A Few Vile to Tough Tips

It's been a while since we spoke - between you studying and me trying to get back to University, it's been hectic, I guess. Anyway, I hope you'll get to the Fringe this year: where else can you see so much dramaturgy in so short a time?

Actually, according to Goffman, you just have to look out of the window. We are all doing it, all the time. Some people even think about it. 

But if you do get up here, I think these shows will tickle your fancy.

Alien Lullabies is part of the Made in Scotland selection. That means it has official approval by Creative Scotland. It sits more in music than theatre, at least officially. It strikes me that Fiona Soe Paing is one of those artists who is not easily defined: Lullabies is very theatrical, very science fiction and uncanny. It's this play between genres that I think you'll love. although I am pretty keen on the electronic music. If it didn't have such arresting visuals, I would be claiming this as post-visual theatre.

The Cabaret Farce is a no-brainer for you: I know that you love a

bit of burlesque-inspired performance, and this one is applying a theatrical dramaturgy to a vaudeville style entertainment. If their show is as cheeky as their answers in the dramaturgy database (and it amazes me how often my dull questions have been rescued by great answers), this will be fun and deep. They also have a connection with this Post-Modern Jukebox chap, and I like the idea of messing with the timeline of tunes and beats.

Pollyanna  deserves a special shout out from me, because they made an effort to fix some of my shoddy design. It is another cabaret show (I think I am getting a bit predictable here), but more in the confrontational, live art, tradition. I'm always pleased to see a touch of queer in my cabaret - it might be a Glasgow thing. We are pretty quick to label stuff queer here, and I do worry that it is losing its meaning... that said 'For me scripting and planning too far in advance would be that I wouldn't end up trying to eat my high heels in a nightie whilst singing along to an acapella version of The Smiths’This Charming Man' is exactly the kind of late night shenanigans I want. 

Especially after Leper and Chip. Not that I am not excited by what reads like a classic example of neo-brutalist theatre. But instead of getting their Sarah Kane on, they got a new script. 

I dig violent and provocative theatre. I am probably just jaded, and I don't like violence in real life. But theatre strikes me as just the place to work out some of the rougher bits of life, presenting experiences that won't resolve into my nice, middle-class fantasy vision of a liberal, loving society. 

Either that, or I get my cheapies off rough trade on the stage.

You can't go wrong with a Traverse show: it is a curated part of the Fringe, with a consistent quality. Some shows do bomb, it's true. But that is not because they are underfunded or under-rehearsed. It's because the dramaturgical intention sucks. However, A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing. It is based on a novel, and comes from a Irish tradition, which makes me guess that there will be an emphasis on language.

That is an odd way to put it. There will be lots of words? The script will be the focus? I mean, language isn't just spoken language... don't I do on about 'vocabularies of movement'?

Still, you get this stuff, I think. If I am not making sense, you work it out... are you going to be too busy to make it up here this year? I managed to finish my post-graduate research project during the Fringe last year, you know...

Chippin' away at Dramaturgy: Lee Coffey @ Edfringe 2015

Keating calls the play – which is directed by Karl Shiels - ‘a cross between an urban, Dublin tango and a tag-team wrestling match’. And with its high-energy script packed with sex, drugs and violence, Leper + Chip seems destined to appeal to that rare beast: the younger theatre audience.

Clarke-Stewart agrees: “I think the show speaks to a lot of young people. It shows characters acting-out through boredom, and their need for excitement.”

“People seem shocked that we don’t pass out with the amount of movement required for the show,” says Keating. “Audience members have also commented on the ‘splash zone’ where a few beads of sweat tend to travel on occasion.”

Coffey adds: “I wanted to put on a show that had a pace and performance level that would match any other, that wouldn’t let the audience off easy and would make them hang on every word. It really does knock you for six and doesn't let up, leaving you in its wake.”


Leper + Chip, Assembly Roxy, 6 – 31 August, 3pm

The Fringe
GKV: What inspired this production: did you begin with an idea or a script or an object?
Lee Coffey: I had a rough idea of a couple that just went through one hell of a day, going from worse to worse. Everything getting in their way, preventing them from being together. 

Some people have a “Romeo & Juliet” reference but that was never originally in my mind. The only similarity is that they are two young lovers mixed up in a world of violence, tragedy and death.

Why bring your work to Edinburgh?
Edinburgh is the biggest theatre festival in the world. Many Irish shows have went there and been very successful and we want to follow suit. It’s an exciting and terrifying prospect.

What can the audience expect to see and feel - or even think - of your production?
They will see a giant Pringle eating woman, a tiny man locked in fridge, a leopard coated cougar and a machete wielding maniac all centred around a twisted love story. This production pulls no punches, it moves at one hundred miles an hour and the whole audience come along for the ride. They will laugh and cry in equal measure with every resounding SMACK!

The Dramaturgy Questions

How would you explain the relevance - or otherwise - of dramaturgy within your work?
When the play had its first reading, there were a few notes given that really got me thinking. One being the lack of a love scene between the two protagonists and the other being a shop and a house juxtaposed for dramatic and comedic purposes. 

The latter came to mind with one simple note. I think dramaturgy is very important as you can be too close to a script and it’s good to get some outside opinions.

What particular traditions and influences would you acknowledge on your work - have any particular artists, or genres inspired you and do you see yourself within their tradition?
A huge influence on my work is Dublin. Dublin writers, poets, music, people and everything in between. The nineties are a big influence on me as I mainly write Dublin monologues. 

Writers such as Mark O’Rowe and Conor McPherson are particularly big influences on me. They’re both very different and I like to think that I am too.

Do you have a particular process of making that you could describe - where it begins, how you develop it, and whether there is any collaboration in the process?
I start with an idea that pops into my head as I go about my day. Over a few days I think it through and then I begin writing it. I don’t ever plot out the end, I just write as I go leaving myself notes at the end of each session as to where I was going at that time. Then when I go back at it again I read over everything up to that point, if the notes hold up, I use them, if not, I move with how I am feeling at that particular moment. 

I hand-write everything, making it easier to reuse previous pages and lines that I have discarded. Then once it is finished, I have a reading with my theatre company and listen to notes and opinions.

What do you feel the role of the audience is, in terms of making the meaning of your work?
The audience is everything for my plays. Both characters directly address audience members during their pieces. The audience don’t sit idly by; they are as much a part of the play as the two characters themselves. If the audience are with us, it’s a joy to watch.