THE UNIVERSITY of HULL Autobiography, Memory and The
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THE UNIVERSITY OF HULL Autobiography, Memory and the Playwright being a Thesis submitted for the Degree of PhD in the University of Hull by Sarah Jane Dickenson (December 2014) For my mother With thanks to: Martin Goodman, Valerie Sanders, Viv Kerridge, and the Drama students of the University of Hull both past and present. Note: Some parts of this thesis have already been published. That Berlin Moment is published by Barbican Press (2014). Some of the material focusing on Anthony Minghella has been published under the title “Anthony Minghella: Autobiographical Memory and the Creation of an Adapted Screenplay” (Journal of Adaptation in Film and Performance. 6.2 (2013): 291-304.) 2 Contents Abstract page 4 Introduction page 5 Chapter One: Autobiography, memory and intent page 12 Chapter Two: Autobiography, memory and adaptation in the scripts of Anthony Minghella, Richard Bean and James Graham page 20 Chapter Three: That Berlin Moment page 68 Chapter Four: The creation of That Berlin Moment page 129 Chapter Five: Petticoat Lane page 149 Chapter Six: The creation of Petticoat Lane page 286 Conclusion page 296 Works Consulted page 301 3 Abstract The thesis is made up of two plays and a piece of writing that is a reflection and critical sharing of a developmental and critical process of writerly development. The thesis explores the use of memory and autobiography in playwriting and is concerned with the development and enhancement of playwriting through a process experienced and analysed by its author. The work draws upon recent psychological research into memory, particularly the idea that memories can be manipulated. The work of Mazzoni and Geraerts enables links between scientific psychology and narrative fiction and autobiography to be explored. Explorations of memory, narrative and the construction of self feed directly into the first of two plays, That Berlin Moment, in which a group of characters grapple with the implications of lost, false and unwillingly recovered memories. The thesis includes individual and comparative analyses of my own work alongside that of three other dramatists: Anthony Minghella, James Graham and Richard Bean. Much of this work is drawn from a series of interviews with each playwright, which focused on uses of autobiographical material. Ideas about appropriation and adaptation are significant in focusing and developing this material. Informed by this analysis, the second play, Petticoat Lane, represents an attempt to push further with autobiographical writing, developing characters and situations based closely on my own memories, whilst incorporating insights gained from the scientific and theoretical work on memory. The thesis is an articulation of a self-conscious process of writerly development, which suggests an unexpected connection between autobiographical and applied drama playwriting. Rather than setting up an opposition between self, creativity and original imaginary worlds on the one hand, and social utility and empowerment and political concern on the other, this process has opened up new ways of understanding the potential for playwriting to provoke and enable positive change. 4 Introduction My history as a playwright so far has been one of writing plays for the creative frame of applied drama. The reason for undertaking this thesis is a desire to change and develop my frame of practice, pursuing a thematic focus on autobiography and memory. The theoretical hinge of this thesis is the connection between these two different yet connected interests. In her book Relating Narratives: Storytelling and Selfhood Adriana Cavarero indicates that: “It is occasionally said that autobiography responds to a rather precise question: who am I?” (44), but she goes on to argue that autobiography does not in fact respond fully to the question posed. Instead, she claims, it is the biographical tale told by another that does this, by providing the distance that allows for reflection on the memories (45). In my case I will have to do both. I will write two scripts that use the voices of created characters to tell tales rooted in autobiographical memories, and I will provide critical distance by analysing the process. But I will also go further and pose the additional, more focused questions: what kind of playwright could I be and what memories do I access in order to make that happen? The catalysts that led to my desire to change my creative writing practice have been both serendipitous and deliberate, as will be made clear as the thesis progresses, but I will begin by explaining the writing frame I started from, that of applied drama. The focus of applied drama is the educative structuring of the audience’s experience. How I respond to this overarching aim when creating a script for applied drama purposes is explored more fully in my published article “After Cyclops: Appropriating the Chorus of Euripides When Scriptwriting for Applied Drama,” but I’ll briefly synthesise my process in the next few paragraphs. When writing for an applied drama context the playwright should focus on creating a play that makes the audience care about what is happening, question their own behaviour, gain a perspective on events and feel that they can bring about change in the future. As Helen Nicholson explains in her 2005 book Applied Drama: “It is this understanding that narratives can be changed that lies at the heart of practice in applied drama” (63). In the past I have frequently been commissioned to write plays for special interest groups such as young carers, travellers, and economic migrants. The intended audience is usually young people in Britain and Europe, although the plays have also been used in prisons with adult 5 inmates – my 2007 play The Landing, for example, was and is used to help inmates gain an understanding either of their own children’s behaviour or of themselves when young. With all of the groups I work with, I aim to tell their stories in the most effective way I can whilst attempting to avoid an externally-imposed “truth”. 1 Ultimately I consider how the individual and group can bring about positive change by focusing on how personal concerns connect to social and universal themes. For this reason I have always researched thoroughly the biographies of those I depict, drawing on their memories and testimonies with a clear notion of and responsibility towards the real-life person. I have used and manipulated a variety of dramatic devices and structures in order to present the exploration of often difficult but pertinent moral dilemmas. Some I use more than others. There is usually a polyvocal, stylised chorus commenting on the lives of the chosen group, and this chorus is usually the main focus of the play. The moments that depict the lives of the special interest groups are written in a non-stylised way, using conventions familiar to the group and the audience as indicating aspects of the real world and life as it is really lived. Having written eleven plays, I experienced in 2008 a serendipitous catalyst of change, which was to inform my writing practice from then on. Whilst responding to a commission from the Goethe-Institut, the thinking that underpinned my writing was challenged by events. I had always believed that juxtaposing the narratives of popular memories with the narratives of minority memories draws attention to the instability and fluidity of the truth. For this reason, articulating the voices of the voiceless is particularly important to me. However, it soon became apparent in my research trip to Berlin that up until this point in my creative practice I hadn’t fully explored how flexible and changeable “the truth” can be, or the implication this had for my writing of plays that drew on autobiography and memory for their content. I was commissioned to write a play for the Goethe-Institut as part of the After the Fall project, which was set up to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Emerging and established playwrights across Europe were asked to respond. My reputation for writing plays for young people came to the attention of the Goethe-Institut in 1 I am aware that “truth” is problematic both as a term and as a concept. Its use fluctuates wildly from context to context and speaker to speaker. Rather than engaging in theoretical analysis of the nature of truth, I have chosen to use the word truth in this thesis much in the way that Foucault uses the term discourse: it is a usable way of communicating a judgement about the veracity of material according to the individual’s perception. 6 London and I was invited to participate. The play I created is called Not Yet. It was performed in Hull in February 2009 and toured Yorkshire, going into schools, colleges and community centres with associated workshops. The play was one of the few chosen to be part of the After The Fall Festival: Part 2 and was subsequently performed in Dresden and Mulheim. As part of this work, the Goethe-Institut facilitated a research visit to Berlin in the autumn of 2008. In Berlin I found a city that had worked hard to deal with the fall of the Berlin Wall. When visiting museums and institutions I noticed that my guides had practised narratives of how effectively the city had come to terms with reunification. Even though it had not been easy and their stories were often brutally honest, they focused on how positively the city was going forward. This was the collective performed popular memory. But when I dug deeper, when I challenged tour guides, curators and academics in relation to their performed memory, usually over a coffee or more effectively a beer, I uncovered counter-memories that presented a much more complex narrative.