Inside SAND: The St Andrews New Drama festival

Alex Mullarky takes us inside SAND, the new student playwrighting festival this week, and what has inspired these budding St Andrews playwrights.

St Andrews’ first festival of new playwriting takes place this week. It kicked off this weekend with the 24-hour play and continues through Saturday with three productions of student-written theatre: Joseph Cunningham’s adaptation of George Orwell’s classic, 1.9.8.4., Tim Foley’s ‘homoerotic dining experience’ Meat, and my own student-centric play, Webs.

Dr Philip Parry is the St Andrews English department’s go-to guy for drama and is a passionate advocate of student writing in his modules. He told The Stand why he believes it’s so important:

“Though a large part of what students of drama do is reinvestigate the plays of the past — both in the study and in performance, and I’d not want this aspect of the business to stop — it’s also vital for the continuation of an art-form that faces significant economic problems at set-up that there’s a good supply of cheap, modern and performable drama. (David Mamet says that he began to write plays so as to feed a theatre-company that he had founded with texts for which there was no need to pay performing rights.) Also, of course, writing a play – and having it put on – tells you more about play construction than any amount of lecture-based study. I’m astonished at how poorly (by which I mean partially) drama is dealt with in traditional literature modules: we really do need to move plays out into performance and experiment with them a great deal more than we currently do. Much of this experimentation will necessarily be extra-curricular.”

Lorenzo de Boni, Mermaids’ Productions Coordinator, is the man behind SAND. He spoke to The Stand about the festival:

“The St Andrews New Drama festival is one of the most exciting projects I’ve been a part of so far this year. It grew out of a desire for there to be a forum through which new dramatists and writers could exhibit their talents to the greater community of this town. Whilst theatre itself has a strong presence in St Andrews, there had never really been much opportunity for new, young writers to write their own plays and have them performed, so the St Andrews New Drama festival arose from the hard work of many people in order to make new writing more readily accessible to the general public. It embodies everything that Mermaids is: a society of opportunity whereby anyone with a desire to get involved is able to do so. I am extremely proud of everyone involved and it should be a fantastic week of theatre!”

The student writing doesn’t stop after SAND either. First-year Joanna Alpern’s Acts of the Bedroom combines a one-act by Tennessee Williams and another she wrote to complement it, and goes up in On the Rocks in April.

So what inspired our resident writers?

Joseph Cunningham on 1.9.8.4:

“1.9.8.4 started as nothing more than a joke amongst friends back in London. For a good few years I had wondered what a stage adaptation of Orwell’s classic would look like, and how it could be condensed down to a palatable timeframe. It had always been one of my favourite novels and I had jested that if I were to direct something, then I would jump straight into the deep end with this.

My friend and future co-writer, Tom, made a throwaway comment about how, if there was anywhere suitable to experiment with something like that, it would be at university. We sat down and mused about how we would go about staging certain isolated scenes, and gradually we ended up with something that looked like a coherent story. At that point we had little more than some vague idea about rose-tinted glasses and flashy tech, but after several drinks this suddenly looked like the basis of a show and the only logical course of action would be to pursue it.

The morning after it no longer seemed like a good idea, but after several doses of Alka-Seltzer our enthusiasm returned, and now, two years of on-and-off writing later, the finished product is ready to hit the stage on Monday. We are trying out a great deal of stylistic staging and tech it make the audience feel overwhelmed and, at times, uncomfortable – so love it or hate it, but it certainly won’t be boring! This production has been my life for the last couple of months, and it’s been a long and arduous process, but I’d be lying if I said that I won’t miss it.”

 

Tim Foley on Meat:

“Last semester, I studied American Drama, and I had the choice between slogging at a 4,000 word project on a rather dull play, or writing my own play with an allusion to Tennessee Williams. There was no choice, really.

Tennessee Williams is a god, and don’t let me hear you say otherwise. But I could never write like him. That lyricism, that genius of poetic dialogue, is granted to few individuals and I am not one of them. So I decided to go down the opposite route. Short, snappy dialogue, almost Mamet-esque in behaviour. Banter that bounces back and forth like a ping pong ball on speed. But then I realised that there was fun to be had with a camp, theatrical lead who indulged in finely crafted speeches and puns, much like Tennessee Williams himself in life. And so Charlie Moon (played by Jasper Lauderdale) was born. He is a character that was born to perform.

There’s a beautiful scene in A Streetcar Named Desire where Stanley (Marlon Brando in the film) flips out over a meal when his eating habits are criticised. And then I realised dinner parties are effectively drama with food. We always heighten our fine dining experiences – think how we dress up, wash our hands, eat politely; all the time stressing to convey all the ‘social niceties’. And then think what we’re doing – we’re chewing, dissolving, digesting food in public which we will later excrete to make room for more. Does it really matter what we eat? Or how we eat it? There is a line in the play about this realm being a ‘delicate wasteland’, and it’s true – one misplaced burp, one over-salted soup or one inappropriate joke and the experience is marred. And I do not hide the fact that I want to mar our audience in this way.

Meat has accidentally become topical. It is set in a gentleman’s club (www.thecatherinesclub.co.uk), not immediately dissimilar to the Kate Kennedy Club, and the recent fall-out of Club versus Fellowship is anticipated in the central tension between the President, Charlie Moon and the Vice President, Callum King (Will Moore). I don’t want to step into a literary minefield when I say I don’t believe drama should come down on one side of a debate or another, but I do believe we raise some issues as yet undiscussed in any of the student media about the KKC/KKF – not least because the piece itself is a male-only show that actively negates women in its sexualisation. I can only think that this recent interest in male-only clubs is why our show has managed to completely sell out a week in advance, a fact I’m very proud of.

