So there he was again, thumping the keyboard of his computer and smiling.
Smiling? Obviously this unusual occurrence demanded investigation.
"And why NOT?" he demanded with manic glee, after I had gained admission to his sanctum sanctorum and was perched upon his pipe-rack. "So often in my life I have paused to review the past and found only cause for regret. I admit it, Jonah, I have been a serious serial failure and STILL I find myself accused of always telling stories in which I am the hero. Well, on this occasion I really had done the right and honourable things. I had foregone the joys of staying with my family in temperate Europe, to subject myself to a harsh and hostile regime in a stinking hot desert. I had abandoned the satisfaction of directing my own play in order to clear my debts... see what I mean? And to avoid disappointing the people who had given me their effort and their loyalty, I had placed my trust in someone who, given the chance of revenge... I must have been MAD!!"
"So?" I queried. "What changes?"
"Anyway... the first priority was to organise my use of the office typewriter. The great advantage about working in an engineering office, you see, is that nobody suspects you of doing anything except engineering; they don't believe you're capable of engineering, let alone anything more complicated, so my secret was safe.
"In the calm of the office, I was able to review my ninth draft of 'A Taste of Freedom', to identify the dramatic structure and to be brutally honest with myself about passages that needed improvement. In the early days, I had done battle with a serious problem that emanated from an insistence by my history teachers at school that the Peasants' Revolt was sparked off by a sort of spontaneous combustion when a new poll-tax was imposed on the people. I could not accept that there was no preliminary organisation that caused thousands of people to travel vast distances on foot to London, there to commit acts of murder and treason. My experience as a soldier taught me the answer: throughout my military service, I never relinquished my right to think.
"Another problem was that the play thus far was a straightforward manipulation of the facts I had discovered by simple research into the period and by laboriously translating the contemporary hand-written records out of Latin, into English - and I've never been a classical scholar. Among the records, I had discovered some stunning characters, but they were all men.
"In the build-up of my experimental theatre group, there were of course a bunch of super men, loyal supporters and competent actors. But there were also women of outstanding ability and many apprentice actors. It was the women who bothered me most because they had added so much quality to our workshops and productions so far and had been so staunch in their support; I could not let them down. But then I recalled the use of Chorus in Greek Theatre, a group of women who would infiltrate and circulate the action of the play, lending shape and style as dancers and constantly commenting on the action in a poetic and rhythmic way. I pinched the idea and created a group called Alice, Swanilda and Pansy, knowing in my mind which woman would play what.
So began the first international telephone call with my chosen director.
During this, we made a pronouncement that would affect the entire production and every aspect of it: the star of the show is The Mob. The play would be nothing without a rampaging, shambolic crowd of filthy peasants, both men and women. Every single one of them must have a clear and concise identity and knowledge of exactly what he or she was thinking and doing, and why (most importantly why, tempered by all the knowledge I had gleaned about law, custom, constraint, dress, food, sustenance and structure), at every moment. There could be no shallow sham, no 'acting', only BEING. Further, there would be no mumbled jumble of mummerset and yokelese, each presence in the acting area would have the utmost respect for all others as sophisticated people of the period, at the peak of social and technical advancement as it was on that day in 1381. In short, the crowd was to be made the star of the show.
"We also agreed that the dialogue would be written in modern English. I was, after all, no Geoffrey Chaucer.
"Then another realisation came to me in the peace of the desert: that modern man had lost the skill of listening. Watching television in his own home, he had given himself the right to interrupt with his own witty comments, when, only two hundred years after our period, Shakespeare was born. Shakespeare's audience had always fascinated me because they mostly comprised of the roughnecks of London town, the apprentices, cutporses and smart-alecks who flocked across the Thames whenever the performance flag was flown over the Globe Theatre. If they didn't like what they saw and heard, they could tear the place apart and set fire to the wreckage, but they stood and listened to the measured wordmanship of a true poet. And for at least five hundred years before our period, we lived in the age of the itinerant storyteller, when all the members of any community would settle down and listen respectfully to a gifted teller of tales, a bearer of news from far away. I decided to take Shakespeares device of a mesmerically rhythmic delivery whenever a traveller told of his adventures. I opted for pentameter, iambic or trochaic, whichever worked best. And people would settle down and listen respectfully, they would be open to being thrilled, informed and entertained.
