So they like the play. It was given a public reading and the response
was very positive. They will consider it for production later in the year –
BUT!
Of course there’s not always a BUT, but sometimes there is –
and the BUT this time? Well, they normally do two short one act plays together in
an evening – and normally the plays are about 40 to 45 minutes in length. My
play comes in at under 30 minutes.
Well, it was good enough for the company who produced it originally,
because they were going to do it with two other plays and needed plays which were
20 to 30 minutes in length. Mine was therefore just perfect for them. But at just
under thirty minutes, is it going to be discriminated against, when it comes to
choosing the plays for their – wait for it!– LONDON run!
Oh, now I’m beginning to think that what was my perfect play
at twenty five minutes – is perhaps not really all that perfect. Was it missing something? What was it they – wrote -? That someone had said that the female part
was underwritten. That was probably the female actor reading the part.
So what am I to do? Padding comes to mind – just add a few
lines here and there, and it will gradually edge up to the forty minute line. But
I am a dedicated writer – a playwright with plays that have been performed in
Sydney, Australia; Chicago, US of A – Neath! Am I being told that my play is
not perfect and needs a bit more?
This time last year I was frantically cutting lines to get
down from eleven pages to eight, this year I’m being asked to add pages. Would
Alan Ayckbourn submit to this kind of dictation? Would Shakespeare have added
to Macbeth, because it was a bit underwritten for the temperamental boy playing
Lady Macduff?
But of course the reality of it is, that if I look closely
at the piece; I have given big speeches to the male characters, but none to the
female. And it is a bit light in plot if I’m honest but I hadn’t wanted to
overload it at twenty five minutes with too many twists and turns, so that even
I would get confused, if I had to describe the storyline.
And all of this is an honest view from people who don’t have
an axe to grind. Whereas I have a short twenty five minute play to grind. But that’s not going to get me anywhere. And
anyway Dickens was once told by his publisher that he was two thousand words
short for an instalment of one of his novels and had to write some more to give
the reading public their money’s worth.
So if Dickens can do it –
And perhaps the female actor was right –
And the female character could do with a bit more going on.
Reluctantly I reassess what I wrote last year and slowly begin
to question that original piece – and slowly, ever so slowly a thirty five to
forty minute play emerges with a stronger play device – not shoe horned in, but
delicately crafted in so that no one but no one will see the join. Except of
course all those who saw or read the original piece. But then I can always
change the title and swear blind it’s a new play – or at least a new version.
So there you have it. Twenty minutes does go into Forty, if
the incentive is right. And of course my creative integrity is still intact.
So now all I have to do is press the send button, and my new
and longer attachment is sent on its ethereal way.
I’ll let you know when it’s on –
That is, if I haven’t ruined the very qualities of the play
that made it so attractive to them in the first place. There’s always that, of
course!
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