We last interviewed Welsh Playwright and Artistic Director of Chippy Lane Productions Ltd, Rebecca Jade Hammond, in September 2022 just prior to her play Right Where We Left Us being performed at Chapter Arts Centre. We caught up with Rebecca again during rehearsals of Mad Margot which is one of four plays, forming RWCMD New 23 Season.

Hi Rebecca, great to catch up again, it’s been 8 months since we last spoke, with the cultural sector finding a way through the impact of Covid how has your professional career been impacted by this difficult period?

Lovely to speak with you again. To answer your question, I think most writers still feel a sense of ‘world on pause’. It seems that emerging writers making traction pre-pandemic are now picking up the pieces and having to go again at a slower pace. I have always written but it wasn’t until 2019 that I started to take it seriously and since then I have seen steady (if not fast enough) progress. I often feel frustrated that I didn’t take the plunge and start younger, but then I check in with myself and remember that you reap what you sow regardless of age. You have to keep going, apply for everything, have those coffees (with no agenda), meet people, network, write, write, write and get better. At some point something has to happen. I always say: “you have to keep going, you’re too far in to go back now” – I believe this 100%.

Mad Margot is described as a new play that “charts epic events in young bodies, caught between childhood and adulthood in Bute Park, Cardiff.” Can you tell us more about this work?

I originally had this idea in 2020 attending the National Theatre Writers Group. I banked it, knowing that a writer at my point would never be given the opportunity until I was profiled.I let it percolate, wrote bits of it – but kept it for future possibilities. It wasn’t until my play RIGHT WHERE WE LEFT US was on in September 2022 that I was approached by Sherman Theatre and RWCMD with the offer of a commission. The brief was for it to be with ten actors and thread in Welsh translations with the support of Branwen Davies. Of course I accepted and over the last year we have worked hard to bring it to fruition. 

MAD MARGOT is a piece about the disintigration of mental health in young women (specifically Margot’s) in the midst of teenage pregnancy. At a time when she should be protected, safe and supported she is alone and trying hard not to drown. Charting the murky world youngsters occupy between childhood and adulthood in Bute Park, MAD MARGOT explores mob-mentality, power-structured relationships and sexuality in relation to the system of patriarchy. Personally it is a nod to my youth growing up as a young Cardiffian in North Cardiff. Always out, not wanting to go home and building an urban family of friends. In fact, several of the characters are based on real people I grew up with including myself.

I have realised as a writer I am obsessed with the rhythm and timbre of dialogue and ensuring it’s as authentic as possible. This piece is incredibly wordy and hard to speak without speaking fast, breathing between punctuation and of course, in a Cardiff accent. It’s exhausting for the actors but rewarding. It’s also incredible to see how they’ve committed to the material. They’ve taken it and run. We are sharing the responsibility to serve this story.

The play is at once epic and historical in its approach yet hyperlocal in its gaze, taking place a stone’s throw from RWCMD in Bute Park. How have you combined these elements in your work?

I have left these ideas and concepts with Llew (Designer) and Jac (Director) both Cardiffians and Welsh speakers. Being deeply aware of the confines of NEW and the play being in Rep the only thing I asked for was it to feel like a vast space with leaf’s. I left everything else up to them to put their stamp and vision on the piece. I am a firm believer in collaboration – it’s the ultimate form of making art. No one can really do it alone and so I have left them to figure out the world in that way. Without giving too much away there are artistic nods to Cardiff, Bute Park and my youth. Also, this piece is a loose reimagining of MEDEA and so, it was important that the words, the performances and the story sing out loud without too much fuss and spectacle. Peter Brook once said “all you need is bodies in space to be engaging” and I like to think we will deliver this in the final production.

The production uses a range of pop culture references and contemporary slang, how did you approach these elements and have you had any feedback from young people? Were you worried about getting any of this wrong?

I mean, I don’t think I’m old yet. I am in my 30’s so I don’t think I had to dig that deep to connect to the material. However, I am a different gen to that of 16+ in 2023 and so I researched a lot about young people in Cardiff. I also worked with the students to ensure the characters sat authentically in their bodies and that the words felt realistic to them. It is amazing how much ‘being young’ is still exactly the same as when I was a teenager. The rules, politics, banter, bullying, dynamics and struggles are all as was. There’s something comforting but also deeply worrying that not much changed.

