Music to lose yourself in while getting on with getting on

This, variations on the same theme and all forms of ambient Blade Runner sountrack music have been looping around me as I try to make a bit of progress ... or do I mean retrieve lost ground?  Vangelis. who knew?

Leaving Helsinor

Play #22 of '28Plays28Days' is in on time. Three hours ahead of the deadline. I love this writing challenge, simply love it. And - much to my amazement - I'm hanging in there and have twenty-two short plays to show for it. 

Today's challenge was presented in these terms:

Fan fiction is all the rage now...

Oh, boy!

So write something about your favourite characters doing something else. Or use their world to create new characters... Or something like that. (I'm not 100% sure I understand what fan fiction is... Would Rosencrantz and Guildenstern count?) Anyway, I trust you all to know better than me!

Who knows?! Maybe the next 50 Shades will come out of this challenge! (that was fan fiction, wasn't it?!)

Bonus points if you write your fan fiction on something theatrical, so no Harry Potter, please!

Ophelia
by John William Waterhouse, 1894

So I chose William Shakespeare's Hamlet as my starting point; giving it a near-contemporary setting: 1978 (which is contemporary for an old fart like me).

We reach Act III, Scene 2 - the play within a play part - and Hamlet is being a sexist boor with Ophelia. Rather than just sitting there deflecting the Prince, Ophelia tells Hamlet she's tired of his  incessant whining, like some kind of pseudo-adolescent brat (the Bard's original text tells us, after all, he's at least 30). Ophelia has had enough. She leaves Denmark to live as a single mum in a squat in Vauxhall, finding solace and inspiration in the inestimable musical talents of Gloria Gaynor. Some time later, when young Ham is about three, Ophelia is arrested for blocking the entrance to the Cruise missile base at Greenham Common alongside 30,000 other women peace campaigners.








Works for me.

Did I say? I love this writing challenge. Thank you East London's The Space.

The Seven Sisters

Baggage Series by Mohamd Hafez

Play #19 of '28Plays28Days' is in. Today's challenge was to take an art movement not often (or at all) associated with drama as our starting point then write a play that applied its aesthetic, processes, methods to the stage / performance.

I chose 'Assemblage' as my school / movement - 3D collage using found objects. Applied that to the seven sisters of The Pleiades meeting up for their annual reunion at the cave of the eldest sister, Maia. Fun, eh?

Found fabby examples of assemblage art in the monthly online journal Europe Now (if you're interested.)

Curtain Call

Day ten of the 28Days28Plays writing challenge from The Space performing arts and community centre based in a converted church on the Isle of Dogs, East London.  Today's challenge was given to us in these terms.

Write a play that never ends. That's it.  Simple!

It has a beginning. Sure! It has a middle. Of sorts. But... woah! What the what?! Holy smoking guacamole! No end?

No! No end! No end! It just goes on and on and on and on and on and ... you get the drift.

But here's the trick! For bonus points - don't make it cyclical (that's far too easy!)

Anton Chekhov

And I responded by writing a 15 minute play in which Agatha Christie meets Noises Off meets Chekhov and they all bump into Beckett near the never-end. (Spike said she laughed out loud ... which is a good thing cos I was trying to be funny.)

Not in my wildest dreams would I have conceived of such an idea or simply open up a new blank page and write it in about five hours. I cannot adequately describe how grateful I am to The Space for organising this month-long challenge. I love every minute of it. Truly.

In Defence of All We Knew

Morgan Le Fay by Frederick Sandys (1864)

I feel I'm at risk of falling behind in my 28Days28Plays challenge. I finished play #9 and submitted it just 20 minutes before the deadline. Way too close for comfort.

We were asked to respond to a quote from Hemingway, “The world is a fine place and worth fighting for and I hate very much to leave it.”

I somehow felt compelled to re-tell the story of Gawain and the Green Knight with most sympathy for Morgan Le Fay fighting to protect her Pagan world view. Fifteen pages ... and all in rhyming verse!

Ten days into this challenge, I'm beginning to suspect the real me has been abducted by aliens and replaced by an interloper from a more advanced, more literate universe. That story always ends badly for the body snatchers.

I'm loving it but poor Spike Deane is forced to read the lot.

Tally ho ... play #10 awaits.

Janet of Carterhaugh

Day 2 of the 28 Plays Later challenge (write 28 plays in 28 days) and script #2 was submitted about an hour ago. This was our brief:

So let’s look at myths and folklore today. Try to pick a random culture, find an interesting character in their mythology or an awesome folklore story and write about that.

I forgot about selecting a "random culture" and stuck with Scotland. I hummed and hawed for a bit between re-telling The Great Selkie of Sule Skerrie and The Ballad of Tam Lin. In the end I chose the latter, and not simply because it's one of Spike's favourites (although that did influence my decision).  

So I've re-told 'Tam Lin' in eleven pages, including music and dance. Me? Putting in music and dance. There's a first. And I've called it Janet of Carterhaugh because the more and more I thought about the tale, the clearer it became to me. It's Janet's story. The important point is that it's in. If it's a tenth as good as the rendition above of the ballad I shall be a happy man.

After The Apocalypse

Four Horseman of the Apocalypse by Viktor Vasnetsov, 1887

Given some of the characters I included in my first screenplay (When You Dine With The Devil, first draft finished last Friday) it seems I could be developing an obsession with the four horsemen of the apocalypse. I submitted my first play (of 28) earlier this afternoon to the '28 Plays Later' project organised by The Space, a performing arts centre on the Isle of Dogs, East London; not far from where I used to live in Tower Hamlets back in the early 1980s. 

It seems I can't leave alone those four riders from the Book of Revelation. I've put them at the heart of my response to the first challenge of '28 Plays Later' -- a whole new play each brand new day.

Our first challenge came through the e.mail in these terms:

So… as you’ve probably noticed, the financial stake this year has gone up to 19.28 (as I said, blame Trump… Brexit… etc. - see below for super special bonus points)

So for today’s challenge, let’s write a play about “19/28". Perhaps a play about something that costs exactly £19.28. Perhaps a play that starts at 19:28 or ends at 19:28. Maybe set the play in 1928… or research the year 1928 and be inspired by something that happened that year. Maybe the play is a dialogue between two people - a 19 year-old and a 28 year-old. How about a play that lasts exactly 19 minutes and 28 seconds? Or maybe spend that time to write the play. Oooh… how about a play titled “when nine teens ate tea” (almost all the syllables)? Or a play set in the junction of 19th and 28th streets… something like that. The possibilities are endless… well… I guess not endless. They have an end. Like most things in life. Apart from things with no end.

Make sure your play has an end! We can’t write a never-ending play, can we? CAN WE?!?! Hmmm… we’ll see about that.

And this is how I began ...

A DESOLATE CROSSROADS IN A BLEAK WASTELAND.  AT THE JUNCTION, A CITY STREET SIGN INDICATES ONE ROUTE IS 19^TH STREET.  THE OTHER IS 28^TH AVENUE.

A RIDER, CLAD IN A GREAT WHITE CLOAK, LEADS A JET-BLACK HORSE DOWN 19^TH STREET TO THE JUNCTION AND, THERE, TIES THE REINS OF THE HORSE TO THE SIGNPOST. THE RIDER REMOVES HIS HELMET, LOOKS ABOUT THEN SPEAKS TO THE HORSE.

Enough already with the deathly horse riders Douglas! (At least mine have gender-parity: two sisters, two brothers from one doom-laden family). The point, though, is: my first play is in. On to day two and play two, a version of The ballad of Tam Lin. Maybe.