Diary of a first time playwright

Week One - the Rehearsal Room

I am officially part of a “ Company”, with my name at the top of the list as Writer. I been part of many ‘production teams’ in the past, but a Company which is the term used in the theatre feels somehow more significant. The difference , I am discovering, is that a company is a living entity – unlike film and tv where people come and go, a theatrical company is together for the duration of the run, every weekday during rehearsals, and then for eight performances a week during the run. The people in this room are my companions. We are in this together.

The director, Dominic, is professionally rumpled. His first action on entering the room is take off his shoes. He may look like he has slept under a bridge, but he is immediately authoritative. He has a deep resonant voice which can bring the company to attention in a moment. ‘Right’ he will say, “ moving on” and we all turn to him like meerkats.

He commands the company to introduce themselves with an anecdote on any brushes they have had with royalty. The play is called By Royal Appointment and it is about the late queen , her dresser, her designer and milliner. Our Queen is played by the astonishing Anne Reid who started her career in Coronation Street in the sixties.. She tells the story about her excitement about being awarded an honour, which was spoiled when the Queen asked her how things were going on Coronation Street, a show she had left twenty years before.. Anne is the oldest but also the naughtiest member of the company. She only has to roll her large china blue eyes and everyone is giggling. Clearly acting is the secret of eternal youth.

Darling is the word on all the actors” lips. It isn’t an affectation more a way of instantly establishing intimacy even if you can’t remember somebody’s name. Dominic has many shades of darling – from the peremptory ‘ come on darling’ to the admiring , ‘ lovely work darling.’ But I notice that the other members of the company , the stage manager , the assistant director and the sound designer do not use the D word. Darlings are not necessarily democratic

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The read through is for me a joy. To hear the cast discover layers of meaning I didn’t know existed in my script is magical. I feel humble and proud at the same time. Writing is alchemy, things come together on the page in a way that you are not fully in control of – to be discovered later by readers and in this case actors. At the risk of sounding slightly unhinged it is as though something is speaking through or even past me. I don’t know if this is true of all writers but I quite often read something I have written and think , ‘ did I write that? Where did all those thoughts come from?” That is definitely the reason I write, to have that moment where the expression becomes effortless because I am not willing words onto the page, they are turning up of their own accord.

Am brough back to earth by sniggers from the company as one of the actors has found yet another innuendo – “ It just slipped out your Majesty.” I never set out to write ‘ carry on’ type dialogue but in this case my subconscious has all the subtlety of a thirteen year old boy. I remember a read through of one episode of Victoria being totally stymied on account of Prince Albert’s interest in helmets. Dominic brings the company to order with a brisk ‘ Moving on,’ and the sniggers cease. He would be an excellent headmaster, if he had better ironing skills. But he is the perfect person to direct a play about the nuances of the Queen’s wardrobe, as he can’t be side tracked by furbelows. All that interests him is the drama.

What really throws me is how precise the theatre is. Unlike writing for the screen where everything can be changed pretty much up until the moment it is released into the world, on stage every word matters. Everything has to fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. The actors may be skilful enough to make every word sound as if they had just thought of it, the reality is that everything is meticulously plotted. Getting a play ‘ on its feet ‘ is the difference between two and three dimensions. I am proud of my words, but what makes them exciting is the choreography that Dominic is giving the actors. It’s an amazing thing to watch. I had always imagined that theatre directing was about finding the meaning, but really it is about finding the ‘shapes’. Every scene has its own geometry and Dominic is turning the rubik’s cube until he finds the pattern that unlocks the hidden catch. He arranges the cast in a v formation for one scene with Annie at the front and the whole sequence is freighted with a significance that was invisible on the page.

I go home at the end of day exhausted. All I am doing is sitting on the sidelines in case I need to explain something, but it has been a long time since I have had to concentrate for such a sustained period of time. When I pick up my phone because it is buzzing, Dominic gives me such a basilisk glare that I feel myself wilting. The thing about the company is that it lives in the present, and you have to be there in full. It makes me realise how much time I spend wishing I was somewhere else, but right now this echoey cavern off the Euston road is the only place in the world I want to be.