Day 27 — Kieron Barry
Kieron Barry is a playwright born in Stratford-upon-Avon and living in Ventura, California. His sixteen plays have received over 40 professional productions in New York, London, Edinburgh, Canada, South Africa and beyond.
His play Stockwell enjoyed two sell-out runs in London and prompted his nomination for a London Evening Standard Theatre Award alongside Sir Ian McKellen, Kevin Spacey and Sam Mendes. The play was described by The London Times in its five-star review as ‘more gripping than anything else in the London theatre.’
Kieron’s play Numbers, a one-act black comedy set in a girls’ boarding school, was featured in Lucy Kerber’s book 100 Great Plays For Women alongside plays by Oscar Wilde, Tennessee Williams and Euripides. The play was featured in a discussion on women and power at the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain in 2015.
His play Tomorrow In The Battle has enjoyed three runs in New York where it was described by the New York Times as ‘white-hot passion.’
He is published by Samuel French, the world’s oldest theatrical publishers.
Link to Vice, by Kieron Barry
Kieron Barry interview for Center Stage Theater, Santa Barbara
Tell us about your background. You were born in Stratford-upon-Avon and have ended up living in Ventura as a playwright. What has your artistic path been?
Have I ended up? Already? And yet I still nurture the fond hope of one day standing in the well-lit door of a converted New England farmhouse, a daughter under each arm, watching the snow silently start to fall.
Until then, though, as you correctly imply, we do have show business. My decision to pursue a career as a playwright was not an entirely conscious one, and indeed ‘playwright’ feels slightly too grand a word for what I am. I note that David Hare styles himself a dramatist, although I can’t work out if this term is more illustrious or less. ‘Playwright’ is a useful expression, though, in that it reminds us that making plays is a craft rather than an art, and as such we should be stored alongside wheelwrights, wainwrights and arguably Dame Joan Plowright.
Quite by accident I had spent a lot of time in theatres as an undergraduate, writing music for plays and comedy revues. I loved the environment, and I felt at home amid theatre folk — loose gangs of rangy outsiders knitted together with fondness and anxiety.
A series of impulses led me to try writing sketches myself, and then plays. Every single line I wrote for the first few years was wholly without merit, but then in play number four I had a character say, at an impasse in a domestic argument, ‘OK. Well. Look.’ When delivered on stage the line exhilarated me: at last I had worked out how people spoke. After half a decade’s digging, a piece of coal! An ordinary and all but unnoticeable piece of coal, but what a thrill to hold it in my dusty paw at last.
I still look tenderly to the novel for its peerless ability to convey the inner life, but the bliss of having an actor like Tamsin Greig play a character you have created is a pleasure I wish everyone could experience. Thus I stick with the stage.
You mention I was born in Stratford-upon-Avon. Oddly this is true: I share a hometown and a profession with someone who was both the greatest entertainer and the greatest philosopher in human history. Any comparison between me and Shakespeare beyond the two simple, coinciding facts of origin and occupation would clearly be laughable. It would be like someone who happened to be born in Nevada seeing the Grand Canyon and saying, ‘Yeah; that could be me some day.’
But I still get a small kick from it.
You write for both theater and film; how is the process or artistic experience different in the two different mediums?
In some ways the two disciplines are similar; the inherent constraints of each are forever perched on your shoulder. And indeed the key constraint is common to both: what is all this going to cost?
The theatre audience, I have found, is slightly more willing to have her patience taxed. She recognises some effort is required on her part — the play might only meet her halfway.
Also it’s no coincidence that those who attend the theatre are referred to as an audience (like ‘audio’ this comes from the Latin word audire meaning ‘to hear’) whereas television’s consumers are called viewers. One group uses their ears, the other their eyes. It’s helpful to remember this, even if only to subvert it.
I love directing film and dearly wish to do more of it. The process, particularly if it involves an element of producing as well — which, let’s face it, it always does — is like a cross between organising a wedding and coordinating the search for the body of a missing child. Great and glamorous excitement and then suddenly a swerve into awful, sickening dread. I have a cousin who is a far more successful writer and producer than I am, and I went to watch his TV series being shot to see how the big boys do it. It turns out they do it just like the little boys do: set up the camera in one direction, then take it down set it up in the other. For the film director, the working day is, amid the mess and the make-shift, just a series of problems to be solved, the only constant one being which things can be jettisoned and still leave you with a just-about-complete film.
