Short and Sweet Update X - the saga of "Faithless"

[jack_ryder]

I've been holding off a post on Short and Sweet until a situation has resolved itself.

Now, it's too late - my co-writer Brett (i.e. ferkster) has blown the gaffe - as has the festival director Alex Broun in today's SMH:

At the other end of the political spectrum is Iain Triffitt's Faithless, in which a young man confronts his hippie mother with the fact that he's become a Christian. "The original director actually resigned from that because he thought it was pro-Christian propaganda, but we think it's important to have all sides," says Broun.

"Other end of the political spectrum..."?

The whole situation has been one huge pain in the butt.

To give a potted version-

• "Faithless" is selected by theatre group for performance


• Brett gets cryptic e-mail from director asking about our religious beliefs. He (the director) wants to be assured we aren't Christian.


• Producer from theatre group approaches ferkster and I at Short and Sweet launch and lets us know that they've got a few problems with the end. We agree (as we weren't quite happy with the wording)


• We go to rehearsal and find that: there appears to be about five years difference between the actor playing the son, and the actor playing the mother, and about ten years difference between the actor playing the son and the actor playing his girlfriend - which of course greatly changes the nature of the play.


• Doesn't matter anyway as the director is unhappy with the ending


• We go away and change ending


• Director wants reassurance that Brett and I aren't secretly Christians using Short and Sweet to spread Christian propaganda, asks me to justify writing the play and demands I articulate our religious positions.


• I succumb to Stalinist tactics and assure him that I am an atheist, Brett is agnostic, and we wrote the play to redress what we thought was an imbalance in the depiction of Christians (but really most religious people) in Short and Sweet.


• Get barely coherent phone call from producer saying (I think) the play is great, the ending is shit and needs to be changed. I respond changing the ending changes the whole point of the play and effectively neuters it. The director's hostile response to the play only demonstrates that Brett and I have hit a nerve, that it is worth discussing knee-jerk prejudice against Christians. He talks me into changing the ending yet again to bring more of the theme out, I do so, but run it past Brett before I e-mail it out.


• Doesn't matter anyway as I get hostile e-mail from director which throws my words back in my face as proof that I'm trying to sneak a Christian message into Short and Sweet (which I guess we are - the Christians have a message of tolerance, don't they?) He resigns.


• Also get e-mail from actor with his ending, that he's thoughtfully written for us which will support the integrity of the play as a piece of credible theatre/art and save us from being dead in th ewater when it comes to performing the play before any intelligent audience


• I restrain myself from signing actor up to child porn distribution lists.


• I send the play to some atheist friends of mine to check it for ideological purity - i.e. is it Christian propaganda? Both reply in the negative regarding the propaganda and are very positive about the play.


• ferkster, who has been on holiday since the first rehearsal, advises me to wait until mid-week before contacting Alex (festival director) about the situation. I agree, hoping to cool off.


• Alex rings me first, letting me know he's on our side and appreciating the irony of a play about tolerance basically not being tolerated. He has found a new director.


• The dress rehearsal for "Faithless" is exactly one week away, and we still haven't heard from the new director.


• But I've heard from the actor who wants to know some background to the play - I take ferkster's advice and recommend that he go through the director with questions about the play, rather than acting on my first impulse and tellling him to go fuck himself committing a tactical error.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Hmm, I haven't read the script so am in no position to make a judgement but there is a difference between tolerance towards say satanism or Wicca or even, say, Hinduism, which has millions of adherents in other countries but is a minority faith here, and Christianity which is the dominant paradigm. One could, I think, argue that speaking of 'tolerance' towards something that permeates everything from Sunday trading laws to property settlements for gay couples has a ring of the disingenuous, so your anger at the director and the presumptious actor attempting to change your script has to to be tempered with this consideration.

Then again, as I say, I haven't read the script.

Berko 'Pagan MoFo' Wills