Did She Jump or Was She Pushed...?
April is turning out to be another busy month. Deadlines again. The Drama Department at University of Northumbria spoke to me last autumn about the possibility of adapting Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen, for the students production in May. But the money situation was unclear and it got forgotten about; then suddenly in March they decided they did have some money and wanted me to write it for the end of April. Never mind the fact what I was working full on with an East End Community Radio broadcast, among other things.
You have to understand that adapting or writing any play for the drama department is about finding parts for a cast of nothing less than 23, usually twenty of whom are women. And as it is a site specific, promenade performance - which means walking about in a particular venue - any straight adaptation is near impossible.
Over the years I've worked with the drama department, we've developed a wonderful collaborative modus vivendi whereby the students improvise new characters, often the servants to all the main characters in a story, thus we develop parallel plots and storylines. I loosely followed the Jane Austen structure, but wove a whole lot more around it.
And I only had the Easter holidays to do it in. My partner took off our eleven year old son, the bigger son went off to stay with friends and I stayed home alone. I delivered the final copy into their hands on Thursday 23rd April. Jane Austen's writing is wonderfully witty and understated, and her dialogue is easy to use straight off the page. This novel examines and makes references to the popular Gothic genre (and also women writer's issues, so recognisable to women writers today). I had great fun writing it, but I said we can't call it Northanger Abbey, it's too far removed, I mean I managed to get revolutionary feminist into the plot. My colleague Fiona MacPherson suggested Did She Jump, or Was She Pushed...? By Jane Austen by Ellen Phethean, having first rejected A Play What I Wrote By Jane Austen. Look out for this stunning performance coming to a Castle Keep near you the last week of May.
I had to get it finished because I'm about to go away to stay with a friend in Greece, on the island of Hydra, ostensibly to write, but maybe I'll just have a bit of a holiday. For those of you who follow these blogs (are there any out there ?) my short story wasn't selected for the Newcastle anthology, it was very gently rejected for all the reasons I thought it would be - too long and more like a squashed novel. So I'm being forced to decide whether I am going to embark on my first attempt at a novel. Watch this space.
May also brings the launch of our new Diamond Twig poetry collection, The Sugar Factory by Ann O'Neill at the Culture Cafe on Thursday 13th May, 8pm which I am looking forward to. From the very first reading, Ann's poems struck me as very sure of themselves, with a clear individual voice. We have also asked our Twiglets to supply us with literary sweeties for the night. It will be a fun night. At the end of May I have been selected to attend a Northern Exposure week at West Yorkshire Playhouse, where a number of writers will have the opportunity to workshop their budding plays, and have short extracts performed. I feel very lucky.
Finally, I am enjoying spam free emailing as my service provider has installed a spam blocker at long last. I no longer receive 200 emails a day offering the opportunity to increase the size of a part of the anatomy women don't have. Which is ironic, as Diamond Twig is a women's press that prides itself on being small but good quality. Cue joke...
Sugar, sugar
I'm writing this in an internet cafe in Blantyre, Malawi, with sugar on my mind. I'm over here for a week working for Traidcraft and yesterday Diya, the photographer and I visited some of the villages where the sugar cane farmers that supply Traidcraft live.
It was an amazing experience. They work so hard, starting at 4am in the morning, and have such basic homes and lifestyles. We went into the home of one of the women farmers who is in her 60s. Since her husband and brother died, she's been the only breadwinner for her household, which now includes her brother's children. The house was made of mud bricks, with some water pots inside and a place for cooking outside. She was so happy that because of fair trade they've got money to buy extra food, including meat and most of all to educate the children and grandchildren.
Then we went to another village that has just got fresh, clean water for the first time. The fair trade premium on the sugar has paid for a borehole to be built, just last month.
When we got back to Blantyre Diya and I came into the internet cafe to check our emails. First one I opened was from Diamond Twig asking if I'd be interested in writing a poem on.... sugar! What a surprise, I replied yes.
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