But I don’t enjoy directing plays. The rehearsal room feels like a month-long chess match against four opponents. I prefer swanning in here and there as the writer — not exactly an event on a film set — and answering a few affectionate questions from the cast.
I have found the best training for the filmmaker is to watch plays in small theatres. One is forever having to decide where to look on stage and turn one’s head accordingly. This is editing, and all elements of film-making are merely prep for the edit.
For the Festival you have shared your short film Vice. Tell us about the origins of this project; what inspired it?
Desperate to blurt my way into the film world I saw two principal obstacles; zero money and zero knowledge. The first of these was briskly solved by some irresponsibly-approved credit card applications, but the second remained a concern. Despite having watched films all my life I realised I didn’t even know how a camera coped with someone rising from a chair. Do we follow the actor’s head upwards? Does the actor’s head suddenly appear from the bottom of a static shot? Do we merely stay on a wide? This fed back in to the budgetary concerns to prompt a decision — my film should be set in just one room, with actors standing up on a life-or-death basis only.
But how to make such a chamber piece interesting, let along entertaining? I had to rack my brains for a scenario that would have drama and intrigue but still be shot within the laser-like narrowness of my technical and financial limits. Happily I was able to come up with a zippy little plot that is arguably a poor, rural cousin to Gogol’s The Government Inspector.
Once I had a script I was eventually able to place it under the robust nose of Jay O. Sanders, a New York-based actor I had admired since his superb performance in Oliver Stone’s JFK, one of my favourite films. Jay wanted to do it, thank God, and this proved a big enough deal to get everyone else involved. For every second of the shoot I was terrified and hopelessly out of my depth, but I was saved by Keiko Nakahara, an unflappable cinematographer with a discerning eye. Through her lens I saw that even just lingering on the rugged texture of Jay’s face was exhilarating. These were the close-ups that I had spent my theatrical career unconsciously pining for.
Oddly, when the film is shown in the UK it is considered a drama, and when shown in the US it is considered a comedy. The Americans are wrong, on this if nothing else.
What is your creative process? When you are writing how do you tackle a new project?
The key requirement for me to produce decent work is fear. I have an acute dread of humiliation and will do almost anything to avoid it, even the filthy, noxious work of writing.
First I must lay a trap for myself. When the idea for a new project strikes I immediately pick up the phone and book a theatre for a read-through one evening about two months hence. This provides a deadline, plus requires parting with some cash. Both focus the mind, but they are as nothing to then contacting half a dozen actors and asking them to participate. Preferably these will be actors who intimidate me, thereby forming another sharp spur to action.
So I’m trapped. The script must now be written. There is no other way. At this point the top 10% of my intelligence can at last be accessed — in normal life my brain keeps this spitefully locked away. Off I go; scared, feeble and breathless but scribbling away at last.
Twelve hours before the reading the inside of my head resembles the library at Alexandria the day after its sacking, but miraculously one book has survived — the new script! That first reading, despite such efforts, shall be a painful failure, but after repeating the process a few more times over the next six months something will emerge which may eventually garner sufficient attention to be produced, briefly enjoyed by audiences, then swiftly lost in the wreck of Time once more. Wholly forgotten by civilisation, the sole remaining trace of my self-destructive spree is the awarding of three stars out of five in Time Out London; a flimsy, worthless ribbon of a medal pinned to my now starved and concave chest.
This is no way to live.
You have also shared part of the script for one of your plays, The Official Adventures of Kieron & Jade, which ran recently here in Santa Barbara and I understand there is a production planned in Ventura. Tell us about this script and how it came to be.
In 2015 I at last achieved the long-coveted triple; broken heart, nervous breakdown and midlife crisis. One of the many under-recognised benefits of such a grand slam is the end of embarrassment; when they’re shaving your chest in the ambulance to apply the paddles you note with distant joy that the largeness of your nose is now irrelevant. There are bigger fish to be gutted now.
