Blog Post: Liam McCarthy
The Hippopotamus
I don’t know where plays come from. I know that they’re supposed to be honest. And relevant. And original… urghh… it’s like reading a shopping list, isn’t it? And what’s relevant and original these days? When we’re told that there’s nothing new left under the sun? Arthur Miller tells us that a good play has to be so vulnerable and so brave that it must be somehow ‘embarrassing…’ So this is the goal, is it?
Where does an idea for a play come from? I know, with absolute certainty, that anytime you stumble on an extraordinary story and you stop and think to yourself, now this is a play, it absolutely isn’t.
You are having your cornflakes and you hear about a man who’s chewed off his own arm in order to free himself from a hippopotamus. Bingo! Here’s a story worth writing! But this is not a play. Still, you think… maybe. ‘What determination, what incredible resilience this man must have.’ But look closer and the play is over before it begins. In the end, he frees himself. He has to. Unless you leave him for dead, and under the hippopotamus’ arse…maybe that’s a better ending… but think of what the play’s poster would look like? Look closer again and maybe there’s another play in the quiet tension of our hippopotamus. What has driven this hippo to assert himself to such a degree? And why is it that he, rather than the man, is the one that won’t give up…
I don’t know where Jilly Morgan’s Birthday Party came from. It’s inspired, loosely, by Anton Chekhov’s short story The Kiss. I know I studied this in college. I was lucky enough to have an incredible Chekhov teacher, Anna Musa, who guided us through the great plays and stories with passion and care. She was wonderful. I have my old book and I can see my pasty 19 year old self’s mad and eager notes. While my earnestness is embarrassing, I know where I was coming from. These stories are intoxicating.
I’m aware that many people think that Chekhov is boring and stuffy. I understand this perception. I think it’s because he is sometimes experienced through a weird Edwardian and upper-class English lens. Perhaps this is how the plays were initially interpreted and adapted in the past. But Chekhov is all about the human experience. It’s about the big things: love and loss, life and death. It’s all about how we communicate, what we say, how we say it, and what we don’t say. It’s fair to point out that sometimes, in Chekhov, nothing happens, but isn’t itreally the case that everything fails to happen? He creates infinite possibilities and presents life as it is: a chaotic, complicated mess. It’s embarrassing, but you can live your life this way. Though I really don’t recommended it. Especially not if your 19, naïve and up your own hole.
At the risk of turning off a potential audience, I have to tell you that I’ve produced some turkeys in my time. This is the problem with plays. They exist out loud. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be a novelist? To only give your terrible first draft of your terrible first book to your girlfriend, who will guide you gently as you place the book firmly back into the drawer where it came from? Plays happen, in front of audiences, who remember, and quote them back to you, years later…. Oh Jaysus…There’s nothing for it, unfortunately the only way to get better at plays is a kind of public humiliation….
The best playwriting advice I’ve ever got was from the mother of a very good friend of mine. I was putting on my first play, about a group of 20 somethings getting drunk and talking about themselves after a night out, and my friend was in it. Her mother came to see this confused and confusing story, produced by Trinity Players. ‘You’ve got about 7 plays in there’ she said. She was right. There were at least 7 storylines, with loads of ideas and threads going all over the place. Somewhere in the middle of all this mess, the characters kept referencing, in passing, a party that was happening at a house nearby. They never went into detail, but it was clear there was an older crowd over there, and that their party was hopping. I remember my friend’s mother observing that ‘Christ, they were having a much better night over the road, weren’t they?’ In that script all we learn is that this party was for a 30th,Birthday and that it was being thrown for a woman called Jilly Morgan. Though I didn’t know it 10 years ago, there was a much better play happening across the street.
So here we have our new play, Jilly Morgan’s Birthday Party, that tries to be about love, and longing and obsession. Beyond that, I’m at a loss. Like, maybe it’s about something else. Talking about creativity is black magic and there are no certainties. I’m not giving you any guarantees, which is why they won’t let me work in the box office. I’d just keep offering you your money back. I’ve no idea how plays really work, or where they come from. I wrote this play over 2 days, 2 years ago, and then again over another 2 days, last year. This is the same amount of days it took to write my first play. Though, at the same time, I’ve also been writing the play for 10 years. Who knows? Though what I can tell you –and with absolute certainty, is that it’s almost embarrassing. And that it’s really all about the hippopotamus…
Liam McCarthy
29/04/2024
