Plays, of course, are meant to be seen and not read, but it’s not always possible to see every play. They are not complete on the page, certainly in contemporary theatre where plays can be more collaboratively made than ever before. However, it encourages us (and hopefully others) to read more widely. For the third year, here is our #ReadaPlayaWeek initiative. And, as achieved in 2015, we shall try to choose 26 male playwrights and 26 female playwrights for our play choices.
Week 3: Pornography by Simon Stephens (2007)
I first came across Simon Stephens’ work (other than Curious Incident) when I was at university.
I read some of the plays in his first collection, probably procrastinating from
writing an essay at the time. I was struck by the mixture of grittiness and
stage poetry in Bluebird, his ability
to evocatively capture a time and place in Port
that I thought I knew even though I might never have been there, and the concentration
on intriguing and richly-drawn characters in his anti-Ayckbourn Christmas play,
Christmas. My first visit to the
Royal Court was to see his Birdland,
a cracking play with a mercurial central performance from Andrew Scott and
memorable production by Carrie Cracknell. In particular, being so interested in
space, the moment where a character left the play via the fire exit at the back
of the stage thus letting daylight flood into the auditorium was awesome.
Recently I’ve finished reading Pornography, about the London 7/7 bombings. It’s a testing play
that, when read, makes you reflect on how you read plays and how you imagine
them being staged.
The play is made up of seven scenes which can be performed in
any order, although they are presented in the text going from scene seven to
scene one. I should also say that the text I’m reading is out of a collection
of Twenty-First Century British Plays
edited by Aleks Sierz. The first six scenes (or last six?) focus on one or two
people and their lives on or around 7/7. For example, in one scene we see a
woman with a baby who feels ignored by her husband and who is under a lot of
pressure from a big task at work. In another, we see an elderly woman possibly
with dementia who feels under-appreciated by the university she writes for, and
who has to walk home on the hot evening of 7/7. Of course, I don’t do justice
to power of these scenes by sweeping over them in a couple of sentence. In
fact, they are possibly two of the most quietly powerful and moving and focused
scenes I’ve seen or read in a play. Let’s take the scene with the elderly woman
for example. Her story is presented as a sort of internal monologue (although
that’s not to say that’s how it would be in performance). Through providing
careful insight into this woman’s life, Stephens captures a snapshot of the specifics
of just one person’s day, which can then be placed against the bigger picture
of the brutal events of that day and our memories of it, the enormity of London
suddenly being remembered.
If something links the scenes other than the events on 7/7,
it is three feelings of togetherness in London that summer. One from the G8
Summit and Live 8 concerts, another from London winning the 2012 Olympics bid
on 6th July. Stephens effectively captures that time with characters
talking of car horns beeping in celebration and a vivid feeling of humanity
connecting. When the elderly woman’s neighbour gives her a piece of BBQ chicken
at the end of her scene, the neighbour is bemused. And although he may not say
it we get the feeling that he’s doing it with a sense of mutual understanding.
The bombings have possibly led to a connection and a small act of kindness between
these two strangers.
There are two other scenes which are incredibly testing. One
of them is scene four which focuses on one of the bomber’s journey into London.
I found the scene so fascinating because it connects you on a very human and
recognisable level at times (from references to the Upper Crust café at train
stations or the Metro paper for example) to someone who we otherwise don’t connect
with or understand. Towards the end of the scene (and I apologise for spoilers
in this blog post) there’s the line: ‘Suddenly I feel lighter than I have felt
in my whole life’. I read this bit of the play at about 1am also strangely feeling
light, with my heart beating fast and my eyes watering as some sort of physical
response to the writing. It’s a remarkable bit of writing. Theatre is a
collective effort of course, and the sparsity of the stage directions in Pornography suggests that the play when performed
has the potential to be a very collaborative piece of work. The full power of
the play, then, isn’t got from just reading it but it’s testament to Stephens how
the language effectively places you in these peoples’ lives.
Another thing which is fascinating about reading the play is
that we don’t know most of the characters’ names or even who is speaking all
the time. This really tests you, I found, how to imagine the play. Is it a man
or a woman in this scene? Is he speaking this line or is she? Why does the
gravelled driveway and front gate mentioned at the start of this scene make me
think of a family man who is innocently involved in the 7/7 attacks rather than
one of the bombers?
Stephens’ Pornography
is a play I’ll revisit again, probably reading the scenes in a different order.
It’s also a play which I’d definitely be interested in seeing to see how the
director, designers and performers collaborate with Stephens’ script.
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