With regards to other elements, music is always a big part of my writing process and the worlds I build in plays. I have always wanted to integrate rap music into one of my stories and this seemed like the perfect opportunity working on a young persons piece. We actually collaborated with another student Israel J. Fredericks (El Guapo) on creating a rap section for one of the characters who wants to be the next ArrDee / Central Cee. Israel wrote a rap and together we found a beat based on a detailed brief I gave him on the character. This process was enlightening and supportive. Giving our piece another opportunity to utilise the talented skill sets of the students. We are also utilising the ballet experience of one of the actors, singing and Welsh speaking. Continuously having a dialogue and making them part of the conversation. It’s been an organic / openly creative journey for us all getting to this point. 

Mad Margot is one of four new plays which will premier at RWCMD at the end of May before transferring to The Yard Theatre, London in early June. The NEW season from RWCMD “showcases its commitment to empowering the next generation of actors, collaborating with the UK’s best writers and directors, and bringing new voices and diverse stories to the stage” Why is this work to support emerging actors and the UK’s best writers and directors important to you?

NEW is an important part of the college’s history and as a writer a gift to be able to explore work that has big casts, epic themes and enables you to experiment with form. It’s a tricky task, but I have seen so many NEW pieces over the years I knew exactly what should be done. Shout-out to Daf James’ FOR ALL I AM in 2016, which in my opinion is the benchmark for when the brief marries up perfectly. From the story, to the characters, to utilising the students and the execution of performance – it is a masterpiece. I am aiming for that… wish me luck.

MAD MARGOT is also significant because it’s the first time NEW has had a bilingual piece in English and Welsh and has several Welsh students in one piece. Platforming RWCMD commitment to Welsh talent and celebrating the Welsh language. For the student/actors, it is the last show they perform before going into the industry. It is an important marker for them leaving education and going into the professional world. I think it’s essential that these pieces are modern, edgy and use all the tools in their box. Make them proud of their work and a piece that they have had a hand in creating. I hope I have given them something they will always remember as a challenge and opportunity to excel but also put THE DIFF on the map.

The play is Directed by Jac Ifan Moore and has Welsh Language Adaptations and Dramaturgy by Branwen Davies. When we discussed this, you said you aimed to reflect contemporary Cardiff in its use of “Wenglish” by young people. How have rehearsals reflected this aim and do you think you have been successful?

What’s wonderful is that we have a mix of fluent-speakers, those learning and those with no Welsh experience at all. Everyone is supportive and encouraging to those who don’t speak the language and the rehearsal room is naturally moving from Welsh to English as it does in the play. Both our SM, DSM and Designer also speak Welsh too so that aids for the language being readily used. I am also learning, so it’s been wonderful to be part of a space where I can brush up on my Welsh.

From a writing perspective Branwen Davies and I have a lovely working relationship where she was very sensitive to my words still translating in Welsh in a Cardiff-style way. I think she’s captured it perfectly and I have been honoured to have her guidance and also my words turned into Cymraeg. Bi-lingual pieces are still rare even in Wales and I am a firm believer that there should be more and that in future work I will work more within that medium. It’s been a thoroughly enjoyable process.

And finally what culture have you been consuming recently that you would recommend our readers to catch up on?

I have favoured listening to music whilst walking and running this year. Also, as a form of mindfulness and to distract me from my forever racing head. It helps me write and figure out story plots, characters and possibilities.

I am listening to a lot of R&B and rap like; Central Cee, RKAYY (Cardiff Rapper), GoGo Morrow, SZA, Doja Cat, Jaish, Drake, El Guapo, Giggs, Jay Z, Little Sims, Mabel, Lauryn Hill, The Carters, Dr Dre, Eminem, Nicki Minaji, ArrDee, Aitch, 9lokknine and my Queen Beyoncé!

https://youtu.be/yrtWLyp5gLI

(4 / 5)

“I was born brown, deaf and outside a prison…thanks Dad!” So begins this one-man show about a British-Indian, or Indian-Briton, or perhaps there’s even a third option.