Such social liberty is good for a writer, although the obvious idea of writing a play about my statistically unremarkable trauma did not occur to me for a long time. For the first few months I was too busy trying to find a way out of bed, and for the next few I could not for the life of me find the sculpture of narrative amid the marble of experience.
This would have been an easier play to write if my relationship had failed on account of an addiction to cocaine and prostitutes. Remorse becomes a writer, and everyone is primed to believe a guilty confession. But I wasn’t sure whether I had anything to confess or not, and pointing a finger at an absent third party unable to defend themselves is conducive neither to decency nor comedy. For I had come to realise that the play could only be a comedy, and in fact my story demanded very little comedic exaggeration.
In a certain way that play was no more autobiographical than any other play of mine. A play that doesn’t seem to be related to my own life allows me to get away with including any weird, private thought I would normally be too embarrassed to ascribe to myself, whereas I knew with this play that every odd fetish and foible I described would be attached to me forever. So a portion of me remained cautious, even as I turned myself upside down and shook me till the coins fell out.
And, boringly or not, I was desperate to be fair to everyone involved. When watching the play for the first time I oscillated between fear that I had gone too far and annoyance that I had not gone far enough. That might suggest the balance was about right.
But it is a strange sensation to hear your own name spoken on stage. That is, if like me you have an unusual one — Johns are presumably used to this. I was lucky, however, that the play had its first run in a part of the world in which not a soul knew me. When we did it in London, though, much of my family was in attendance and it was the closest I’ve ever come to bolting from a theatre at curtain-up. My embarrassment was exactly total, but Keats reminds us that we are at our most human when we blush. As artists we should surely welcome such acute pain.
How have you been impacted by the COVID-19 crisis? What impact has it had on your creative process?
During the lockdown actors and directors are stymied in a creative no man’s land. But for writers there can be no excuses now. The only barrier to creating a masterpiece is the psychological one erected by endless well-wishers reminding you there are currently no barriers to creating a masterpiece.
I was slightly behind on a rewrite when the virus struck, and so was guiltily grateful for the new luxury of time to catch up. Perversely I then found myself starting work on a new, unbidden play. Like falling in love, one never quite knows when such impulses will arise, nor indeed what their legacy shall prove. But one owes it to one’s heart to follow one’s nose.
I’m determined to emerge from the crisis better educated than when I entered. I read a play a day, and watch a classic movie. Last week I watched seven Rita Hayworth films. How tragically swift seems the life of a movie star when viewed through the utilitarian retrospection of the binge-watch.
Since you have a production that was planned before the crisis hit, where are you with that show at this point?
I still really want to do the Jade play (or Official Adventures, surely, if we must shorten it) in Ventura. It shall be seen what’s still standing at the end of all this. The run in Santa Barbara was fun and I was very pleased with how it went. We have two world-class actors — Meeghan Holaway and Richard Sanderson — who as far as I can tell remain keen, so I’m keeping my well-sanitised fingers firmly crossed.
Do you think this crisis will have a lasting impact on theater?
Not compared to Ibsen.
But in the short term I fear a massacre of local theatres. At the onset of harsh winters the theatre is generally the first member of the community to start shivering. So I worry about that a lot. Of course we will eventually see a recovery, but what opportunities — for audiences and artists — will be lost in the meantime?
That’s the structural effect. Let’s hope I’m wrong. Regarding the thematic effect, the coronavirus is like US politics: it may very well be an urgent and vital subject but only one genius in a hundred can think of anything original to say about it. Once we’re all back at work, writers, directors and producers must all sign a covenant not to produce any virus-themed projects for five years. Audiences will have no interest whatsoever — until suddenly they do, and then amid some truly awful plays one classic will appear that shall survive the test of time and become The Crucible of the coronavirus. I don’t think it’s going to come from my pen.
Kieron Barry
May 2020
THE OFFICIAL ADVENTURES OF KIERON & JADE
by Kieron Barry
Scene 1
A tennis ball bounces across the stage.
Madam Metaphor This is a play about Addiction and Delusion.
Mister Metaphor Every recovering heroin addict will tell you the same thing: ‘Heroin is dangerous, it’s expensive, it’ll destroy your health, your looks and your career — now where can I get some?’
