David Hare made his name in the 1960s as a young, provocative playwright – on the left with a sense of humour. He recalls his early and controversial plays, from Slag to Plenty, his revelation about writing and what happened when Helen Mirren couldn’t sing
It’s hindsight that makes things look inevitable. I wanted to write a memoir to explain how purely life depends on chance. In the late 1960s, I was a director who, with Tony Bicât, had started a pioneering touring group, Portable theatre. On a Wednesday, a dramatist failed to deliver us a work which we were due to start rehearsing the following Monday. I was forced to step in and in four days write a miserable one-act satire on the absurdity of leftwing self-regard in screwed-up rightwing Britain. It was called How Brophy Made Good. On the road, the play failed consistently in many different environments, but somehow when we arrived at the most inspirational of all fringe theatres, the Brighton Combination, it seemed at last to find its audience. I was learning that one of the most surprising rewards of theatre is to marvel at how a play may gleam at a different angle according to where and when it’s presented. The thoughts and feelings with which the audience arrive are half the story.
...
Continue reading...
0 comments:
Post a Comment