View single post by Martin H

Posted: Wed Jan 16th, 2008 11:43 pm

Quote

Full Topic

Martin H

Joined:	Mon Dec 31st, 2007
Location:	Toronto, Ontario Canada
Posts:	184
Status:	Offline
Mana:

Thanks for your comments and for the kind words. I'll certainly take a look at the prologue with your remarks in mind. It's tricky because of how much I have to establish at once, particularly the simultaneous theatrical and metatheatrical levels I want the play read on.

I imagine I will get references to Brechtian devices, which I'll find annoying because theatre that announces itself as theatre and thereby introduces a layer of self-awareness to the story predates Brecht by thousands of years, and Aristophanes, Jonson and Middleton, and in modern times Dennis Potter and Peter Barnes are more the people I've looked to as models in that respect. But people won't notice them anymore than they're likely to notice anyone but O'Neill in the list of influences you mention in that Broadway production--they really haven't been given much chance to sample the wealth of theatre available, which means the conversations playwrights have with each other across the decades, generations and centuries are a closed book to them. I could help rectify that if I could direct a few seasons of plays of my choosing, with half decent budget.

The title I've had in mind for ages--through five or six failed and abandoned drafts over the years. It may be a little too joined to it now. (You may have noticed from these scenes that I have something of a thing for titles--both acts are titled and so is every individual scene, though only somebody reading the play or a programme which gave a scene by scene breakdown would know that.)

Last edited on Wed Jan 16th, 2008 11:48 pm by Martin H