Writing for Performance 3: Holding the Mirror up to Nature by Bill Kirton
Alas, poor Yorick. When Hamlet gives his instructions to the players, we’re hearing from Shakespeare as writer and director. ‘Here are my words,’ he’s saying, ‘don’t eff them up. Treat them with respect. Don’t do all that acting stuff. Be normal.’ Hmmm. What you write is a blueprint for a production. It calls for teamwork so, even though it’s your baby, you have to accept the fact that you’re only a part of the experience. You may get requests for rewrites, actors may ask questions about their role to which you don’t have answers. For them, their character is everything, for you he/she is part of a larger whole. In my last radio play, the main character, a blind woman, receives things through the post from her grandson which may be ordinary postcards or examples of his own sketches. She shows them to people, proud of the fact that she has an artist grandson and people, not wanting to upset her, tell her he’s very talented. The actor playing her asked me whe...