{"id":307,"date":"2011-07-12T14:47:32","date_gmt":"2011-07-12T14:47:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/WritingTutors\/?p=307"},"modified":"2011-07-12T14:47:32","modified_gmt":"2011-07-12T14:47:32","slug":"triplet-michael-w-thomas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/WritingTutors\/?p=307","title":{"rendered":"Triplet: Michael W. Thomas"},"content":{"rendered":"

My writing and publication record defines me principally as a fiction-writer and poet.\"\"<\/a>\u00a0 In the last couple of years, however, I have become increasingly interested in writing drama.\u00a0 In the context of the OU, this may well have been through my exposure to dramatic techniques as a tutor on A363.\u00a0 More generally, however, I felt the need to try and get at the essence of what characters were saying\u2014or trying to avoid saying.\u00a0 As a result, I wanted to set aside the often tyrannous ballyhoo of the fiction narrator, he or she who must be supplied with descriptive fodder: Thoughtfully, he turned from the window . . . <\/em>no, no,\u00a0 Lost in thought, he turned from the window . . . <\/em>ok, how about Turning from the window, he . . . morphed into a hatrack?\u00a0 <\/em>Well, that\u2019d bring all the realists up short . . . but I wanted to take a break from the demands of narrated fiction\u2014and, come to that, the often hazier demands of poetry.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What characters say can be very interesting.\u00a0 What they don\u2019t want to say, even more so.\u00a0 We live our lives surrounded by those who withhold, prevaricate, cover ignorance with bluster\u2014think about the last time you tried to check your bank details over the phone.\u00a0\u00a0 So it was that I wrote a short play, FAQ, <\/em>about the eternal, Manichean clash between motorist and car-park attendant, entirely in questions.\u00a0 If statements or explanations keep open the lungs of dialogue, questions\u2014especially when met with further questions\u2014close them down.\u00a0 After that, my interest expanded to a situation where, rather than blocking each other with questions, characters would talk up a storm\u2014but in order to veil a secret they\u2019ve never discussed and have no wish to now.\u00a0 From this came another short play, When?\u00a0 <\/em>An older couple are about to take their third and youngest child to university.\u00a0 Another milestone\u2014not least in terms of offering them the latest opportunity to talk to her about something from the past, something delicate and painful that involves her.\u00a0 Will they let the opportunity pass yet again?\u00a0 Will they seize the opportunity?\u00a0 Or has happenstance devised a way of making them face it?\u00a0 We never learn what the secret is.\u00a0 My main interest was in watching the couple . . . well, dealing with not dealing with it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Through a play reading session for Script (now defunct, sadly), my work got the attention of Margaret Jackman, director and actress (The Royal, Holby City, Candy Cabs)<\/em>, who also writes as Margaret Manuell.\u00a0 Through her good offices, an evening of three plays was devised: FAQ, When <\/em>and Service, <\/em>one of her own plays, set in a nursing home and similarly focused on how people swerve away from truths.\u00a0 Triplet, <\/em>the evening was called, and it was staged in Staffordshire and at the Blue Orange Theatre, Birmingham, in May 2011.\u00a0 The cast, including Margaret herself, Alison Belbin (often in The Archers<\/em>) and Philip Jennings created the kind of magic that you hope for with scripts.\u00a0 They lifted the words off the page and took them into that other world, the dramatic world of action, gesture, inflection\u2014and fear of secrets.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Other productions of Triplet <\/em>are being planned for later in the year.\u00a0\"\"<\/a> In the meantime, I\u2019m back dishing up words for a greedy narrator (in the sequel to my 2009 novel, The Mercury Annual<\/em>) and also, slowly, putting together a new poetry collection.\u00a0 I\u2019d like to think that these projects have gained an extra edge, fresh vitality, from my excursions into script-writing.\u00a0 Even as I write this, I hear Mick from Pinter\u2019s The Caretaker, <\/em>saying \u2018Now then, son, don\u2019t get perky, don\u2019t get perky.\u2019\u00a0 But I hope it\u2019s true.<\/p>\n

Michael W. Thomas, The Mercury Annual <\/em>(Birmingham: Silver Age, 2009); Port Winston Mulberry <\/em>(poems) <\/em>(Cheshire: Littlejohn and Bray, 2010)<\/p>\n

www.michaelwthomas.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My writing and publication record defines me principally as a fiction-writer and poet.\u00a0 In the last couple of years, however, I have become increasingly interested in writing drama.\u00a0 In the context of the OU, this may well have been through … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,66,9],"tags":[79,78,48],"class_list":["post-307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-novels","category-performance","category-plays","tag-blue-orange-theatre","tag-characters","tag-readings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/WritingTutors\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/WritingTutors\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/WritingTutors\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/WritingTutors\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/WritingTutors\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=307"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/WritingTutors\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":315,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/WritingTutors\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307\/revisions\/315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/WritingTutors\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/WritingTutors\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/WritingTutors\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}