A year ago tonight, Dance The Colour Blue played to its last audience. My first professionally produced play was an entirely unexpected affair…as well as something of a revelatory experience!
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There is a poem which threads through Dance The Colour Blue, refering back to The Odyssey. A plea from Penelope to be heard. Although, thanks to Homer, we can never be sure we are hearing this enigmatic character clearly.
The poem appears here in full. The third stanza is added for completeness. It did not feature in the play.
Penelope
Once on a overcast morning, I asked the messenger Hermes
Is time a dancing boy whose legs move bright with speed?
Tenderly taking my hand, he affirmed my familiar fate
Denizens, five score men, claiming a tenure of nature that’s yours
Me; tears stain my face entering more deeply into my heart
Swiftly days pass, Odysseus, for the dark chases them away
Three years last you laid by my side, must yet I prepare for three more?
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Looking back on the run of Dance The Colour Blue is like recalling a dream: you’re convinced it happened, you just can’t point to or touch it. What I do know is…the production was smooth…the cast were exquisite…the audiences were appreciative… and the direction was flawless. And even though the world views everyone in its same unwavering regard, there is a change in my perspective as I look round. It was a beautiful production. A professional production. And that is…something.
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Today we had the dress rehearsal of Dance The Colour Blue…and…
We’re ready to go!
For the last 3 weeks, director Olivia Millar-Ross has worked with the actors in order to create a world that is caught somewhere in the mid-late 90s. It was a time of optimism: a decrepit government ready for the scrapheap, a century of conflict breathing its last; and new music scenes appropriating the past. I won’t say what happened next in the real world. Best for us to remain with Nicky, Mikey, Liz, Suzy, Pete and Don in The Everlasting Arms…where the music is good, the beer flows, and the banter is better.
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It’s a new experience for me: to occasionally sit at the back of a studio whilst a play develops before your eyes. It’s a privilege too. To be the writer watching the emergence of an interpretation of your work. Director Olivia Millar-Ross is doing a truly superb job of bringing Dance The Colour Blue to life. I’m not exactly sure what I expected but I am learning a lot that will be useful when next I direct a play.
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A few days ago, we held another read-through of Dance The Colour Blue. I’m pleased to report that the new version of the play read well and got positive feedback from the readers. It is always satisfying (as well as something of a relief) to hear the script as you had intended it when written. A couple of edits here and there were required to tighten some dialogue…and that is now done.
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A new edit of Dance is complete. Which is great! I never take it for granted that there is another edit to be had. I considered the feedback from the last read-through and I think I have made a pretty decent fist of addressing all the points made during that session. I’m pretty pleased with the result. Naturally, I think it is the best edit to date (which is a good sign). I even wrote a document to reflect on the feedback: the points I took on board and the differences they made; and the points I did not take on board, and why not. It will act as a polaroid of my thinking at that time.
A second read-through beckons!
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The script’s perfect! Of course it is. Why would it not be? It’s the best version of it there’s been. Until you reach the Read Through session, that is. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a wonderful opportunity to have professional actors read your work, bring life and nuance to your words. And that’s when it hits you: the script is not perfect. It’s far from perfect. Pass the binoculars…we’ve some distance yet to go.
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Dance The Colour Blue is a play with a strong female presence. 5 of the 8 characters are female. And of the 4 major characters, 3 are female. So, I am really delighted to announce that Olivia Ross will direct. Olivia is a theatre director and actor. She is currently assistant director of the upcoming post-punk fever dream Sugar Coat which runs 29 March - 22 April at Southwark Playhouse.
Read MoreThere is always a tendency in my writing to give agency to those who seemingly have none. My play Dance The Colour Blue is about loss: of companionship, of love, of identity. What does it mean to be so absorbed by another that you can become as easily subsumed as the air that they breathe? You become a void: a repository into which any hint of a notion or scintilla of an idea can be tossed. All of it equally able to stick. Not a single joule of resistive energy anywhere to be found. Literature is littered with such examples - and they are overwhelmingly women. Take Shakespeare’s Cordelia in King Lear, or Ophelia in Hamlet, or so many supporting females in contemporary dramas able be replaced by a ‘sexy lamp’ without impacting the narrative. Or Penelope in Homer’s The Odyssey. Often seen as enigmatic, Penelope is the centre of the mythological strand of Dance The Colour Blue,
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