Page 162 - Student: dazed And Confused

Deb, and allowed her to mix one or two of them up to end up with asking if the young
couple would have their baby safely. The story was now decided, the characters modified

and the writing now to begin.

The world of the play was set up as the B13 and B14 housing estates and a group of
the people that lived there. It was quite simple to create this world - I live in it - but I think

it could have been a touch more difficult for some of the others who only had stories and TV

to go on. Having said that, it was quite a good thing that people were writing for people

who just happened to live on an estate rather than residents who were resigned to that life.

The play needed that sense of hope. With the story concerning itself with six members of
these estates and trying to work through the problems they face there, it was important for

me to see the world made as difficult and fraught with red tape as I know it to be. There

was an air of hopelessness in each scene we wrote, a sense of knowing how hard each thing
was.

'After all, different kinds of characterisation suggest different

worlds, and nothing is more irritating for an audience than

not knowing which world it's supposed to be in.'
(S Gooch, 1988, p63)

It was clear that the play was set on an estate through the dialogue but, reading the
script back, I cannot be certain that the audience would have immediately picked that up

without any markers in the dialogue. The six of us, as the dramatists, knew the world we

were creating and performing in though how it would appear to everyone else seem to be a

slight afterthought. However, we were writing the play and part of any production writing is
to consider the visual experience. Drama writing is difficult in this way because you do not

have a film-makers hours to dress any set convincingly - you have seconds to find the key

signals that tell people what world they have stumbled into. A street sign on the estate, a

few fallen leaves in the park. Given more time, we would have no doubt identified these
items and incorporated them into the play.

The world we showed gave rise to some very natural conflicts between characters.

The tension between Cath and Dennis who had once had an affair, Kirstie trying to convince

Shane that he is the father of her child and Shane and Deano losing their friendship because