The Play That Never Was

A few years ago, I wrote a play that never saw the light of day. It was… not intentional, utterly frustrating and entirely enlightening. As I tend to write with a theme in mind, I conduct a considerable amount of research which often is more enjoyable than it sounds. However, it is always a job to ensure any research does not extrude from the narrative. The analogy of a double decker bus works best: top deck travels the story; inside travels the message. On this occasion, it didn't work: the play upon reflection didn't seem to hang. “First drafts are like that” was my thinking “I’ll give it some thought and revise it”. Weeks went by and then months. The fact that I had not sat down to edit the play was indeed telling. Usually a play gets to the point where characters, sufficiently developed, entice me to spend yet more time with them… find out what they’ll do next. But on this occasion, no.

I was in the middle of studying a masters in playwriting & dramaturgy when we had been encouraged to create tension from the environs of the play and not character emotion. I had just completed a play - Hollow - where emotion had been a significant driver. So, writing in an opposite way seemed an exciting proposition. It would be a challenge! I had always been intrigued by the track The Day Before You Came - the lyrics described the most everyday of drudgery accompanied by music ominously hinting at something altogether darker (there is a whole internet rabbit-hole about the unreliable narrator: she’s a killer; she’s been murdered and is a ghost, etc…you could lose years reading this stuff!). The video features a train commute - and is surely the very definition of suburban depression. I decided to use a train as my ‘world’ - a very constricted environment. And it is here that my problems began. To set a play solely on a train is dynamically restrictive...and since UK trains do not have an upper deck perhaps that is where the story got lost. I was thinking too literally, too loyally, to the spacial rules of the train interior and somehow that rigidity infused my writing.

I conducted a whole lot of research to support the writing. But on this occasion it protruded through the play like sharpened skewers: all message and little characterisation. The play written and months having now passed, I still had no impulse to sit down and edit. The reason revealed itself to me one day whilst out walking: the play lacked heart. The characters were mere vessels for the message, giving the play an unwanted didactic quality. I decided it was unfixable and that it would not see the light of day. Certain aspects do live on in a subsequent play I developed: Dance The Colour Blue - which I hope to put on sometime within the next 18 months. The experience taught me there is a common thread to my work; that however deeply buried, no matter how oblique, it always has within it a beating heart.