Rinkoo Barpaga is a Sikh, born in Birmingham to parents from India, who’s been trying to find his ‘people’ all his life. Growing up during the Thatcher years, he experienced unemployment, prejudice and racism, all while observing the many ‘cultures’ he encountered. Learning sign language at a much older age than others left him feeling even more of an outsider, his first word, ‘dog’, was learnt from a friend in a car on the way to a special school. 

Bouncing between Birmingham, Newcastle & London, making friends while enduring double prejudice because he was deaf and brown, from hearing and (white) deaf alike, always wanting more than anything to understand and be understood. A career in entertainment was never his intention, falling into it by accident after becoming a translator for TV. Trying stand-up comedy both here and in America, he grew more accomplished, and started creating stage shows based on his life and travels. This being the latest result.

https://youtu.be/1QCMRtUjROk

One of the most intriguing aspects of this play is that, unlike most others, instead of an interpreter for the deaf here we have an interpreter for the hearing. He becomes a sort of narrator in a way, speaking Rinkoo’s words in a voiceover to the acting, which gives us a fascinating insight into his world. Occasionally it misfires, the voice not always being synchronised to the signing, leading to the emotional impact being somewhat diluted. On the whole though, it adds a fresh new dimension to things.

In turns sad, joyous and painful, but always funny, Rinkoo passionately conveys the anger, fear and sheer frustration of his life due to his inability to communicate. The  irony is that it seems to be here on the stage that he communicates the best, offering us an insight into his world, a world I was almost completely unaware of. Both an entertaining and enlightening experience then, and one I truly enjoyed.

In our latest Playwright interview, the Director of Get the Chance, Guy O’Donnell meets Playwright Vic Mills, they discuss his career to date, his latest play ‘Sanctuary: The Secrets of the Gunter Mansion’ and his thoughts on career support for Playwrights in Wales.

So, what got you interested in the arts?

I came from a non-conformist chapel background, where both of my parents were public speakers, writers, teachers, preachers – so performance of the spoken word was part of what we lived and breathed from infant hood. Music too was central to life.  Both my parents were avid readers and we grew up in a home without a television so I read a huge amount – many of the classics before I was eleven.

Why do you write?

That’s probably changed  great deal over the years – from poetry as a teenager and young adult to writing for theatre from the time I was about 20.  I write because I enjoy the process and each stage of sharing and developing a script is incredibly exciting – the isolation in the first part of the process and then the development of a script with a team is nerve-wracking and exhilarating.  Then, right through to the first performance the piece continues to develop and is still changing and hopefully improving until it’s last performance.  The chemistry with my director, Neil Maidman, and recently with the Contemporancient Team of poet Dr Kevin Mills, composer Stephen Preston and our actors is hugely exciting.

Can you tell us about your writing process? Where do your ideas come from?

Research around a specific subject – like The Chartists, mental asylums in Wales, Dr Richard Price, ‘The Gunter Mansion’ in Abergavenny  – is the starting point – finding where the theatre is in a story, what might be relevant, challenging, inspiring, for contemporary audiences.  Then, like most playwrights, I build scenes around conflict.  I also search for empathy with every character I develop – they all have to have something of me in them – good, bad and appalling.

I have written theatre with a social and political drive, often linked to an aspect of Welsh history in the last twenty years and that continues to be my focus.

Whilst I usually produce what might be called ‘naturalist dialogue’ as central to a piece, the work itself is not usually naturalistic overall.  My great inspiration is Brecht and so music, poetry, ‘chorus’, multiple playing, non-linear structure, are all key tools in creating something meant to evoke intellectual challenge rather than pure entertainment.

Can you describe your writing day? Do you have a process or a minimum word count?

I usually spend a year or so reading around a subject and then write a first draft of a play obsessively and very quickly – maybe within 10 days.  I don’t keep any record of how much time I spend at it during those days – but writing comes easily when it comes at all and it usual flies out when it’s ready to.  It gets huge amounts of patient re-working for months afterwards, but the arc is there.

