A-Z challenge:is also for Influences.

Influences is the cheeky one for today. It has everything and nothing to do with Gef the mongoose.

The big influence on my writing is Harold Pinter. Imitations of his penstrokes are everywhere in my writing: the marked pauses and silences, the lyrical turn of phrase, my attempts to convey the unspoken behind the spoken. Thematically, Pinter and I don't share a lot in common. Which isn't as disappointing as I first thought- Pinter 's plays to one degree or another revolve around characters manipulating and jockeying for power of various kinds (see the recent film version of Sleuth for a fine example). I find the this fascinating, but it's a concept totally foreign to my headspace.

The biggest lesson that Pinter taught me was to trust the script. I learnt this in a directing paper at university when I directed his "A Kind of Alaska". Me and another student had just over two 2 weeks to cast, plan, rehearse and run the show for 4 performances. Added fun was that we were first up and when our shows ran they were at the end of the first 3 weeks of the course before we'd really learnt a thing. 

I had a half hour timeslot to run the play and no matter how many times I read it, it was always running nearer 50 minutes. So I began making cuts to a photocopy using a big black marker (I think of this now and I shake my head) and it hurt. It hurt the play everytime I ran a black line over words. I began muttering 'sorry Mr Pinter' everytime I brought my hand to the page. I got through, looked at the cuts I though might possibly worked, read it, timed it. 40 minutes. Looked for more cuts. Questioned my integrity.

In the end, I said to my tutor something along the lines of "Time be damned. I can't cut anything without hurting the play."

I learnt two things, one about Pinter and one about playwrighting.

The thing I learnt about Pinter, is that he knows what he is doing. Nothing is in the script my chance. Nothing is there unnecessarily. I watched the actors take the script and it was beautiful. I discovered my job as the director was to make suggestions like "perhaps on this line move downstage" and "I can't hear you" and "You guys rock". Generally, just get out of the way of the play. Everything that I needed as a director was in the script. Everything important. In fact my one regret was that I left a specified window off the set. I look at the performance and it was fantastic, but I always think "Why did I leave it out?"

And this was what I learnt about playwrighting: everything essential needs to be in the script, and everything in the script is essential (whether meant as such or not).

It did take another year for that lesson to sink in. I had a play produced and while it was good, I wished that I had put more clarity into the script I'd written. I'd had visions of the director taking the script and using it as a launch pad for their vision, but because I'd not written it to be used like that and the director was wonderfully literal I got exactly what I'd written, only not what I'd wanted.

A-Z challenge: Isolation

Possible scenes to illustrate the various isolations:

• Discussion of ascent to and inaccessibility of Doarlish Cashen (700 odd feet up a mountain)
• Voirrey having a lock on her door (Why?)
• James losing his lucrative job that allowed him to travel.
• Voirrey being teased at school.
• James talking to Voirrey's teacher about the mongoose.
• The silent Margaret Irving on the sidelines in the Voirrey and Gef show with James as ticket tout.
• The older Voirrey discussing her lack of marriage with a journalist.

Gef alleviates and makes more acute the isolation. If Gef is a creation of Voirrey to not feel so lonely, the mongoose ends up ensuring her lonlieness.

The whereabouts of Voirrey's brother and sister (this came as a bit of a surprise to me, because the two elder siblings are absent from the popular literature).

***

How can I include isolation in the script (without directing from the page)?

• Indicate no or limited physical contact between any of the characters.
• Have scenes where there are set barriers between characters (tables, walls)
• Characters ignored, talked over and run down in dialogue
• Characters present but silent. (i.e. Margaret could simply be a silent presence throughout the entire thing!)
• Frequent character monologues, but with the proviso that Gef could be present.

***

Tomorrow: James

Odds 'n Sods on a Sunday.

Added the A-Z challenge link and a blogger award to the right. The award makes me chuckle, I am in the middle of a long list of creative blogs. But, having said that, the thought that I have a creative blog worthy of recognition warms me.

