Forde - Empty

EmptyCathy Forde was born in Glasgow and taught English in secondary schools and colleges as well as working as a lexicographer before turning to writing full time. Her novels include Bad Wedding, Dead Men Dont Talk (both Barrington Stoke, 2009); Fat Boy Swim, Skarrs, Firestarter, The DrowningPond, Tug of War, Sugarcoated (all Egmont Books, 20032008); L-L-L-Loser (Barrington Stoke, 2006); I See You Baby (with Kevin Brooks, Barrington Stoke, 2005); Exit Oz (Barrington Stoke, 2004); Think Me Back (House of Lochar, 2003); and The Finding (House of Lochar, 2002). She has won both the Grampian Book Award and the Scottish Arts Council Award, and is the 200910 Virtual Writer in Residence for Teens and Young People with the Scottish Booktrust. Empty is her first stage play. Her second play, The Sunday Lesson, will be produced in Oran Mor, Glasgow, as part of their Spring 2010 A Play, A Pie, A Pint season. should be made before rehearsals begin
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regulations of the country of origin. Introduction What do you do when Vicky Featherstone, Director of the National Theatre of Scotland, invites you to a meeting and offers you a commission on the spot? Pinch yourself ? Say Yes, please! Quake with terror inside? All of the above? In May 2008, this was the extraordinary situation in which I found myself. Just go away and write a play, I was instructed. About anything.

The merest hint of a brief came with Vickys suggestion that I try to create something that might entice young people to the theatre of their own volition. No pressure then Actually, gargantuan pressure. Not only had I never written any drama in my life before, but it was years since I had even sat in the audience at someone elses play. Work, family and the hassle-factor of being seated in time for a 7.30 p.m. curtain up all conspired to make the thrill of attending live theatre a broken habit and a distant memory. But what a difference a year and a half makes.

Mentored, inspired and enthused by Frances Poet, Literary Manager of the National Theatre of Scotland, I have become reconnected with an experience I have missed out on for far too long. Not only did I return to attending live theatre whenever possible, but Frances recommended I repair the chasms in my knowledge of contemporary drama by reading Brian Friel, Conor McPherson, Martin McDonagh, Philip Ridley, Douglas Maxwell, David Greig, Anthony Neilson I dutifully devoured every playtext she recommended and every few weeks we met and discussed my homework. I felt as if I had enrolled for a crash course in Contemporary Drama with an excellent tutor to support me, only a tutor who never set critical essays to hand in for assessment. So all this was enormous fun. Throughout the summer months of 2009 I didnt read a single novel, only plays. I didnt miss novels one little bit either, growing to relish the distillation of a story or situation into a far more visceral, stripped-back form.

I knew that when eventually I knuckled down to the first draft of my own first play, this distillation, this cutting to the quick of what was happening, would be my aim. There could be no luxury of slow unfolding, no protracted scene-setting, nothing extraneous. Only: pow: this is now. That was my aim. That was how I wanted this play to turn out. Distilled. Visceral. Lean. Lean.

Obviously, that was not what I achieved, certainly not in the early drafts of Empty. It was my first play, after all, and I was coming to it as a novelist where you have the luxury of time to create a world in all its minor details and subplots and meanderings. Some of the tools in my prose writers kitbag just didnt quite fit the job in hand, and learning to adapt these tools has been my biggest challenge as a fledgling playwright. Interestingly, however and fortunately the singular most crucial element to the creation of Empty developed exactly the same way as all my other stories so far. That crucial, essential element is always the germ of an idea. Unless it pings into my head, and seeds and roots, there is no story.

And if there is no story, there is nothing. Luckily, the almost throwaway brief suggested to me when I was commissioned gave birth to my germ in this instance: devise a story that might lure young people to the theatre along with other regular theatregoers. Whatever I wrote had to be inclusive, therefore had to be something with which everyone could identify. (And crucially, crucially, crucially what I wrote must on no account be written specifically for a teenage audience. I never, ever do that; it is patronising.) And thats when I had my ping: I would write about an unparented teenage party, or as its called in my neck of the woods, an Empty. Teenagers host Empties, attend Empties, and if they dont, they hear about them.

Parents despite what their kids think hear about Empties too, and dread them, mainly because despite what their kids think they were all guests at Empties themselves in their own youth. They know exactly what goes on. Oh yes. And what can happen to their offspring and their property So there was my story; I would write a play about an Empty. It started as a much denser and longer play, the novelist in me unable to resist creating a complex back story. Early drafts introduced Col and his friends, not as sixteen-year-olds, but ten years on from the night of the party at the centre of this play.

They were all mid-twenties, evolving into adults and bearing, in varying degrees, repercussions from the night of Cols summer Empty. Col had two extra friends decent, responsible guys, Chas and Fingers whose maturity was the foil to Stevie and Fionas self-centred recklessness. With these somewhat passive characters cut, Bellas broad shoulders carry the heart and kindness in the play. Cols parents also existed as living characters in the first two or three drafts of the play, but as I was nursed through discussions about what this play, this story, was really about, its essence gradually crystallised. Bit by bit, inessential padding fell away to reveal what for me, and I hope for anyone reading the playtext or watching Empty is all about. And what is Empty about? Well, I think its about one young person who is in a state of becoming.

In one night of his life, a chain of events that he has not the power, the will nor the strength of character to influence, tilt the course of his future irrevocably. Change the man he might have become. And its about a mental teenage party. Cathy Forde EmptyEmpty was first performed by the National Theatre of Scotland at the Tron Theatre, Glasgow, on 12 March 2010, before touring to the Brunton Theatre, Musselburgh, the Eden Court Theatre, Inverness, and the Lemon Tree, Aberdeen. The cast was as follows: