The Citizen-Blyth Festival 2002, 2002-06-05, Page 8I
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PAGE 8. BLYTH FESTIVAL SALUTE, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5, 2002.
Piccadilly author finds writing doesn't get easier
By David Blaney
Citizen staff
The more you do them the easier
things are supposed to get. However
at the premiere of his new play,
Goodbye, Piccadilly this spring,
playwright Douglas. Bowie admits,
"I was just a wreck."
"I thought I would just go in for
the first few days for fine tuning. I
found myself there everyday all
day," he says.
This comes from a veteran
screenwriter with numerous film and
television credits as well as two
previous works for stage. Preparing
a work for its first production is
obviously a difficult business, even
for the experienced writer .
The process of reworking a-script
after the immediacy of seeing it in
rehearsal is only one of the
differences between a screenplay
and the theatre. Bowie says the
theatre provides the author with
more control over his own work.
"The theatre gives the author more
respect," he claims. "You have more
leeway than in film," he says, "where
dialogue is kept to a minimum. In
the theatre sometimes dialogue stays
simply because it has literary merit."
He does suggest that this respect
may come with a few problems
attached. Foremost is that an author
has fewer excuses. "Ultimately:' he
says, "what is there is yours."
The combination of respect and
responsibility can also result in some
unfortunate consequences.
Sometimes directors and actors are
too deferential when a little more
ruthlessness about words and details
would speed up the process.
Continued from page 3.
speaks volumes for the Festival's
reputation is that of the 10 actors
involved in The Donnellys, only one
had to be replaced. "It shows how
tightly woven that company is. They
feed off the success of that show."
Weaving the current players into a
Blyth Festival season is important,
but Coates is also looking at a way to
complete the tapestry of talent for
the future. The ambitious thespian is
currently trying to develop a project
to bring students into the company.
"The Theatre for Young Audiences is
meant to inspire more young people
to look at the whole process of
producing a play."
In the fall Coates will be going
into the schools with a new script
presently being developed by
Artistic Director Anne Chislett and
David Archibald. With a designer,
Coates will walk students through
the concept of designing a show.
They will be active participants in
the project, he says.
Then in the spring those same
students will help with the technical
The ability to watch a scene
unfold and rewrite it also can have
pitfalls. Bowie reports that second
efforts don't always work either. He
recounts the results of one such
attempt with his current play.
After watching the actors and
director struggle with a scene in
Goodbye, Piccadilly Bowie came to
the conclusion that it "just didn't
work." In an attempt to correct the
problems he says, "I came up with
this brilliant idea at two• in the
morning."
After scripting his "brilliant idea"
he presented it to the director. "They
tried it at the next rehearsal," he
recalled, "and, it was almost
embarrassing. It was worse than the
first time and I wondered if I should
apologize for wasting their time."
Happily time, suggestions and
further rewrites corrected the
problems. Even so, Bowie reports he
was busy right up to and through the
May opening night at Thee
Thousand Islands Playhouse in
Gananoque.
When talking about the difference
between screen writing and stage
plays Bowie admits there are
restrictions with a stage production.
The: are part of what playwright
George F. Walker calls, "That small
hard voice," in the back of an
_ author's mind.
Bowie says, however, "When you
write you try not to focus on the
difficulties. With good characters
and a good story you can make
things work. The technical problems
are almost secondary."
He says certain ideas may lend
themselves to one medium or
another. His current production he
originally ' considered as a
screenplay. He says, "only after I
production and work hand in hand
with the crew.
"Anne has been very keen to have
something like this started," says
Coates. "When we think of theatre in
schools it's always performance
based. I wanted to capitalize on the
visual arts, the process of designer
and director collaboration."
Now in the process of working
with area drama teachers Coates
says, "When I started in this
business I was incredibly naive
about the work done before I got the
script. Students have very little
exposure to the first discussions
around a play. There are steps left
out."
Saying he was very impressed by
the quality of talent at this year's
Sears Drama Festival, a showcase
for secondary school drama students
which was held in Blyth, Coates
adds, "It made me realize there is
going to be a real interest ."
For Coates an interest in theatre is
one that seems to be ever-changing.
From actor to director to
administrator, he is, as he said
before, letting no opportunity slip
had given it considerable thought
and done some notes did I decide it
would work better as a play."
Past history. suggests there may
have been a bias towards doing it as
a screenplay at first. He admits,
"After the last play I had said I
wouldn't do another."
The play takes place in a country
inn run by the Brickleys. The
socially prominent husband, a
decorated war hero and mayor of the
town is taking his annual week off
for his traditional canoeing trip to
Algonquin Park.
As the play opens his wife
receives two phone calls. The first of
these reveals the husband is to be the
recipient of a prestigious award. The
second tells his wife that he has been
found dead in England in Piccadilly.
The wife's struggle to come to
terms and deal with her husband's
"camping' trips" forms the pivot of
the play. "It is," says Bowie, "a play
about family and what it really
means. It is also about the private
faces of public figures."
Bowie says that he has two or
three other things in development at
the moment. He is working on
projects aimed at TV or the cinema
about the 1837 rebellion and the
Commonwealth. Air Training Plan
during the Second World War. His
current production has been all
consuming "however and he says,
"Everything has been on hold for the
last couple of months."
Bowie's illustrious career has
produced films like Obsessed which,
won a Genie and the Stella Artois
prize for Best Canadian Film at the
Montreal International Film
Festival. He was als6 the
screenwriter for Chasing Rainbows
and authored Empire Inc. for which
on theatre
by. However, while he admits that
his busy schedule is somewhat
unusual, it makes up for the lean
years he experienced just before
Blyth. "It had me on the brink of
packing it in," he says."
he received a Best Writer Actra
Award.
Bowie edited the book Best
Canadian Screenplays and in 1998
was honoured at the Gemini Awards
with the Margaret Collier Award for
an outstanding body of work by a
writer in television.
Busy now, Coates almost gave up