but they miss some of the lightness from the previous draft!

Looks like I’ve been too concentrated on the story/plot lines and less on the finer points of the relationship between my characters… Oh well, that’s what the drafting process is all about!  That’s also what today’s for, and we’re going to explore how the split stage may work at the beginning (where scenes in both Zambia and London take place on stage at the same time) and then look at the power shifts at the beginning of the second act.

That’s something I love about theatre, the writing isn’t just done at the desk (here’s a picture of the desk I’ve been working at whilst here, isn’t it lovely?). The play will keep being rewritten even in the theatre, up to the closing night of performance, by whoever directs and performs it. Theatre is above all a ritual: house lights turn down for the magic on stage, and hopefully you’ll see something of the world you recognise as the stage reflects your world back to you, and the show will have a slightly different sense about it every night. Ok you may not know the finer points about goat farming or being a Pastor. Maybe you’ll learn something along the way. But you’ll also, hopefully, see two characters in a predicament you recognise, and you’ll have an opinion about what they should or shouldn’t do in the interval, and you might argue about how it played out on the way home.

These are the thoughts and hopes I hold dear today before we start work. They remind me not to be too precious with what I’ve written so far and to stay open to developments as they happens via the actors in front of me.

Thoughts from another sunny day about to start at 57a.

Lucy x