Just discovered that after you finish writing a play, it's a very good thing to get over the feeling that it's worthless, and come back to it after at least 3 weeks, with a fresh eye. Then you can add up stuff. And also value it, go back to the text and rediscover and value it. So important. And also use the news you've been swallowing in the last days in a Fb binge, in order to improve your characters. As they find new shapes and meanings after the whole Brexit surprise. And just add value to your work.
Like what happened to me when I started writing this statement draft:
Like what happened to me when I started writing this statement draft:
" I have written “Who’s to blame?” before the Brexit events,
starting with a thought about how people try to find shelter in a “better
country” after a traumatic experience in theirs. How “better” is “better” and how
does life go on after you finally “made it” are questions that made me think of
these characters and their story. The story that unfolds in “Who’s to blame?”gathers
a number of characters that represent typologies from nowadays society: the
old conservative “right wing” mother, the teenage emotional introvert socially
anxious daughter, the adult political correct integrated young woman, the rich
alienated bank manager and the newly come emotionally vulnerable immigrant. The way these
characters affect one another leads to a tragic event. But the question is, at
the end of the play: who’s to blame for it? As each character has his or her
own motivation, we witness a complex process in which a chain of
not-so-well-thought decisions lead to a tragic end. My main goal in building
this story is actually related to my statement regarding the process of dealing
with similar experiences, and this is also why I chose that the title
should be a question. I think a good political play should raise questions not
give answers, and this is how I designed the story: you see people heading
towards a disaster, but you can’t point at anybody for sure. Whose blame is it
for getting so alienated that you fall into this constant mechanism of
sabotaging your own moments of empathy? What triggered this mechanism and what
is the solution?
In a moment of crisis, probably the first step is to ask the
right questions, and also analyse the context. And I think one key of a valid analyse is to be patient in gathering all the information and not rushing
in to put the blame on somebody.
As a Romanian who
used to live for a while in the UK and also documented the status of Romanian
Immigration there, I felt it a bitter taste when thinking about what this
process actually means. I tried to put this mixture of repressed emotions and
feelings into the main character, Suzanna, who has a strong sentiment of hate
towards her mother. As the story moves forward, we discover the reason Suzanna
can’t stand her mother- because she was the one who dragged them from Romania
to the UK when she was only 12. This can be a traumatic experience for a child,
but as much as Suzanna hates her mother for taking this decision on her behalf,
she has to agree it was for the best. Which is actually leading her to a very
repressed emotional state. People tell her she is “frozen” and “cold”, as she
keeps on living in the same loop of going-to-work-and-then-coming-back-home
narrative.
Suzanna embraced the system of her hew country, and also its
political values. She is annoyed and pissed with her mother when she makes “right
wing statemens” and actually she judges her for stating that her new neighbors
are “terrorists” because they dress in a traditional Muslim fashion and “pray
all the time”. Suzanna doesn’t have the patience nor the nerves to comfort her
mother, who is in a very fragile state of mind after having terrible nightmares
that repeat traumas from the past. Combined with the state of fear induced by
the news, these dreams turn the mother into a irrational person, who repeatedly
says that she just needs to spend time with her daughters in order to calm down.
But her daughter doesn’t have nor time, nor patience.
After the Brexit events, the mother’s character became even
more interesting for me, as she has the manifestations of a typical “leaver”-
old, conservative right wing racist, who forgets about her own flaws when she
accuses others. So it's very interesting to see what does actually bring her in this state of irrational What this character asks from her family is affection, and the
fact that she is not listened to aggravates her irrational state.
This constant fragmentation in the small comunity which is a
family is something that interested me, when writing the play. Each and every
member of this family lives in a state of alienation: the younger daughter doesn’t
want to leave the house because of social anxiety and blames Suzanna for not
being there for her, mother is consumed by her irrational fear that something
will go wrong, Suzanna doesn’t want her mother to move in at any stake.
In a strange way, as Anna says, the only moment when she
actually felt a real communion between people was after the attack, when she
lost her fright and was able to go our of the house without fearing that people
will judge her. This brings up another strong theme: the lack of values and
goals as a real community, as Anna tells Selim when she tries to explain .
The characters function up to a point, then they’re all just
broken: Anna can’t stop her tabliod-teenage-enthusiastic reaction when she
hears Selim used to be enrolled in ISIS for two months. Mother can’t control
her fear. Maxie, the banker/dog can’t actually intervene when he feels he
should.
There is a strong feeling of fragmentation and lack of real
community that sabotages any human connection that can be made between the characters
of this play.
[develop a bit more in the actual play the “who’s to blame” monologue
for Maxie; also- mother: more clear that she wants to be listened to, and she
is irrational; she should say about Maxie that he is English; she is proud of
her UK citizenship- maybe some family/historical tied, so she’s not entirely
immigrant; but overall, just work a bit more on this character and her
features, including the irrationality and fear she is dominated by]
“Who’s to blame”
becomes a symbolical question that wants to trigger this process of trying to
find answers. Now, in a moment of crisis, we all need to ponder upon this and
not rush into irrational judgemental decisions, but rather start a process of
lucid analyse towards the facts and possible solutions.