I'm quite pleased that I have managed to post every day of the challenge (even if some days it is a near thing). This challenge is a great motivator and having people comment has a nice feedback effect.

I 'm going to spend some time looking at other challenge blogs and making some link lists for this blog. There are a number of roleplaying blogs taking part that I already follow, and I would like to find some good writing blogs too.

***

Tomorrow I'm goign to write around isolation, but I'm thinking I will also add a post about influences. Influence is a big part of our creative DNA and it's always fun to chuck names out.

A-Z blogging challenge: Harry Price

Harry Price is the redoubtable investigator into the unknown.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Price

His entry into the story of Gef is when James Irving wrote to him about the phenomenon. Perhaps a little leery, Price asked his friend Captain MacDonald (Captian X) to look into it. Eventually he visited the farm and the Irvings accompanied by another friend, Lambert.

I get the feeling that Price does not believe the Irvings, but can't quite find the lever to crack the story open as a hoax.

***

PRICE: No, at first I was not interested.

JAMES: Oh?

PRICE: I get more than the lion's share of gloryseekers and frauds. I didn't credit your initial letter.

JAMES: I assure you that Gef is as real as you are.

                    Beat

PRICE: Well, of that I am not certain.

JAMES: You can talk to anybody here. They will vouch-

PRICE: -they have. The Captain reported back to me, and I'm here to see or hear for myself as a result.

JAMES: Well, there are no garauntees.

PRICE: Your diary was most helpful in that respect. Now, I have some questions. Let's see if we can draw out the beast.

JAMES: You're welcome to try. I haven't been able to trap, shoot or posion the little bugger.

                    Thump overhead.

PRICE: Was that..?

JAMES: No, just my daughter.
                    Shouting upstairs.
              Voirrey, keep it down!

PRICE: I would like to speak with Voirrey and your wife at some point.

JAMES: You would, would you?

PRICE: They have their own observations I'm sure.

JAMES: They may.

PRICE: Mr Irving, is Gef real?

JAMES: You have my word.

PRICE: I have a colleague, Lambert, that will come with me on my next visit. I also will need to bring some equipment.

JAMES: we have no electricity.

PRICE: Rest assured, this equipment is simple in it's operation and requires batteries only. Which we will bring.
                    Beat
PRICE: Our presence will not be an inconvenience.

JAMES: Aye, well, stranger things have happened around here. And strangers will cause things to happen. I'll show you around.

***

This challenge has made for an interesting entry back into writing. I do need to get reacquainted with all of the background documents I've scavenged from around the web. It is irkesome to be writing and not really have a grasp of the real people before turning them into characters. Price loves magic, but how will I make that an effective part of the stage character? More reading. More research. More writing.

Monday: Isolation.

A-Z blogging challenge: Gef

Ah, Gef, the entity without whom I would not be doing this. The temptation is simply to copy and paste all of the Gef quotes and let them lie.

(see: http://dalbyspook.110mb.com/gefquotes.html)

***

VOIRREY: Hello?

GEF (mimicing V): Hello?

VOIRREY: Let us begin.

                    Voirrey draws the letter 'A' on a slate
                    (Voirrey will repeat this for each letter from here)

VOIRREY: A is for Apple.

GEF (mimics): Apple.

VOIRREY: A.

GEF (mimics): A

 VOIRREY: B

GEF (mimics): B

VOIRREY: Ball.

VOIRREY: C. D. E. F. and G.

GEF (mimics): G.

VOIRREY: good.

GEF: G. G. G.

VOIRREY: What other letters.

A-Z Challenge: Farms and Farmers

Charles Morrison or is it Northwood (I keep finding both names) was a lifelong friend of James Irving and was Voirrey’s godfather. He was one of those vouching for James Irving’s integrity and also heard Gef speak.

*** 

CHARLES: When I read in the paper about all this fuss, Jim, well… I came as fast as I could.

