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A Singular Voice

A Singular Voice Richard Nelson I remember when I first learned about the Joint Stock Theatre Company in England; and how its artistic director, Max Stafford-Clark, would bring a play- wright together with a group of actors, who would then work together, improvising on a subject or stor y. I heard that David Hare’s Fanshen, Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good, and a number of plays by Car yl Churchill, including Fen, Seri- ous Money, Cloud 9, and Light Shining in Buckinghamshire, evolved from this process. Initially, I assumed that the plays were being written as collaborations between writers and actors, with the assistance (perhaps as a kind of editor) of the director. I found this fascinating, though I was also amazed that such wonderfully complex and highly crafted plays could be created in such a collaborative way. Theatre for me, then and now, holds that the written play is at the center of theatre-making, with all theatre’s other elements—acting, directing, design—interpreting that play. Then I learned that I had been mistaken. A close friend had worked often with Joint Stock, and he explained that after the workshops with the actors and direc- tor, the playwright would then go away and write her/his http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art MIT Press

A Singular Voice

Nelson, Richard
PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art , Volume 41 (2): 2 – May 1, 2019
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Publisher
MIT Press
Copyright
Copyright © MIT Press
ISSN
1520-281X
eISSN
1537-9477
DOI
10.1162/pajj_a_00463
Publisher site
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Abstract

Richard Nelson I remember when I first learned about the Joint Stock Theatre Company in England; and how its artistic director, Max Stafford-Clark, would bring a play- wright together with a group of actors, who would then work together, improvising on a subject or stor y. I heard that David Hare’s Fanshen, Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good, and a number of plays by Car yl Churchill, including Fen, Seri- ous Money, Cloud 9, and Light Shining in Buckinghamshire, evolved from this process. Initially, I assumed that the plays were being written as collaborations between writers and actors, with the assistance (perhaps as a kind of editor) of the director. I found this fascinating, though I was also amazed that such wonderfully complex and highly crafted plays could be created in such a collaborative way. Theatre for me, then and now, holds that the written play is at the center of theatre-making, with all theatre’s other elements—acting, directing, design—interpreting that play. Then I learned that I had been mistaken. A close friend had worked often with Joint Stock, and he explained that after the workshops with the actors and direc- tor, the playwright would then go away and write her/his

Journal

PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art – MIT Press

Published: May 1, 2019

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