend and supporter. I actually designed lights on their first two shows, but mainly I supported, sometimes from afar. In the early 2000s, I wrote the first academic article that surveyed and interpreted their work. Then in the mid-2000s, I started working with them. I was part of the team that made Futurology. I wrote Static. And then I contributed Theatremorphosis to Stage Fright. I’ve known David, Graham, and Nick for over twenty years (they were all at my wedding). I’ve seen most of their shows and I’m very proud that I’ll now play my part in helping fix their legacy and publish selections from their archive.

The book will contain the full texts and associated materials for three Suspect Culture shows - Timeless, Mainstream, and Lament - with essays, interviews, and a wealth of photographic material. The publication is supported by the Scottish Arts Council. It will be out in Spring 2011.

Terence Rattigan

I’ve only gone and blogged again at the Guardian. Follow this link and you’ll see my piece on Terence Rattigan and the well-made play.

I’m arguing that the dismissal of Rattigan because the well-made play was old-fashioned and inadequate was misplaced. Rattigan used the well-made play as a kind of metonym of the kind of society that was unable to cope with emotional outsiders. That’s the course of his brilliance as a playwright; he makes you cry (and cheer) because he finds the spaces between the harsh lines of the well-made play formula and in doing so he subjects the society he depicts to sharp critique.

Love the Sinner platform

On 15 June, I’ll be in discussion at the National Theatre about the new play, Never the Sinner, with its author, Drew Pautz, and its director, Matthew Dunster. The play’s a complex and punchy discussion of the relation between faith and selfhood, religion and business, North and South. Should be good.

Starts at 6.00. Tickets available here.

After the Dance platform

On 17 June, I’ll be chairing a platform at the National on After the Dance, one of my favourite plays by one of my favourite playwrights, Terence Rattigan. I’ll be discussing the play with the brilliant Thea Sharrock.

Starts at 6.00. Tickets available here.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I should add that I’ve written an article for the After the Dance programme, interweaving interviews with Penelope Wilton, Harriet Walter and Gina McKee discussing Rattigan’s women.

Contemporary European Theatre Directors

I’m chairing a panel on European director’s theatre, to mark the publication of my book. On the panel are my co-editor, Maria M Delgado, journalist and critic Aleks Sierz, and contemporary European director, Katie Mitchell.

Platform begins at 6.00 in the Cottesloe Theatre at the National. Tickets available from the website.

Artistic Retweet

I was a bit thrilled to find that Irkafirka had graphically rendered one of my tweets. The idea of the site is that they take a tweet that’s captured their imaginations and draw it.

Mine was a silly musing on the London Marathon and it’s been given lovely form by the graphic artist Nick Hilditch.

You can see more of the Irkafirka images here and the image is above.

Guardianista

I’ve done a couple of blogs all over the Guardian website. Both are about the theatre’s relation to the General Election. The first is general, the second is a theatrical reading of the Leadership Debates. Enjoy.

‘Stage-managed? Theatre and the Leaders' Debate’.  The Guardian.  29 April 2010:  Stage. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage>.

‘Can political theatre change the world?’ The Guardian. 13 April 2010: Stage. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage>