PLAYS
“But how could you live and have no story to tell?”
Amanda Horlock in the Theatre West Production at the Bristol Alma Tavern
The Name of the Son
The Name of the Son
The religious resonance of the title came about, not because of any intention to write a play on a quasi religious theme, but as the natural outcome of the very bizarre story I found myself writing. It wasn’t planned, and there was no early attempt at a storyline. It just was me staring at the computer, attempting to follow Harold Pinter’s advice, when he wrote about listening to voices in a dark space. What emerged was very dark, in part, a demonic retelling of the story of the Prodigal Son. But the father, while being a devilish character in terms of his function and his manipulative use of power, is also possessed of a deep pitifulness. I found this quite frightening, because, well, I am a father, and a son at the same time. But I would guess that the play also drew on the experience of the recent London bombings of 2005, and the discussions that followed about the power of religious fundamentalism. As a Christian, I don’t mean that this then became a play about Islam: it became much more intensely, a play about myself, and the notion of fatherhood that can literally bedevil the religious project. As Freud pointed out, it’s difficult to tease out the God thing, without understanding the Father thing also.
It was produced by Theatre West at the Bristol Alma Tavern, directed by Caroline Hunt, who also went onto direct After the Accident in for its touring production.
Scenes from a Poisoning - A Divine Comedy of Monsanto
My current project - in development