Madam Metaphor In London in 2004 an ambulance crew was called to a building site where a man had driven a six-inch nail through his foot. No matter how much morphine they gave him, he kept screaming. When they cut away his boot they saw the nail had passed between his toes, missing him completely.
Mister Metaphor This is a play about Addiction and Delusion.
They both throw a glorious cloud of glitter into the air. Everything is briefly magical and we hear the first three seconds of Randy Crawford’s ‘Street Life’. Then immediately:
Scene 2
The director, Danielle, is intense and academic. She might wear glasses.
Kieron Because we had an agreement.
Danielle The agreement was that I would / direct your next play.
Kieron / direct my next play. Yes.
Danielle You said you were writing a play about Bill Evans.
Kieron I was.
Danielle So what’s this?
Kieron It’s a play about me and Jade.
Danielle Where’s the Bill Evans thing?
Kieron I want to do this now.
Danielle Don’t get me wrong, what happened with you and Jade, it –
Kieron Beggars belief?
Danielle It –
Kieron Puzzles the will? Makes calamity of so long life?
Danielle It sucks.
Kieron What a wordsmith. You should be the one writing this.
Danielle I don’t think anyone should be writing it, Kieron.
Kieron I don’t know what else to do. I’m desperate. Since she left me I’ve lost three pounds every week.
Danielle So write a diet book, but don’t do this. It’s unfair.
Kieron I’m just trying to understand what happened. I’m not going to say anything negative.
Danielle You’ve had your heart broken. I’m really sorry. Just have a year of red wine, froyo and Netflix like everyone else. Don’t write about it.
Kieron I can’t stop writing.
Danielle Neither could Jeffrey Dahmer, apparently, but that doesn’t mean it’s worth reading. Write about something else.
Kieron There is no something else.
Danielle And you’re not going to change the names?
Kieron Why should I? Did Joan Didion in The Year Of Magical Thinking?
Danielle No.
Kieron Did C. S. Lewis in A Grief Observed?
Danielle Yes.
Kieron That one’s a bad example.
Danielle Just lightly fictionalise it. Like Betrayal by Harold Pinter.
Kieron But what difference does it make? Everyone knows Betrayal is about Harold Pinter and / Joan Bakewell.
Danielle / Joan Bakewell.
Kieron Right. So he may as well have used the real names.
Danielle I don’t think you should put Jade in a play.
Kieron First rule of theatre: if you don’t want to appear in any plays, don’t hang out with any playwrights.
Danielle I thought the first rule of theatre was always leave them wanting more.
Kieron Well she did that too.
Danielle If you really love her, you won’t write it. It’s just your side of the story.
Kieron She’s written songs about me.
Danielle They all say nice things.
Kieron There’s a similar deal in North Korea. Total freedom of speech, just don’t say anything nasty. This is an important principle.
Danielle It’s not Wikileaks. It’s a 26-year-old who changed her mind.
Kieron She’s actually 27.
Danielle It seems I owe you an apology.
Kieron This is important to me.
Danielle To you, yes. But look at this. (she brandishes the draft) It’s just a rant. There’s nothing less attractive than a middle-aged man complaining that a younger woman no longer wants to have sex with him. If you want this to be a play it has to have a structure, a narrative thrust, it needs light and shade.
Kieron It has all of that. Look at the very first scene. We see the Kieron character breaking the news to his best friend Emma. It sets the comic tone of the play and establishes the Emma character who becomes important later.
Danielle I’m sorry, Kieron, but I don’t want to direct it.
Kieron Is there anything you like about the script?
Danielle This is the first play of yours that doesn’t mention the Nazis, so that’s a plus.
Kieron Can I show you the first scene?
Danielle You can do what you like, but I’m not directing your play.
Kieron So that’s a no.
Danielle That’s a no.
Kieron I hate to get nasty, Danielle, but might I remind you that under the terms of our contract you’re legally obliged to direct whatever script I hand in to your theatre.
Danielle You’re really going to force me?
Kieron I’m really going to force you.
Danielle Wow! Why would anyone ever split up with you?
Kieron Just take a look at the first scene.
Scene 3
Emma is no-nonsense. She might chew gum, for example.
Emma What do you mean, split up?
Kieron She left me.
Emma When?
Kieron About an hour ago.
