FEATURE LIST
need for objectivity in his approach to any new play that comes his way, feeling that his own experience of years as a freelance playwright (he won‘t be writing for any ofthe SAC subsidised theatres throughout this year) can enable him to bring a combination of impartiality and sympathy to the job.
‘All the scripts aren’t brilliant. Obviously. though, I’m always hoping. Every envelope I open, I’m hoping, this one will be a stoater, you know . . . It’s a big responsibility, though. Every script that’s here,’ he leafs through the pile left from the hundreds submitted during McCarthy’s tenure, ‘represents months of hard work. That’s a | soul-destroying aspect ofthis job.
Tartutte by Liz Lochhead, Lyceum Sometimes it might be a thing of worth, but you just can’t see an outlet for it. But the good thing about this position is that I’m free to caontact anybody who does productions of any kind. So I’m going to be liaising with radio drama and television as well as with all the theatres in Scotland.’
Whenever he finds a script that he feels has potential, McGrath’s next task is to find a home for it — be it in any of the theatres in Scotland or even another medium. For all the other aspects of promoting playwriting in Scotland, the core to McGrath’s job has to be this responsibility to contemporary writers.
‘Beyond that basic response to playwrights there’s a more constructive job - what kind of events can I set up that would help bring plays nearer to a performable shape? That may mean anything from playscript readings to workshops — taking a play, or a bit of a play, and the writer into a situation where he or she is able to work on it with actors — and that can help writers at all stages. If there was a workshop situation available I would use it like I use a word-processor! I know if I go to a workshop, it makes
the writing of the rest of the script so much easier, because it makes it so much bigger in your imagination and easier to handle. I’m hoping to run the first of these workshops in October in the studio theatre here — but I’m also hoping I can convince Perth to use their new studio space for that - and not just Perth - everybody.’ Similar policies are being pursued by Jenny Killick just down the road at the Traverse, as she continues to
work at the idea of the Traverse being a true ‘writers’ theatre’. This sort of parallel activity can only be mutually beneficial, in McGrath’s eyes. But he hopes not only to bring writers into earlier and more frequent contact with actors and directors, but into public activity more generally, thinking, for example, of playwrights in residence in the same way that writers in residence are now common — partly to create support structures for what is a precarious and financially arduous form of writing.
‘I’m interested in making the playwright’s position in Scotland similar to that of the poet. I want to have dramatists in schools and have Scottish drama on the Higher leaving certificate. We need to promote the idea of the dramatist as a very different type ofwriter to the poet — a much more outgoing type ofwriter, less rooted in the individual voice. Though the dramatist does have an individual voice, he always goes out — it’s very much in the nature of the work — first to the actors and the director, then to the audience. It’s a more social type of writing.‘
If all these seems a touchambitious for one man working four days a week ‘(the post isn’t quite full time) for one year, well the twinkle in McGrath’s eye acknowledges the slight scepticism beginning to invade my own expression — ‘this is me beginning— come back and ask me in six months . . . !’ Basically though, he is serious and ambitious about his appointment to a post whose very creation has caused some criticism, seen by some as a sop following in the wake of the demise ofthe Scottish Society of Playwrights. However much McGrath can achieve of his aims, his reservoir of optimism and enthusiasm towards Scottish theatre and his belief in its fundamental socially regenerative importance is without doubt:
‘In a country that has no cultural status and where culture’s not given a central role - which it isn’t in Scotland — it’s very difficult for creative people to maintain belief in themselves and in their work. We’ve been frittering away cultural wealth for years. And now we have a new unemployed society, the oil’s beginning to run out, there’s a great stress on tourism . . . there’s a possibility that Scotland could begin to waken up to the fact that the culture it has is wealth. And that it’s something that should be getting promoted and given status.
‘It’s also socially very constructive. Artistic creation helps solve identity problems and we need to use that as much as we can. I think we’re in the process of discovering an identity — that we don’t know what we are, you know. When we talk about Scotland, we don’t know what we’re talking about. And we’re trying to find some viable way of moving into the future.’ Torn McGrath invites anyone who has written for the stage or would like to write for the stage to contact him at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Grindlay Street, Edinburgh, 03] 229 7404. The Traverse Theatre, Grassmarket, Edinburgh, tel 031 226 2633 also has a script-reading panel.
LONDON DANCE THTRE ‘
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24-27 Septem
(O3l) 229 |20
dances by Robert
Seats £5 - £6.50 Special Rates for Generous concess
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Box Office Tel:
Season includes World Premieres of
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TREVOR BANNISTER _
KING'S THEATRE
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22nd — 27th Sept j Mon-Fri at 730 Sat at S 8. 80m Directed by Morag Fullarton — with
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The List 5 — 18 Septembeg