The Spoons That Are My Ears!

Writing plays is all very well, it's not too different from writing novels, short stories, poetry or essays, but seeing those plays performed is a wholly different experience. It changes everything. It also made me feel that I was just one factor in the equation, and by no means the most important one, and that was a nice sensation too. It is comforting in a strange sort of way. Because I have worked in isolation for so long (writing, after all, is generally a lonely, often embattled business) it hadn't really occurred to me that the process could be so tangibly a communal effort.

 

Seeing my name in big letters outside the theatre was a nice surprise. A bigger surprise was viewing the set for the first time and then watching the actors make full use of it, filling the space with their presence, using the props ingeniously, always enhancing the words, amplifying the effect through their actions. The actors made the play come alive. They turned it from a notional exercise into a practical comedy. I am hugely obliged to them, and also to the director. I will always remain grateful to have witnessed from my particular perspective the final result of the alchemy that is the theatrical process.

 

It was inevitable that the weekend performance of my plays would refuel my drive to write new plays. So now I am working on two full-length plays, one of them a philosophical horror comedy, the other a prehistoric farce full of anachronisms. The prehistoric farce is going to be a bit like a more visceral Flintstones. Whether either of them will ever be performed is another question. Whether any of my other plays will ever be performed is also open to speculation. But I feel a few steps further along the path.

I have wanted to write plays for a long time. I first tried writing plays when I was young but didn't know what to do with them when they were finished. I wrote a radio play back in 1986 which I still think is very good, but when you don't have a definite place to send scripts, the motivation tends to weaken.

After a long pause I resumed writing plays in 2018, inspired firstly by a collection Alasdair Gray scripts I borrowed from the library, and then by a collection of Harold Pinter plays. I wrote my plays in quiet moments when I was working at the university and soon had many of them. I love writing plays and feel the form is suited to what I do best as a writer.

I now have 33 plays completed and others in various stages of pre-existence. All my plays so far are one-act absurdist comedies. I am guessing that all (or most) of the plays I write in future will also be absurdist comedies but I will surely start to write longer works. In fact, thanks to the encouragement of the theatre director I will attempt to write a full-length play later this month.

In the meantime, here are the details of the plays that are going to be performed three days from now. Tickets are free, by the way.