It's all about the redrafting...

I had a great day at the opening of the Wakefield Lit Fest yesterday.  A full day of making, creating, writing and performing at the lovely Orangery with a combination of young people from Wakefield, Yew Tree artists and the very generous James Nash - a writer from Leeds.  It was a genuine celebration of the potential of words to engage, entertain, enlighten and en-trance.

The lit fest has brought to light the avid interest there is in Wakefield for all things poetry, plays and pages.  We all knew it was there but it perhaps hadn’t had a chance to shout above everything else that’s going on in quite this way.  It’s a week of open mics, readings, films, performance and sharing and there are so many diverse things to enjoy.  As someone in constant contact with words as both a reader and writer I’m delighted to have the opportunity to be inspired by people who share my passion.

One of the themes that came across in yesterdays workshops, which had actually already played a part in my week was that perfection isn’t an instant thing.  In the morning we talked about not trying to get the perfect first line or opening and then writers taking their work away to develop before we allocated performers and started learning lines.  In the afternoon James generously demonstrated the importance of writing second and even third drafts of a poem and introduced aspiring writers of putting writing in a draw before airing it in public.  It was brilliant and thought provoking stuff.

The connection with earlier Yew Tree work was something that happened in Black Company as we start rehearsals for The Bridge.  Some of the company pointed out things that weren’t right…they identified these correctly and there is no doubt about it, that the elements they picked out will need to be changed before performance.  However if I, as the director, pointed out everything that was wrong in the first instance the actors would get entirely demoralised and go home.  My role is to layer on the improvements as the process develops giving the actors time to work out and discover some things for themselves.  In this way, just like in the process of writing, we get a second, third and even fourth attempt, redrafting until we find the perfect version we can present to the outside world.

It’s a good thing that I find the process of doing this, whether writing or directing, utterly enthralling because in one way and another it’s my life’s work…