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 A selection of interviews with playwrights makes Anthony Pickthall angry about the state of Welsh theatre.


Now You’re Talking:
Drama in Conversation
Hazel Walford Davies


Parthian
£9.99 Paperback
ISBN 1902638484


It’s a history, it’s a ‘do it yourself guide’ and it’s a bloody thick pamphlet. It should make some people very happy and has the potential to make many more very angry indeed. In their own words fifteen playwrights gut the life out of the fish that refuses to die. Theatre. Theatre in Wales has matured over the last two decades, but what a fight – for funding, for audiences, for critical debate.

   It’s not a good title, "Now You’re Talking" – not even an exclamation mark! Especially so because what it contains inside is some of the most damning evidence that underlines the character of rejection and failure.

   I was struck by how many good stories there are, of how and why writers write what they write. It has the ‘big hitters’ such as Ed Thomas and Dic Edwards, it has the new voices, such as Roger Williams and Gary Owen. There are links from writer to writer, company to company – with a little background information you can piece together quite a sorry tale.

   As a playwright who first fell in love with theatre as a student at Cardiff University, seeing productions at Chapter, the Sherman and St. Stephens Church, coming back to Wales in 2000 I was struck by the defeated voices of those writers who had come to prominence in the late 80’s and 90’s. Something had gone seriously wrong. In the past 5 years, that wrong is not righted. ‘The confident voices that spilled from plays which captured Wales at a time of change and showcased some of the most exciting writers around were silenced.’

   In Now You’re Talking, Hazel Walford Davies builds on her own dogged belief that to truly understand the state of play in Welsh script–based theatre you have to have the words from the writers themselves, countering the original commission from the late Robin Reeves, then Editor of New Welsh Review – which thankfully he agreed to. It makes for remarkable reading. Twelve years on from the first interview the concerns are as fresh and vital as ever. Which is where the anger sets in. Clearly, publishing the interviews separately and only in a magazine was not enough. I really hope that this volume will form the bedrock for a new initiative to do exactly what so many of these writers eloquently argue for.

   The collection of interviews could and should act as a revitalized blueprint for change. Where to start? I guess nothing short of nailing this book to the doors of those who hold power over writers in Wales, from Alan Pugh up. But certainly, if you are interested in theatre, want to see some changes to the funding system and support those who have been trying to put things right, then read this book.

   What most of these writers want, it seems, is to be left to write, to get on with the job of creating great scripts and to see them produced and presented to audiences and critics across Wales. Sion Eirian has a little carp about how once Ed Thomas had shown the way by founding his own theatre company, it seemed as if this should be the right road for everyone.

   Alan Osborne talks about the vital support from Chapter Arts Centre at the end of the 70’s with his Merthyr–inspired poetry and plays.

There are though, just two women amongst the thirteen men, both of whom have made careers writing for television, Lucy Gough who writes for Channel 4’s Hollyoaks and Sian Evans who has written for such long–running drama series as Peak Practice, Touching Evil and Where the Heart Is. Both began writing for theatre, yet Wales has struggled to offer them regular theatre commissions. More recent Sgript Cymru productions have seen more plays by women toured across Wales. But how many of those will want to risk basing themselves in Wales, if the options for making a career as a writer, for theatre and television and film are so limited?

   Hazel Walford Davies acknowledges that the selection of writers is incomplete – but I don’t think she should be too hard on herself. I am sure we can all name contemporary Welsh dramatists who are missing. What is more important is that it is powerfully representative of the range of work that has emerged from Wales over the past two decades. It skilfully and usefully creates a genuine forum for debate amongst those who know what the most important issues are and where the future might lie.

   You cannot help but notice how engaged with the politics of playwrighting most of the writers are. The Drama Review in 1999, the founding of the National Assembly for Wales in 2000, the Boyden report in 2004; a time of big opportunities and last chance saloons. Clearly, they are realists and recognize that until Wales truly grasps the power and importance of theatre, nothing will change.

   So, more than likely, those who study theatre – in Wales – will seek out this valuable collection and very possibly, those who are about to become playwrights will pick it up to hear about the tales of struggle, isolation, friendship and history.

   "Strangulated" or not, the Welsh theatrical voice is not going to disappear quickly – the writers in this book will help see to that. One of the most deadening suggestions from these playwrights is that those who are in charge of venues in Wales don’t think new plays by new or established writers from Wales are going to help develop audiences. The new Wales needs new theatre and the great work already done presenting exciting new theatre voices abroad could be even better, if the work was developed. Personally, I think a playwright’s production centre in Cardiff would be a great next step, allowing writers to develop new ideas in a supportive and well resourced environment, but there is no substitute for work going out to audiences the length and breadth of the land.