So, it’s all over. Read throughs, rehearsals, rewrites, planning… and finally the performance. Was it the gleaming theatrical perfection I had imagined beforehand? No, but my director and cast (all volunteers) put it over well and with genuine passion. Was I afterwards bombarded by offers from theatre directors and agents? No. I specifically emailed Wireless Theatre Company (to whom I pitched the idea back in January) but none of the strangers appeared to be them. But lots of people turned up and they all seemed to enjoy it and – just as importantly – to get what it was supposed to be about. I sensed much surprise at what the play was about, at how I had chosen to put it over.
Now that all the stress and anxiety of the process is over and done with, I can put the script aside for a while before I decide what to do with it next. Some genuinely interesting and useful things came out of the read-throughs and rehearsals, not all of which could be actioned in time for the performance. A number of moments in the script basically just didn’t work, and these had to be changed so that the whole narrative make sense. Lines I added for the minor characters began throwing up ideas about Fathers and Sons and I would like to develop these further.
One moment that sticks out during the final rehearsal was the sudden sense of being totally redundant, that the whole thing was now out of my hands, that I was no longer needed in order for the production to go ahead: I had served my purpose.
Stephen Connolly Writer 