Do you have a specific place that you work from?

I have a study and a MacBook Air.  I write notes in proper notebooks with a fountain pen.  I like fountain pens a lot.  I really like fountain pens.  Once I start writing the script – its straight on the MacBook though.

Your latest play ‘Sanctuary: The Secrets of the Gunter Mansion’ plays at The Borough Theatre, Abergavenny at 7.30pm on Wednesday 21st June.

“This new play with music tells how, for more than 400 years, Abergavenny has provided sanctuary for those in danger – here the horrors and joys of their secret stories are told in thrilling theatre and music.”

Can you tell us more about the background to this production and your hopes for its production?

This started with reading an historical text about two leaders of the Jesuits being caught in a priest hole in Worcestershire in 1605 and exploring the idea of people being hunted, tortured and killed for their faith but also willing to do the same things to other people, with only marginally different faith.  This seemed incredibly relevant to life for people in many parts of the world today so worth exploring.  We have worked with ‘The Plas Gunter Mansion’ in Abergavenny, where these priests probably hid in the months prior to be caught – we have linked that with the story of Syrian refugee woman in Abergavenny today – she is not an historical figure but is based on stories of real Syrian refugees in Wales.

We’ve worked with Syrian musicians and our composer to bring the cultures together in music and explore the idea of sanctuary in Abergavenny and in Wales across the ages.  It’s a play about the Welsh nation being made up of people from around the world and about the importance of tolerance.  But there’s a lot of difficult stuff in the play about people’s willingness to suffer for their beliefs and to make others suffer who do not share them.

Kevin, my brother, an academic and poet, has produced wonderful verse for the piece and has worked with Stephen Preston, our musician/composer to create stunning songs alongside our Syrian musicians.  We’ve worked with our close collaborator, film maker Chris Lloyd to deliver a multi-media piece, where film and visual imagery plays a huge part.  Our director and dramaturg, Neil Maidman, is someone I have worked with for more than 25 years so we shape a piece together, understanding each others strengths pretty intuitively by now.

We hope that through exploring our shared history, we will learn more about ourselves and those with whom we share our communal lives and spaces.

This will be performed during National Refugee Week and all performances will be free for refugees.

Sanctuary – Cast, Director, Writer, and Lyricist

What role do you think Theatres and Playwrights have in telling the narratives of the citizens of their respective nations?

You can tell from my previous answer that this is a central tenet of all I do as a writer and what this theatre company, Contemporancient Theatre, is all about.  Heb Hanes – Heb Hunaniaeth is our motto, and that is at the heart of what we do.

There are a range of organisations supporting Wales based writers. I wonder if you feel the current support network and career opportunities feel ‘healthy’ to you? Is it possible to sustain a career as a writer in Wales and if not, what would help?

I worked as a drama teacher, English teacher and Deputy Headteacher until I was able to retire at 55, and work full time in theatre.  I was able to write and get plays produced throughout that time and have had plays of mine produced and performed all around the world.  I have never made any money to speak of through that.  If a play of mine is performed I get about £50 per performance in royalties.

I spend a huge amount of time applying for funding – far more that I do actually writing or developing scripts.  If I had to rely on what I earned from theatre to live, I couldn’t.  I ensure that freelance actors, musicians, crew etc are paid union rates and I try to find some money in the budget for writing and script development.  I don’t know how anyone writing for theatre could make a living just by writing, unless they were hugely successful.

You are a member of the Get The Chance team yourself and have reviewed a range of productions. Why are you a member of our team of volunteer critics and what value does this opportunity have to you?

I watch as much live theatre as I can, and I usually have very strong opinions about what I experience.  Part of the joy of any art is the discussion it evokes – Get The Chance gives people an opportunity to formulate and articulate ideas about performance arts so it’s a vehicle for them and publicity for the event that have attended.  What’s not to like about that?

If you were able to fund an area of the arts what would this be and why?

One of my many causes is ‘working class people in arts’ and theatre specifically, of course. 

The tradition of great working class actors, playwrights etc that fuelled British theatre has been choked off.  I would love to see bursaries or grants for theatre practitioners of working class background to support their work, and organisations like ACW creating funding areas for projects delivered by practitioners from the working class. 

