Awesome in-depth interview with Michael Frayn, one of my favorite playwrights.
It's hard to believe that the man who wrote the genius slapstick farce "Noises Off" is also the author of "Copenhagen" - the brilliant play about the meeting of Niels Bohr and Heisenberg in Copehhagen in 1941.
Frayn wrote one of my favorite plays - a very little known play called "Here" - which is never done. It has never been done in the States. There was a production of it in London, I believe - and I don't think it went over very well. It's a play that takes place in one room, with two characters (well, actually three - There is a landlady who comes in and out) - But the main characters are a man and a woman, who are in a relationship. They have no names. I believe they are called She and He. The dialogue is very Pinter-esque, repetitive, mysterious, very British - It's all about what is going on underneath. I LOVE this play. The play was introduced to me by a very good friend of mine, a wonderful director, who wanted to do a production of it. We had a couple of readings of it, I fell in LOVE with it - and then he and I tried to get the rights to the play a couple of years ago - but this was at the time that "Copenhagen" was taking the world by storm - and the rights were denied. Perhaps Frayn did not want any of his earlier works to compete with his newer works. Don't know.
But "Here" is still one of my favorite plays.
Any playwright or screenwriter should read this piece. He's a novelist, as well as a playwright and he has much to say about "form" - and how content dictates the form.
Here's a couple of great excerpts:
The first one is about character development in his plays. How does it come about? Does he plan it all out ahead of time? Does he know where the play is going when he sets down to write it?
Frayn:
When I start I like to know in advance where the story is going, and I spend a lot of time thinking about the story before I begin writing it. Some writers claim that they start not knowing where the story is going to go. Muriel Spark says that she starts with nothing in her head except the title. This is very dramatic—and she has very good titles. One of my predecessors as a reporter at the Manchester Guardian was Howard Spring, not remembered now but an immensely successful popular novelist in his day. Well, he says in his memoirs that his book, called Shabby Tiger, began simply with the first sentence: “The woman flamed along the road like a macaw.” So he wrote it down, and then other sentences followed and so on to the end of the novel. I can't work like that. I do have to know where I think the story is going to go. However, then complications arise. It is like an industrialist setting up a new industry: He has this idea for a wonderful new product he wants to produce and it's going to be of great value to the world, and all he has to do is build a factory, take on the staff and things will be fine. Then as soon as he starts to build the building, and as soon as he starts taking on the staff, problems arise: They make difficulties, they bring in the union, and so on. As soon as you involve other people in your schemes you get into difficulties. It's like that with the characters. It sounds a bit whimsical but it does feel like that; as soon as characters come into the story, they begin to take on a life of their own, and they don't always want to work the plot that you've so laboriously provided for them. It irritates me that they are so ungrateful! One has given them life, existence, and they won't fall in with one's plans. And just as in life the factory owner has to negotiate with the striker, and say, Alright I'll pay you more if you do this or change your practices on that, so you have to negotiate with your characters, go along with some of their ideas hoping that they'll go along with some of yours. And the whole story begins to change.Posted by sheila