New Season Recharge
Posted by Gabriel Greene on 9/01/2006
The start of a new season generally creates a feeling of electricity around the office. (Well, not today – the vast majority of our administrative staff has started their Labor Day weekend early, and the overriding sentiment of the seven of us left behind is considerably more low-key.) Even though we’re technically producing 52 weeks a year, there’s something about embarking on a new season that recharges us.
That’s especially the case when a new season begins with a Martin McDonagh play. The Pillowman, which is currently in rehearsals two floors below us, is a play that instantly excited us from the time we were first able to get our hands on a copy of the script, following its world premiere at the National Theatre in London.
For those who have managed to avoid our description of the play so far, The Pillowman is about a writer who lives in a totalitarian state, and who is brought in for police questioning because his stories share some gruesome details with a series of local murders. The act of storytelling is a crucial element of the play, fitting for a playwright whose works are meticulously well-crafted stories.
What The Pillowman explores rather cannily, among other things, is the extent of a writer’s level of responsibility for his or her work, especially within the context of the politically-charged society in which it is written. Obviously, we’re living in a particularly charged time: one political party has grabbed headlines this week by trying to cast their opposition’s stance as potentially treasonous. (Treasonous!)
When it comes to political theatre – and one may argue that all works are political, even if it is only through its conspicuous absence of a political stance – what is it that you look for, that you find useful? What do you think a writer’s responsibility is with respect to political events unfolding around us? How is a writer’s response made most effective?