Dealing with the past
Throughout this year, funded by Arts Council England’s ‘Developing Your Creative Practice’ grant, I have been working on evolving my approach to research, and how it informs my playwriting practice. This period has seen me delve into the story of Georgian “mad houses” and the history of psychiatry, but also, importantly, ask myself questions around mental illness; my own prejudices, experiences, understandings.
Writing a script based on a true story, about a man who, not only lived in a different era, but whose life is in large part a mystery, has required a great deal of joining of the dots. Not only materially, filling in gaps in his history, but culturally.
A detail from the lower portion of James Tilly Matthews’ illustration of the Air Loom featured in John Haslam’s Illustrations of Madness (1810)
It isn’t enough, when dealing with the past, to try and understand why people thought the way they thought. It is also crucial, I’ve found, to unpick how those ways of being and doing led to now; how the ways we live and act now can be traced back to way back when.
It is our job as scriptwriters to call attention to those through-lines, and, if necessary, accentuate them. Whether we are attempting to make a historic story feel relevant, or a contemporary one feel resonant, this thematic core of your script is the answer to that all important question, “Why now?”.
Your audience may be drawn in by the premise, or in the case of a historical project, the story world, but it is the relevance they feel to their lived experiences that will stay with them, that will resonate deepest. We cannot assume a message is there, because a story is dramatic.
We need to be hyper-aware and intentional in our choices as scriptwriters, always.
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