I knew I had already built a magnificent structure, into which all of the plot elements fitted precisely. The play had its climaxes and depressions as the story moved from one situation to the next. Like a painter, I could stand back to review the overall structure, then I could move forward to examine the timepoint under study and correct details from either perspective. There were three groups of people supporting the structure. First, and most importantly, we had The Mob, the great unwashed juggernaut of sheer people-power that was represented by three men: William Grincobbe, the hedge-priest and rabble-rouser, Thomas his lieutenant (Thomasus Barbitonserus in the town records) and Will Caddendon, the doubting interloper who had come on pilgrimage to the abbey. Directly opposing The Mob were several strong characters who represented The State: the abbott de la Mare who loved the calm simplicity of order and faith, as opposed to his corrupt and brutal Prior who revelled in the show and luxury that power gave him, and the rough soldier-knight Sir Walter Atte Lee whose father - a local yeoman - had been knighted in the battlefield. Between and around these two great forces we now had the delicate trio of women, two of whom were toughened by the ravages of life while Alice retained a graceful femininity. I decided that Alice's father was a town notable as its bee-keeper (both Tate & Lyle and the electricity board) who had bought Thomas Barber out of bondage when his beloved daughter fell in love with him. Flitting among these, we had a delicious little character called Rosalind who - I'll confide in you - represents our dear little deaf/CP daughter, who was merciless in her manipulation of hearing sympathisers, her adoring fan club.
"Within this structure of facts, feelings and characters, battle could commence between two tough and sensitive idealists: William Grindcobbe for The People and Abbott Thomas de la Mare for The State, with God stuck between them, claimed by both sides. I relished the prospect of refining their dialogue, unleashing the power of their rivalry, developing their love and respect for each other, the steadfastness of their faith in God in relation with their individual standpoints. Their scenes were planned and sketched, now I could get to work. We had in mind two strong actors.
At that point, Jonah the elder could have been expected to usher me out of the window, to get back to my nights hunting, but instead he sat fiddling with his empty pipe and frowning. I gathered that he had more to tell about the play's shaping.
"So, is that it for the time being?" I asked to give him his cue.
"No, not quite," he rumbled, still troubled, "but I wonder whether this is appropriate. I wonder whether some things would be better kept to myself."
"Try me," I urged.
"Well..." There was a long pause before he continued. "I knew what it was like to be caned at school, thrashed at home and so on... also I had experienced military discipline, which sometimes defies logic, but..." He stared at the floor, a pained expression on his face. "There was a Friday afternoon, fairly early in my stay... er... Friday in a Moslem country is the same as Sunday here, except they still take it seriously, very seriously... I had been into the office in the morning, but was working in my apartment in the afternoon, sorting out scenes and dialogue, making notes and sketches until my mind was buzzing with words and phrases, so I took a break to make myself a cup of coffee in the kitchen. As I carried it back, I heard a hubbub of voices outside in the neighbouring area that was flat, it had not been built on and was usually used for parking cars. I moved over to the window with my cup of coffee and saw that a crowd of ordinary Arab men dressed in their white robes - oh, maybe two hundred or so of them - had gathered around a Chevrolet police car. Across the bonnet of this car, a small man had been spreadeagled face down, with his wrists tied onto the wing-mirrors. There were two man. each holding a long stick, on each side of him, each with a book clamped under one armpit. They began beating the man mercilessly while the people watched without compassion. They just kept on and on beating him, flaying the shirt off his back until his blood ran freely. I thought they'd never stop, but eventually they did. The man was released, had his jacket returned to him, he wandered away, the crowd dispersed and the police-car was driven away. I don't know what he had done.
"I saw and heard of many similar incidents, but never became inured to them. I could tell you many like stories, but - with that awful experience - I suddenly knew what it must be like to live every day under a repressive regime, in fear. I knew what it must be like to be part of a society in which the vast mass of people is kept in subjection by manipulation of religion. I suppose I was ready to write the play.
"At any rate, I went home for my break - to a civilised country governed democratically, where religion was optional and atrocities rare - with the whole play ready for photocopying. The guys in the print-shop at work made me fifty copies, all nicely collated and reduced to A5 size, bound for the first time in the red cover that I have used ever since. It was several years later that I adopted the owl logo."
Jonah the elder turned back to his keyboard to resume typing an e-mail to Bruce, so I flitted to the open window and took my leave of him. It really is time that man got back to work on some new plays. He gets far too serious these days. Not so much fun.
Next week: "THE PREMIERE PERFORMANCE"
Jonah was a very experience director, teacher and writer who sadly passed away in February 2006. He was also the author of the highly successful "Playmaker - The Craft of Directing Plays (The Way I Seen It)".