The first four weeks of rehearsals had gone well. I was impressed by the dedication of the cast and di-rector Michael Boyd, artistic director of The Tron in Glasgow. Many production and writing problems had been solved. And many had not. There was one week left to crack them.
Because of the special demands my writing puts on actors - total commitment to illogicality, the fast and total turn-arounds of the script, the absolute clarity and vocal athleticism required to carry it off - and because of the cramped and straitened circumstances of rehearsing in the British theatre, I had hoped to have put my pen down well before now so that the actors would have a final script.
Because of the way theatre writing is financed I have to write more quickly than I would like. It is impos-sible to predict when a play is really finished. Perhaps it never is. Perhaps it is only finished when it becomes intolerable to expect actors to work with further changes.
Monday August 7: Yesterday I spent most of the day finalising what I hoped to be the last round of cuts. Then I sat up most of the night redrafting the second half of the final scene. My last major rewrite. The play centres on a young criminal, Danny Noble, who gets out of prison and tries to go straight. The play tests out this notion not only by tempting him with offers to renew his career but also by misleading and confusing him with different notions of what criminality and 'straightness' really are.
The difficulty was to properly conclude Danny's action without sentimentality or overstatement of the moral. Michael warns me this is the crunch. I have to get it right tonight. I sorted out all my notes for the scene and then I threw them in the bin. Then I wrote until four in the morning. It was all too long. But I knew that I had come far closer than in any previous draft. Michael had asked for the script in the morning so that they could work on the ending till lunch and run - for the first time - the whole play in the afternoon. I got up at eight and took the phone off the hook. They would just have to readjust their timetable. And I didn't want any conversations about it. It was still too long. But I would need a couple of days to be fresh enough to judge properly where and how to cut. Michael would have to decide.
Michael spent his lunch hour suggesting cuts. We borrowed a pencil in a cafe and he worked with breathtaking speed and certainty reducing what I had written by half. We were left with almost pure action to end the play on.
When we presented it to the actors they seemed to agree it was much better. I had discovered a couple of places where the severe cutting had left the need for short links to be added and two of the actors sug-gested a further short-cut of a section which was too easy and glib a return to domestic squabbling. The ac-tors gave me a lesson in managing my tone.
Tuesday August 8: The day is spent going through those parts of the play which had been sticky in yes-terday's run. This seemed a bit painstaking for my mood so I took an actor aside to cut two of his self-contained speeches. I put his practical wisdom to work what would 'hold' and what would not. Within an hour we had taken 20 per cent out of both speeches. Then I wrote the links to smooth out the savage cuts to the final scene. The actors did not work late tonight to rest and prepare themselves for long sessions on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
Wednesday August 9: I was uneasy about the new links. Even though they were only five or six extra lines, there were only five days to go till we opened. Douglas Henshall, who plays Danny, tried to reassure me by telling me of his nightmare. With two days left to go I had given him a new scene with characters he had never heard of. Michael and I had reassured him how well it would work but he had found himself burst-ing on to the stage shouting 'I'm sorry. I'm not just taking any more rewrites.' It's gruelling work for directors and actors.
I was relieved to be called away to hear that I had been nominated for a Stella Artois Style award. While knowing this must be a mistake (I'm not nearly well dressed enough) at the back of my mind I was thinking of becoming well dressed enough to justify it in time for the ceremony. But it wasn't me they wanted. It was only a bit of my dialogue.
When I went back to rehearsals there were more problems. How to phase Danny's journey? While the play pushes Danny into different levels of refusal to see what is in front of him, there had been a sense - possible accidental - arising from the runs Michael and I had watched of him taking on board what was hap-pening too knowledgeably. That is to say controlling himself, maintaining dignity at the time when it most needs to be surrendered. How and when does Danny begin to learn to fall, to change? It's too gruelling for me.
Thursday August 10: The final scene in more detail. A second director's draft. I was pleased to see my links go into place. In the afternoon and evening we did run throughs of the whole play. Looking back, it was interesting to see how they sparkled and died in different places.
Friday August 11: I was in and out all day. Guilty and irritable, flu lurking. But late in the afternoon the clouds vanished. Michael moved into a creative fireworks display. Moves were being put into place, ideas were taken from me and the actors and transformed into the staging concepts without stopping for breath. Decisions were taken. Actors responded instantly and willingly.
Saturday August 12: The actors have the day off. They assure me this is a joke. They'll all be working for some part of the day. This is the day when the technical people take over the Churchill Theatre. The bad news was that the lights had been seriously delayed. The good news was that Graham Johnston's set was looking very good. I am going to Edinburgh tomorrow to watch part of the rehearsal but my work is funda-mentally over. Now I have to watch out that I don't get in everybody else's way. Now I have time to get fright-ened and ill. But I now also have time to be indifferent to my fear. Now I have to sit and stew over the changes it is too late to make.
Clyde Nouveau is at the Churchill Theatre.
The Guardian - August 14th - 1989