Smoke and Mirrors and the writing process

Writing a script is a leap of faith. I, as the playwright, run the first lap of a creative relay race.

The baton is then taken up by the performers and production team who use their skills and art to shape the performance that is then shared with those who undertake the final lap of this race: the audience.

I sometimes confess rather glibly that I am a liar, a cheat and a thief when I write fiction, including scripts. I lie because I make things up. I cheat because I compress time and space, bringing characters together at my whim, and cutting out extraneous details. I am a thief because I steal the words, actions, thoughts and feelings of people around me, and at times I ‘borrow’ the narrative cores of stories that I’ve read or heard.

For all that, I believe that we writers with reflect back to our audiences essential truths about themselves, and what it is to be human.

When I write a play, the illusion of reality is spun out of what begins with a spark in my imagination, slowly crafted into a script that is the merest skeleton of what is then fleshed out by others. Sometimes this is done by a solo reader. At other times, it’s done in an auditorium with many people sharing the interpretation.

This might make it sound as if writing a play is as effortless as putting a match to kindling, watching the flames flicker and grow into a mesmerising fire. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Let me use the play MIRROR, MIRROR, and later versions of it including SMOKE AND MIRRORS.

The original script was a commissioned work. I was hired to write a script for senior drama students at a local all-girls high school. I asked if there was any particular topic, style or theme that the school would like me to use as a starting point - they were paying me, after all. The only request was that I address an aspect of mental illness.

I had written a best-selling non-fiction book not long before, THE PARENTS’ SURVIVAL GUIDE TO YEAR 12. I’d also worked in schools, and had a family of my own, so I felt I had some insights into some of the issues that I could base the script on. I rather blithely thought, ‘eating disorders - that’s a worthy topic.’

The first step in the writing process is to research the topic. I gathered information. I read widely. I talked to health professionals. Most importantly, I was able to spend time interviewing inpatients at an eating disorders facility, and to also talk to their families, doctors, nurses, therapists and others.

The stories were stark. The facts were grim. I had two challenges and a looming deadline. How could I shape a theatrically strong script? And how could I build a thread of hope into the narrative? I had to be honest, to be true to the facts. I am convinced that we must always offer hope to our audiences, no matter how faith the glimmer, but I was finding this hard.

Luckily, two concepts came together. Eating disorders can lead people to play tricks on themselves - seeing the world and themselves through a distorted mirror, like those at sideshows. It’s as if they run away to the circus, and enter into the unreality of the fantastical world that the ringmaster offers us. Yet, in this fantastical world, the ringmaster is a conman who uses smoke and mirrors to deceive people.

I also wondered whether our self-image and the need to look perfect arises in some ways from the tales we are told as very young children, as well as the messages presented in the media. The idea of distorting mirrors, as well as of the mirrors in ‘Snow White’ and other stories, swirled into the mix as I began to shape the script. The hope came in as I presented the love and support surrounding the central character, and her own strength. Mirrors, magic, mesmerism: the theatrical elements matched the ideas I wanted to build into the script.

The drama students and I workshopped various scenes, then I wrote the full play. The hardest time for me was handing over the script for them to then design, rehearse, light, add music to and more. That was the end of my lap of the marathon.

They did me, and the script, proud. Opening night of that first production was one of the truly most magical moments of my writing life.

I’ve seen various productions of the play in various forms over the years since. It’s always a joy to see what insights and interpretations others bring to the dialogue and stage directions in the text. Theatre is a collaborative artform, and I relish seeing how people bring my scripts to life, taking them from page to stage.

Do share links to photos or videos of your performances of my scripts!