What currently inspires you about the arts in the Wales?

The extent to which good work continues to get put on despite the odds. 

What was the last really great thing that you experienced that you would like to share with our readers?

I saw Rosie Sheehy in Alls Well That Ends Well at the RSC Stratford last year.  Didn’t know her, or of her, at the time.  Stunning, stunning performance – by a kid from down the road.  Blistering and inspiring.  I love actors who can really speak verse – get verse.  Wonderful physical and vocal performance.  I love the fact that she was there and blew everyone else off the stage and that she’s a Welsh kid from an ordinary background.

Long before the shock of seeing Tracey Emin’s unmade bed as an exhibit in a gallery, or Martin Creed’s ‘Work No. 227: The Lights Going On And Off’, modern art has evoked strong emotions.

In this single-act play directed by Peter Harding-Roberts for Everyman Theatre at Chapter in Cardiff, the purchase of a blank canvas for a ludicrously high price pits pretentious Serge seeking to impress his friends against classicist Marc who scorns the work as a “piece of white shit”. When he asks “Are you going to have it framed?”, Serge laughingly replies “It’s not supposed to be framed. The artist doesn’t want it to be. It mustn’t be interrupted. It’s already in its setting”, echoing what Mark Rothko said about keeping his paintings frameless to increase their impact on the world, as part of the world rather than separate objects.

Their friend Yvan is drawn into the debate, whose appeasing nature suggests he may provide an opportunity for some resolution to their opposing views about modern art. More than the debate about the merits of the artwork though, ‘Art’ explores the art of friendship as the antagonists realise the fragility of their long-term relationships and question their validity, the painting itself a catalyst for amplifying hidden tensions in a longstanding three-way bromance.

Seasoned Everyman actors Brian Smith and Gregory Owens are joined by Michael Taylor Moran in Yasmina Reza’s 90-minute narrative, structured not in formal scenes but in pithy little episodes, mostly duologues between two of the three protagonists, punctuated by confessional asides that break the fourth wall. The action takes place in Serge’s apartment where two large off-white armchairs are separated by a settle that serves to prop the painting centre-stage as well as a seat when all three characters need to sit. The geometry of the minimalist and monochromatic set allows the three of them to keep their distance from each other which I believe helps accentuate their differences, although I heard someone saying they wished the actors got physically closer as one might expect of true friends. Yet others have criticised the playwright for failing to establish a solid emotional base for her characters’ friendship, that these men are just archetypes, but I disagree. We don’t need to know the origins of their friendship, just the characteristics that account for their differing responses to the artwork in question, and these are well-portrayed.

In the end there is a twist that leads to the suggestion that the canvas represents a man who moves across a space and disappears, a universal metaphor for life itself perhaps, in the same way Creed’s Work No. 227 is interpreted as signifying birth (lights on) and death (lights off). I will resist identifying which character interprets the white canvas in this way as it might spoil the enjoyment of a play I would recommend seeing, for its nonstop cross-fire of crackling language and performances by three actors who capably hold our attention throughout as their levels of exasperation rise and fall according to the strain of their characters’ efforts to keep their friendship alive.

In the programme notes, the director quotes the playwright who considered her play as much a tragedy as a comedy and challenges us to disagree. That ‘Art’’ won the Molière Award for Best Author and the 1998 Tony Award for Best Play suggests the play works, and this performance also, because it is both.

Art runs at Chapter until Saturday May 13th

There will be no new theatrical professionals in the future without development programmes. These programmes are problematic because the work that comes out through them is bound to be variable. Yet, just as investment clubs throw money at funds supporting collections of start-up businesses, in the hope that the one that comes good will offset the losses incurred on the duds, a theatre initiating a development programme hopes to be able to mine a new vein of artistic talent.

‘Truth’ or ‘Dare’ are representative of Theatr Clwyd’s investment in its local community. Each consists of five short plays, written by freelancers, performed by two teams of ten actors. The plays are given the full treatment, with two directors and two associate directors, two stage managers and two deputies and a good-sized creative team. No expense is spared.

