Alas, poor Richard...

Stephen Lowe – theatre director and playwright (he even wrote for Coronation Street at one time) – came to see us last night to talk about the "magic" of theatre. It was as a response to Stephen’s fabulous play ‘Smile’ that I wrote my play for the Lakeside earlier this year, so I was very keen to hear what he had to say. He talked about how writing a play is like giving a gift to the actors & directors and the audience, and then letting it go. He said that his job, as the ‘maker’ of the play, finishes at the dress rehearsal and that the actors then take what he and the director have made and make it their own. I agree with him; it’s all magic. Nobody knows exactly how it is going to work, and although the writer ‘makes’ the play – in the same way that a craftsman might make a table – it’s the way the play (or table) is used that brings it to life. For example, I loved that first moment in rehearsals when my characters (hitherto only 2-dimensional on the page) suddenly emerged as flesh & blood as the actors took hold of my words and gave them soul.

It’s ironic that I should only have discovered this magic at this rather late stage in my life (and I suppose I have Fintan Ó Higgins to thank for that), but it’s doubly ironic that I should get enthused by this enchantment just as the future of new theatre writing is becoming so jeopardised. The message is being written with black paint on a black wall, as live arts become further and further squeezed by the double vices of the current economic down-turn and the voracious need for sports funding in preparation for 2012. Not exactly a good time to become fired up (at last) by the sparkle of the stage. I remember when - as an undergraduate – I produced a play for the university’s Drama Society. It was ‘The Education of Skinny Spew’ by Howard Brenton (from whom, in true ‘Kevin Bacon’ style, I am only two steps away because he is a friend of Stephen Lowe’s). It had only one lunchtime performance in front of a ragged collection of bewildered students, but I remember being enthralled by the whole process. I also remember paying Howard Brenton the huge sum of £4 for the performance rights.

What madness then, caused me immediately to forget that excitement and turn my back on the stage for the next thirty years? Actually, it wasn’t madness – that would almost be excusable – it was nothing more than simple, plain stupidity. If I hadn’t been so stupid, I could have been sitting where Stephen is now. Instead of this wasted and worthless life of mine, I could have filled the last three decades with a gorgeous tapestry of greasepaint and drama. How careless I’ve been. How utterly, utterly careless.