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Thanks Meredydd, I'm currently rewriting our submssions policy so interesting to see Gwydion's wish list. It raises some interesting questions though.
Just a few thoughts, comments more than welcome.
This is a fascinating debate, and has made me question exactly what a 'Welsh play' is or should be. What I thought I knew turns out to be a lot less certain than before, and after much mulling over all I've got is this, courtesy of football: If it's good enough, it's Welsh enough.
Not exactly profound, but it's all I've got.
Brad, I think Beckett is an Irish writer, albeit an Irish writer in exile. Is this enough to call his plays Irish plays?
I'm a bit obsessed about theatre and national identity at the moment. I'm working on an Indian play, set in the Golan Heights (Syria) inspired by an Indian scandal (Benazir Bhutto) being performed in Mumbai and Essex. The play's sensibility is definitely Indian; however, I'm kind of hoping it has if not a universal appeal, then an appeal to the people of Colchester. It might not. It's definitely a risk that keeps me awake at night.
And in the other half of my life I'm working on the World Shakespeare Festival, where there are productions from all over, including two (tbc) from Wales. The ones which jump out to me are those which are mostly clearly defined by where they’re from...but this is definitely a subjective opinion.
I've been trying to think for a while about how to phrase my opinion on the "Welsh play" thing. And while this seems a perfect board/thread/opportunity to do so I’ve been wary as I don't want my point of view to come across as reductive or recalcitrant but.... balls to it.
You know, I really don't care what makes a Welsh play. I think we're too obsessed with what a Welsh play is or what constitutes a play about Wales. Shouldn't we be more concerned with whether our plays have an inherent humanness about them? If certain aspects of non-Welsh work ‘feels’ Welsh then chances are it’s because it has an inherent connection with anyone. I dare say people of Stoke would feel the same about them.
I don't mean for this to sound rude but if someone said "Very good, Brad. This play of yours really talks about Wales" I'd think "Fuck off, this play is about humanity!" Unless I was writing a play distinctly about Wales then if anyone called it “a Welsh play” I’d be really pissed off because even though I’m Welsh I don’t want that weight around my neck and neither should it have to be. To assign types of plays to the nationality of the author is something I’d really want to avoid. I’ve never in my life written about Wales and I doubt I’d want to. I’d write about humans, yes. I’d write about emotions, yes. But postcodes and ‘this side of the toll roads’ absolutely not. I dare say I’m probably being distinctly ‘yoof’ about rejecting what I grew up with but while Llandod in the rain is bollocks I’m prepared to accept that Totness in the rain is bollocks too.
But that's not to say I'm anti-Welsh or anti-plays-about-Wales (which I'm aware is how my opinion could be interpreted). However, Beckett wasn't particularly Irish, Buchner wasn't particularly German (arguments may be made against that but they're not as Irish or German as we're discussing nationality in this context), but wouldn’t we eat our own hands off to get hold of “our own” Beckett or Buchner right now? If there was a Welsh writer out there writing Endgame then I doubt we’d be having the discussion of whether the play was particularly Welsh.
I can't buy the idea that a Chekhov play could feel particularly Welsh. Because to define an aspect of something distinctly Welsh doesn’t that then isolate it from it being anything else? If a play 'feels' Welsh in parts then doesn't that imply that these parts then feel slightly less Irish, or Scottish or English? Of course not. And I know that’s not what anyone here is trying to say but can you see how it is implied? And if a play can feel Welsh and Scottish and English and Irish all the same time then isn’t that just a good play?
I don't almost cry about Endgame because it reflects to me what is it to be a person of a similar national or cultural background, it absolutely snookers me because it is about everyone. I wouldn’t want people going a play of mine saying “Well, it’s good but it’s a Welsh play so I dare say we’re not getting all of it.” I’d want to write a play that makes geordies go “well bloody hell – that speaks to me. This play has a distinctly newcastle feel”, because then I know I’ve done a decent job of relating to anyone.
A good commentary on the difficulties of defining a 'National Theatre'.
Why not just encourage imaginative local/national drama and let the Guardian or Londoners worry about if its Welsh or not? Is that perhaps a bit too easy?
the more specific a play is, the more universal it always feels to me....
when I was reading plays for the usual host of new writing venues in London and Cardiff, I thought a lot about language structure and expression in Welsh plays, or more specifically in plays written by Welsh writers. Dialogue most obviously places a play in a Welsh place, however for me it was the character’s world view (maybe?), or their way of expressing their thoughts and especially emotions.... The way they physically and verbally interacted with others - or the way they used images and metaphors to illuminate things- that when you thought about realising theatrically, brought to mind something original, certainly outside of the English literary tradition (and playwrighting tradition) something other? Partly I guess this is because many of our great playwrights are bilingual
Anyway it is partly why I have come to believe that developing a way of creating plays which mirrored exactly the English stage tradition (largely Royal Court) was a daft idea... and why I think NTW’s current plans for working with individual writers are great...
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