You might think this would be high risk. Will anyone travel to see new work by unknown writers being staged on a Thursday night in a small town in north west Wales? Isn’t there a danger of having more people on stage than in the auditorium? This can happen but fortunately it doesn’t happen in Mold. Because of Theatr Clwyd’s reputation and its well established relationship with its audience, they turn out to see what is going on (including people who are still the right side of forty). Thus, on the Press Night for ‘Truth’ and ‘Dare’ there were well over a hundred people in attendance. The makeshift space, The Mix, Theatr Clwyd is using while its main house is being refurbished, was over three quarters full. The Mayor was there in person, too, wearing the chain of office.

The audience enjoyed the double bill. They laughed long and loud. They clapped vigorously. They cheered and gave the casts of both groups of plays a standing ovation. It was quite a night and refreshing to experience so much open enthusiasm and support. It wasn’t unlike being at a football match when the home team wins.

That said, I think what appealed most to the audience were the performers. The evening became a show case for the actors and the creative team behind them, i.e. they fully repaid the investment. I felt, however, that the performers were better than the material they were working with. I couldn’t understand the connections between the plays and Truth or Dare, for example, and I couldn’t find the comic centre or the joke in most of them. I missed the point of One Stop Short and didn’t see why a stuffed teddy duck had replaced a dog in This Time Next Week. I felt there was an absence of plot And The Crowd Goes Boom.

This could have been down to my lack of perception but what the actors were doing, on the other hand, I could relate to completely. They managed to extract every last drop of potential from what they had been given. Every traditional theatrical gag was included, up to and including ‘Take a Chair’ – (Exit with chair) (groan).

What the audience got was a high-octane display of the art of coarse acting which, in some cases, took farce to a new level. One feature of this was the incorporation of objects provided by the audience for the cast to use as key props. These objects had not been seen before the night, so the actors were required to improvise to incorporate them quickly into the scripts. Cue much mirth as a doorknob became a murder weapon and a toilet roll became a prized personal possession.

Perhaps it’s unfair to pick out individual performances, because the evening favoured the comics over their straight supporters, but Seren Vickers was astonishingly daft as James Bond in drag; Laura Dalgleish managed to do things with a dowsing stick that I can’t describe and Geraint Edwards managed to completely reinvent the whole business of sales and marketing. These three weren’t just over the top. They were somewhere else entirely. Leilah Hughes as an all singing, all dancing Barbie was not far behind them.

Whilst the plays themselves were a mixed bag of different styles and approaches, there were two – The Wake and Bwgan (The Ghoul) – which stood out by being more or less naturalistic. The former was a set piece in which two sisters argue over what they will each inherit from their (toilet roll fixated) mother. The latter was a kind of ghost story in Welsh, which provided Betson Llwyd with the opportunity to be suitably ghoulish and to perform a bravura solo monologue. The fluent Welsh she spoke added atmosphere and musicality to the story, as I don’t speak I inevitably had to look away from what was being done on stage to read the subtitles on the overhead screen. Lisa Jen Brown contributed a lot to the success of both these pieces.

The language of Bwgan and the approach adopted in the other plays, up to and including the audience participation, has its limits, however. I’m not convinced this programme could transfer or tour and enjoy the same level of success as it had at Theatr Clwyd. In the end, although it was enjoyable, it wasn’t very original. What I would like to see personally is the same level of talent and commitment invested in plays that capture the imagination. There are short comic plays by Chekov and O’Casey that would really come to life with this cast’s energy. The treatment could also be applied to work by Ionesco and more recent comic dramatists like Dario Fo. This creative team could easily tackle longer classic plays by Moliere or Goldoni.

Finally, it would also be good to see serious work – drama that is disturbing and intellectually challenging – replacing the preoccupation with going for laughs, which is something of an easy way out.

Of course, it’s not fair to compare the programme with material by the greatest European playwrights and it’s beside the point. What one would hope, though, is that Theatr Clwyd’s development programme does succeed in unearthing writers and scripts which will allow them to get beyond providing their audience with light entertainment and just tickling their fancies. On the basis of the good things that were in this double bill, that should be well within the theatre’s capabilities.