The Process
On the Borderline
As part of its 50th birthday celebrations, the Royal Court joins forces with the BBC writers' room to launch THE 50, a mentoring scheme for 50 writers nominated by theatres from across the UK. Here Hanif Kureishi speaks about his 1981 play, Borderline, based on the concerns of London's Asian community - riots, fascists, feminists.
Saturday April 22, 2006, The Guardian
It was with some trepidation that I looked again at Borderline, a play I wrote in 1981.
The Royal Court Theatre, where it was originally presented, wanted to mount a reading of it, as part of the celebrations to mark the company's 50th anniversary this month. My father was alive in 1981, and sat enthusiastically through many performances, laughing at everything, particularly at the character of the father, who rather resembled him. Now, 20 years later, two of my sons, aged 12, were present. I couldn't help wondering what it would mean to them - or indeed anyone, now.
The original director, Max Stafford-Clark, whose idea the play was, had worked often with Joint Stock, a touring company started by David Hare and Bill Gaskill with the intention of getting political theatre out of London. Max told me the play would be cast, the research done in Southall - an immigrant area of west London - and then I would write it. This was political theatre, emerging from the turbulent, radical intensities of the 1970s.
For me the Joint Stock process had been frantic, if not hair-raising. The actors and theatres had been hired; everything was in place, but the play had not been written, not a word of it, and we were to start rehearsing in six weeks. I was just beginning to find out whether I could be a writer or not, trying to find a subject, characters, and words for them to say. I was already learning a lot from the directors I worked with, and from the actors: as they began to speak, the clumsiness of the lines was obvious. Fortunately, I was hard-working then, with a fierce ambition.
The play did get written. It also got rewritten. This, I saw, was when the real work began. If I'd had too "pure" a view of the artist, I was soon to learn that aesthetic fastidiousness wasn't a helpful attitude. Max was severe and precise, sending me into a dressing room with instructions to write a scene about so-and-so, with certain characters in it. I rewrote as we rehearsed; I rewrote as we played it around the country; I rewrote it when we opened at the Royal Court, and after that. This was the first time I'd worked in such a way and it was an important proficiency to develop.
To my surprise, looking at the play again after more than 20 years, I was not startled either by the naivety of the piece, or by the nature of my personal preoccupations then. The play itself was written out of the 1970s and at each stage the question would have to be asked: how does this scene, or these lines, further the cause, not only of the play, but of the social movement we are pursuing? What are we saying, about Asians, women, the working class; how do we push the argument along?
As part of its 50th birthday celebrations, the Royal Court joins forces with the BBC writers' room to launch THE 50, a mentoring scheme for 50 writers nominated by theatres from across the UK. Here Hanif Kureishi speaks about his 1981 play, Borderline, based on the concerns of London's Asian community - riots, fascists, feminists.
Saturday April 22, 2006, The Guardian
It was with some trepidation that I looked again at Borderline, a play I wrote in 1981.
The Royal Court Theatre, where it was originally presented, wanted to mount a reading of it, as part of the celebrations to mark the company's 50th anniversary this month. My father was alive in 1981, and sat enthusiastically through many performances, laughing at everything, particularly at the character of the father, who rather resembled him. Now, 20 years later, two of my sons, aged 12, were present. I couldn't help wondering what it would mean to them - or indeed anyone, now.
The original director, Max Stafford-Clark, whose idea the play was, had worked often with Joint Stock, a touring company started by David Hare and Bill Gaskill with the intention of getting political theatre out of London. Max told me the play would be cast, the research done in Southall - an immigrant area of west London - and then I would write it. This was political theatre, emerging from the turbulent, radical intensities of the 1970s.
For me the Joint Stock process had been frantic, if not hair-raising. The actors and theatres had been hired; everything was in place, but the play had not been written, not a word of it, and we were to start rehearsing in six weeks. I was just beginning to find out whether I could be a writer or not, trying to find a subject, characters, and words for them to say. I was already learning a lot from the directors I worked with, and from the actors: as they began to speak, the clumsiness of the lines was obvious. Fortunately, I was hard-working then, with a fierce ambition.
The play did get written. It also got rewritten. This, I saw, was when the real work began. If I'd had too "pure" a view of the artist, I was soon to learn that aesthetic fastidiousness wasn't a helpful attitude. Max was severe and precise, sending me into a dressing room with instructions to write a scene about so-and-so, with certain characters in it. I rewrote as we rehearsed; I rewrote as we played it around the country; I rewrote it when we opened at the Royal Court, and after that. This was the first time I'd worked in such a way and it was an important proficiency to develop.
To my surprise, looking at the play again after more than 20 years, I was not startled either by the naivety of the piece, or by the nature of my personal preoccupations then. The play itself was written out of the 1970s and at each stage the question would have to be asked: how does this scene, or these lines, further the cause, not only of the play, but of the social movement we are pursuing? What are we saying, about Asians, women, the working class; how do we push the argument along?
posted by Anonymous at 7:59 am
1 Comments:
Yeesh...
This is my worst nightmare!
Its damn exciting and all, rewriting on the fly, but give me solid first draft any day.
I prefer spending rewriting time cranking up the power of the initial work - honing, refining, polishing. And spending rehearsal time for tweaks and minor alterations. Yeah... but it depends on the play and the circumstances.
This coming from having to mangle my DoG script recently - slamming the two opening scenes of about 4 minutes each into a single 1 minute scene with overlapping monologues - hacking one of the middle scenes in a cafe to half its size - and this is the best! - writing a new monologue for one of the characters five minutes before the show and rehearsing it for two minutes before doors opened.
If I wasn't the writer, I would have proably leaped on the director and sawed off his/her head with a comb. (And used the leaking head as a prop.)
Anyway... makes you really think about what can stay and what can go. Kill the babies they say...
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