Artistic cuts
Posted in Theatre, Uncategorized on August 27th, 2011 by Claire Burlington – Be the first to commentWell, gosh, oh dear, oh dearie dear, what a couple of days.
I went up to Edinburgh to see, amongst other things, Lighthouse Theatre’s production of my play ‘Nourish’.
I didn’t see my play. I saw an adaptation of it. Which would have been fine if I’d been expecting an adaptation, but I wasn’t.
I was aware that the company had moved a speech and needed to trim for time. Knowing that the play runs at about an hour and that the company had an hour’s slot, I was anticipating nips from lines and, as no-one had run any cuts past me (I had already vetoed the moving of another speech and a suggested cut), I assumed there must be very few of these, but I was wrong. The play I saw was not the play I wrote.
To be honest, I feel quite sad about the whole experience. I know the company were shocked that I was unhappy with the alterations they had made and I feel absolutely rotten for casting a shadow over their time in Edinburgh. I don’t know the company well, but they all seem to be genuinely lovely people with extremely good intentions and actions to match (for example, donating profits from the show to Women for Women International). I also believe the company were happy with their work but, all the same, that is not justification for altering a proven piece so greatly and not mentioning it to the writer.
After seeing the piece, I asked the company to make it very clear to audiences that this piece is not my play, but is their adaptation based on my play. The company decided to cancel the rest of the run.
The changing of scripts is a contentious issue and it’s the playwright who runs the risk of seeming prima donna-ish if they object to changes made in rehearsal rooms. The fact that I’m writing this blog post at all probably seems prima donna-ish, but, if you read to the end, hopefully I’ll have been able to shed a little light on the writer’s perspective.
Firstly, when you’ve written a play, you’ve wrestled with the slippery beast of the English language so as to make the story that you want to tell; it’s not hugely unreasonable to want that story to remain in the shape you battled to create. Also, when rehearsing a script-based play, the job of director and actors is to serve the text. The play has been written. That part is over. Now it is being made into a production, a process which is a whole nother kettle of fish. One of the incredible things about working from a script is that there is an endless number of different ways to do the work, and that infinite array of possibilities comes from the directing and acting choices, not from rewrites. Many actors and directors like to change the script and make it their own, but this is not ‘doing a production of a play’, it is ‘adapting a play’ or ‘using a play as inspiration’ which, again, is a whole nother kettle of fish.
With regard to the show in Edinburgh, I had agreed to a production of a play, not an adaptation of a play. The company had invited me to rehearsals but, as I was not aware they were adapting the script, I saw no need to go and see what directorial or acting choices they were making – after all, it was their production.
The piece I saw earlier this week ran at only 40 minutes. It was a short piece to start with, and I was stunned by how much was missing. I don’t have the script committed to memory word-for-word right now, but the major things I noticed were as follows:
The Wardress’s routine tasks (delivering and removing Sylvia’s food tray and preparing the milk-and-egg mixture for force-feeding) had been removed, thus removing the fundamental structure of the piece, the sense of time passing and the repeated contact between Sylvia and the Wardress.
The story of how Sylvia had ended up in prison had been removed, thus removing a heck of a lot of the fiery, funny, self-mocking, non-starved Sylvia who then deteriorates as she becomes weaker.
Discussion of Sylvia’s work, political and social aims, her art, her letter-writing, her mother, her father and Keir Hardie had been cut, along with much of her political fervour, manic working and developing confusion.
Sylvia’s etching of drawings into the cell walls had been removed.
The Wardress’s discovery of Sylvia’s work and her choice to let it stay hidden had been removed.
The final speeches from both characters had been removed.
The Wardress’s focussed displacement during the forcefeeding scene had been cut.
The doctor’s guilt over the forcefeeding had been cut.
I won’t examine all the changes that were made to what remained, but things were different from the off. The speech which I knew had been moved to the start of the play was truncated and had at least one line in it (a quotation) that I did not put in the original play.
If you’re not a writer, actor or director, these changes may not sound much to fret over, but the tiniest tweak can dramatically alter meaning, character and relationships, change the information that is being conveyed, make ensuing events seem disjointed, and even knock the whole play out of whack. For example, in the original script, Sylvia had a line which describes how a doctor reprimands her for vomiting milk and blood over his hands after forcible feeding:
‘he tuts and says, quite gently, ‘Naughty girl’
In this Edinburgh version, this line had been removed and replaced by the Wardress bellowing ‘Naughty girl!’ directly at Sylvia. Might not seem like much, but that one change introduces an aspect of the Wardress’s character not seen anywhere else in the script, throws a totally different light on the relationship between Sylvia and the Wardress, throws the hierarchy of doctors and wardresses off kilter, denies us knowledge of the doctor’s attitude to Sylvia, and denies us a pointer towards the fact that the forcefeeding process was becoming normalised by those who had to administer it. In short, the function and effect of the altered line bears no similarity to the function and effect of the original.
I had been sitting watching the piece in a state of dazed disbelief, but when I heard that bellowed ‘Naughty girl!’, I’m afraid I had a strong desire to leave the building.
I’m not wishing to make a negative qualitative assessment of the production – bold acting and directing choices were made and, as I hope I’ve made clear, those choices are entirely up to the company. That’s the point. That’s putting on a play. That’s the business of show. I do not have any issue with that. In fact, I love it! I do, however, have a problem with my name being attached to something where my contribution was so greatly altered without consultation.
Anyway. It’s all part of life’s rich tapestry and we’ve agreed to tie this episode up in a neat bow and leave it there. I wish the company all the best with their future work.