Meat is unlike anything else I’ve put up in St Andrews, and now I have a taste for the weird and the controversial – like the peanut butter soup I once tried (and failed) to make a room full of people. You’ll join us for dinner, won’t you? I’m starting to feel a little peckish…”

 

Alex Mullarky on Webs:

“During revision period I went for a lot of walks. On one particular day I wandered farther than I had before, along a river, through a field and up a hill, heading south – out of St Andrews. When I reached the top of the hill, I could see, in the distance, the house that I was at one point expecting to live in this year.

 

We all know that St Andrews’ housing situation is a strange and extraordinarily frustrating one. Though I managed to evade the house that’s an hour’s walk from South Street, I still ended up living at the far end of Lade Braes, near a duck pond that only intrepid walkers seem to be aware of. Town is now a mere fifteen-minute cycle away.

Well, it could be worse.

This time last year I watched a film called The Edge of Love. It’s about two couples, including the poet Dylan Thomas, as their lives and relationships become entangled. I also read a book, Young Romantics, about the lives and loves of the Romantic poets and their friends. Maybe there was some sort of V For Vendetta domino moment in my brain, because of these three Webs was formed. The title comes from a quote from the beginning of Young Romantics, ‘the web of our life is of mingled yarn’; Shakespeare as quoted by Keats in his letters. Claire in the play is not based on my actual cousin Clare (to her dismay and relief) but certainly bears some resemblance to Mary Shelley’s stepsister Claire Clairmont. And thank you, Edge of Love, for the idea of two couples living together.

So it looks like Webs is an adventure in plagiarism.

But what’s it really about? Webs is about how St Andrews’ shitty accommodation situation forces you to live with people you don’t know. Because of it, come September, you may end up slotting your toothbrush next to an apparent stranger’s, having your milk stolen (no great change from halls then) and maybe making some of the best friends you’ve ever had.

Or maybe not.

When two characters are initially shown the house in the play the landlord slips in the fact that “there’s no shower, only a bath. After you now…” Only recently did I realise (having written the play a year ago) that the house-I’d-nearly-lived-in had shared this feature. So Webs started out as me – snippets from my life with lots of imagined extras. But the amazing thing about directing a play you’ve written yourself is that everything is fair game: for re-wording, re-organising or complete deletion. We all made it. Which I think is pretty awesome.”

 

Joanna Alpern on Echo (from Acts of the Bedroom):

“So what inspired me to write Echo? I’m going to start by saying that I’ve never heard a satisfying answer to this kind of question. So bear with me while I attempt it.

I suppose it all began in September 2010, after a summer of much romance (and much debauchery), when my then-fellow in romance (and debauchery) announced that he was going away for a few weeks, and knowing that I liked to write but hadn’t been very motivated recently, said – quite casually – that in his absence I ought to write a play. We fixed a date exactly a month in advance and dinner arrangements were arranged and I promised to have something in creation by then.

We broke up shortly afterwards.

But nevertheless! The separation was amicable, the dinner date was pencilled into respective diaries, the idea had been planted, and I began writing. The show must go on.

A few other relevant facts about my place in the world in the September of 2010: I had left school after having been tragically rejected by all five of my university choices (despite having pretty decent grades). I had a year ahead of me, opening up like a vacant hole of planlessness. I had never had a job before and was clueless and terrified by the prospect. And perhaps most importantly, I was reading Ibsen’s A Doll’s House.

In my unstable position (dumped, rejected, confused and bookish), I found myself envying the comforts of Nora’s life. Yes, she is treated like a doll (as the title funnily enough suggests), but how deliciously simple are her world’s expectations of her? I could do that, I thought. I could be a lover and a housewife and a mother, those are roles I could excel in. Why is she so unsatisfied? Why does she flee from her man into the cold Norwegian winter? Why, she doesn’t even have a university to go to, she doesn’t even have a CV, let alone any references…

And so by reading about a strong, independent ahead-of-her-time woman stuck in the nineteenth century, a weak, dependent and archaic woman stuck in the twenty-first century was born: Kate.

It’s shocking to be admitting all of this on International Women’s Day, I know, and to confess that the roots of my play lie in a man’s orders is equally unpatriotic, but there she was. Kate, a woman who lives only through her love for Robert, who is terrified of the outside world, of making money and interacting with other people, who stays home talking to cats and pretending to be a cloud. And then of course Robert grew alongside Kate, a modern-day, healthy young political campaigner who wants nothing more than a woman who doesn’t need him: an anti-Torvald to my anti-Nora.

As you may have guessed it made for a pretty awkward dinner date.

However, if you do feel like seeing a reverse-feminist short play about a love affair with a few sinister twists alongside a very poetic one-act play by Tennessee Williams, do come along and see Acts of the Bedroom on the 19th or the 20th of April in the Barron Theatre. It has a fantastically talented cast and the directors include myself and the wonderful Mr. Oliver Hayes.”

 

SAND: Programme of Events

1.9.8.4.:  Monday 12th & Tuesday 13th March, 7.30pm, Venue 1

Meat:  Wednesday 14th & Thursday 15th March, 8.30pm, Barron Theatre [SOLD OUT]

Webs:  Friday 16th & Saturday 17th March, 7.30pm, Barron Theatre

And don’t forget…

Acts of the Bedroom:  Thursday 19th & Friday 20th April, 7.30pm, Barron Theatre