JAMES: You always were curious, Charles. What would you have me do?

CHARLES: well, reassure me that you haven’t taken leave of your senses. Buying this farm was bad enough. Goats and chickens in the arse end of Man.

JAMES: It was nice of you to come this far to pass compliments.

CHARLES: It gets worse. Voirrey looks a mess. Is she going to school?

                    GEF growls from nearby.

CHARLES: Jesus, Mary and Joseph! What was that?

JAMES: That is our guest. Gef meet Charles, Charles meet Gef.

                    Silence.

GEF: Charlie-Boy, I don’t like you. You smell different. Like a city threw up on you.

JAMES: Gef, he is a guest in my house.

GEF: So? He has come to do you harm. He is casting aspersions. He sneaks in, a doubting Thomas, and tries to get you to question yourself.

CHARLES: That isn’t true.

GEF: Is it not? “Voirrey looks sick. The farm looks sick. Are you sure you’re well Jimbo?”

CHARLES: Voirrey is my goddaughter. Jim and Margaret have charged her protection to me.

GEF: Voirrey doesn’t need your protection. She has me! I will bite you if you touch her. My fangs carry disease and my claws filth. I will mark your face if you even look funny at her.

CHARLES: Seriously, Jim. How is the farm doing?

GEF: None of your business. We’re doing fine without you.

JAMES: To be honest, the sightseers have caused more harm than good. I’ve had to fix the main gate a half dozen times since this all began.

GEF: I will see them off.

JAMES: Gef, why don’t you sod off. I can’t think with your shrieking like a washerwoman.

GEF: What! Why, the nerve… fine. Vanish.

                    Silence

JAMES: We’ll have a night of his singing and thumping, I’m sure. Little bastard can be vindictive.

CHARLES: How can you live like this?

CHARLES: My god, I was speaking to a spook, wasn’t I?

JAMES: We don’t know what he is. Spook? Talking animal? All I know is that he a royal pain in the arse.

Pause.

JAMES: Did I make the right decision?

***

The trap I want to avoid, is to make this a drama about abuse. There is a tonne of circumstantial evidence pointing to some kind of emotional abuse as beautifully distilled by Anna 'Asbo' Hinton in this discussion here:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/topic.php?uid=11118503209&topic=13929

(it's in the bottom half of the page).

It would be incredibly easy to make James a total control freak, if not worse and at the end of the day this may be what will happen when the blueprint, the script, is interpreted by actors and director.

I'm still finding my way into all of this. Exploring it by writing. What I like about doing this kind of scripting is that different ideas come up all the time. It is hideously shallow- I'm not digging all too far into the research material- though depth comes as I read more.

Tomorrow: Gef. Though, for the purposes of the challenge I do wish the mongoose was named Zach. It'd be more fitting.

A-Z Blogging challenge: Evil?

This one I had difficulty with pinpointing as a prompt and as a concept. Evil? Really does it apply?

Gef, the mongoose isn't evil, of course. He is unsettling, in the same way that a ticking bomb on the dining room table is unsettling. From the first encounter I had with Gef in the pages of Usborne's Ghosts there is a tug between Gef's cheerful antics and his more sinister intentions. He cajoles, he threatens, he throws objects and vandalises. On the other hand, he jokes with Jim and is fiercely protective of Voirrey. He brings the family rabbits to supplement their diet.

There will be no bad guys in this play. It could be too simple to say "James/Harry/Gef' is the 'bad guy'". I hope the character's behaviours come across as complex, or hint at complex motivations.

In terms of the theatre, the actors bring so much to a role. I like to think of characters as fiction-suits (to steal an idea from Grant Morrison's Invisibles) that actors put on. The human underneath the role brings with them texture. My goal, my hope, is to provide them with a suit that intrigues them, that clothes them well, that doesn't turn out to be garish and ill-fitting.

Well this meandered a little.

Tomorrow: Farms and Farmers.