>I’m back.
Two days of working on other people’s presentations, scripts and going to two rehearsed readings at Birmingham Rep (so I did get out of the house). I like engaging with other people’s writing. As well as being a worthwhile thing to do in its own right, it helps to inform how I think about my own writing.
However… at the moment I need to clear the space for the two projects I’m working on. There’s a stage in writing (I find) when you just need to bounce ideas around (create scenarios, do research, write bad drafts, stream-of-consciousness etc.) to create the headroom you need to encompass the whole idea of the play in your head. Once (if) you get to this state, then you can write individual lines, beats and scenes and sense how they stretch, finesse, disturb and/or detract from the whole. I’m not there yet with either play. And I think engaging technically with other people’s work works against getting into this state.
Back to Birmingham tomorrow to talk about Schechner, Grotowski, Artaud and cultural contexts of production. I just want to put on a show. And build a shed (Arthur Miller did it you know. It’s in Timebends).
Lance Woodman 