What do I want to stand for as a playwright? What should I use my own voice for? I could list lots of things, then shrug and saying, 'There are so many things close to my heart...'
So I’ve tried to distil it down to its essence:
That really stays with people.
To make an audience stop and think.
To consider something they might not have considered before.
To become more aware of their own way of seeing.
I like open endings.
Though I think I’d rather call them ‘sudden endings’.
I don’t want to deny the audience catharsis.
They’re allowed to feel relieved, angry, moved, unsatisfied — perhaps something completely different from the person sitting beside them.
But the play doesn’t say:
Applause.
Goodbye.
Think of the Little Prince and the fox: familiarity creates responsibility.
I’ve got nothing against feel-good stories. Quite the opposite. They matter.
And I’m very capable of disappearing into escapism myself.
I want to put an idea in front of an audience — and they’ll question it, challenge it, see things in it that I don’t.
And that exchange might take the thought somewhere neither of us could have got to alone.