Emma What did you do?
Kieron Nothing.
Emma That doesn’t sound like you, Bobo. What did she say?
Kieron She didn’t say anything.
Emma So how do you know she left you?
Kieron Because that’s what she said.
Emma What did she say?
Kieron She said she was leaving me.
Emma But why?
Kieron I don’t know.
Emma What; she just left?
Kieron She just left.
The following sequence is very fast, like that name-guessing riff in the film ‘Ted’.
Emma ’Cos you couldn’t get it up?
Kieron No.
Emma You needed Viagra?
Kieron No.
Emma You were impotent?
Kieron These are all the same thing. No.
Emma You were sleeping around?
Kieron No.
Emma You had sex with her sister?
Kieron I just said no.
Emma Her mother?
Kieron No.
Emma Your mother.
Kieron No.
Emma I give up. Who did you have sex with?
Kieron I didn’t have sex with anyone.
And back to normal speed (albeit our faster-than-normal normal speed)…
Emma You’re right. It’s a mystery. Wait a second: who was she having sex with?
Kieron No one.
And back to high speed:
Emma Her bass player.
Kieron No.
Emma Drummer.
Kieron No.
Emma Guitarist.
Kieron No.
Emma Lead singer.
Kieron She is the lead singer.
Emma What else is there?
Kieron Mandolin player.
Emma Mandolin player.
Kieron No.
Emma Head of record company.
Kieron No.
Emma Senior vice-president of A&R.
Kieron No.
Emma Vice-president of distribution.
Kieron We’re not going through the whole organisation, are we?
Emma Paul McCartney.
Kieron People split up for reasons other than sex, Emma.
Emma (as one might fondly address the mentally ill) That’s right, Bobo…
Kieron We’re so good together. People come up to us all the time –
Emma I know.
Kieron — and say –
Emma Yes, we know.
Kieron They say / ‘You guys look wonderful together’ –
Emma / ‘You guys look wonderful together,’ yes.
Kieron And we always say our children will have / curly hair and little round glasses.
Emma / Curly hair and little round glasses. Because it combines your visual trademark with hers, yes.
One of the miscellaneous props is a toy pistol. During the above Emma picks it up and mimes shooting herself in the head in frustration.
Kieron Yes, I may have mentioned that before. I apologise for boring my best friend with minor details from my life such as joy and love.
Emma You’re right, I’m sorry; I’m not the only victim here.
Kieron Not really a victim at all, are you.
Emma First things first. How are you feeling?
Kieron And that took… two minutes and eleven seconds.
Emma (she’s suddenly got it!) She left because you’re racist!
Kieron I’m not racist.
Emma Just a little bit, I mean. (she gestures)
Kieron (ignoring her) What happens now? I mean: is she coming back? What about all our stuff? (it suddenly strikes him) Who’s going to tell the dog? And how?
Emma She really didn’t say anything?
Kieron No.
Emma What timing, Bobo! Just when you were at your most self-congratulatory.
Kieron All I know is –
Emma That’s hubris, I guess.
Kieron — it was love at first sight, we were inseparable for three years, then this morning she said she didn’t want to see me again.
In comes ‘Adventures of Flash on the Wheels of Steel’ by Grandmaster Flash. (‘Yes, but what happened in between..?’ etc.)
Simultaneously, we see a series of projected photos of Kieron and Jade. Christmas, Disneyland, England, Ireland, LA, gigs, larks and japes, kissing selfies etc.
Briefly, Munch’s ‘The Scream’. And again. With a cardiac-monitor ‘beep’ amid the music.
And then The Scream is all there is, and the beep flatlines.
Scene 4
The intimidating sounds of prison life.
Jailer The prisoner to state his name.
Kieron Are you talking to me?
Jailer (offended) Say that again?
Kieron Sorry, that did sound rude. Taxi Driver has killed that phrase for well-intentioned confused people. How can I help?
Jailer You can help by giving me your goddam name.
Kieron Absolutely. Kieron Barry.
Jailer How long you in for?
Kieron No idea.
Jailer (peeved) How long was the relationship?
Kieron So far, three years.
Jailer Three years means you in for eighteen months. (she’s writing all this down)
Kieron Eighteen months?!
Jailer Don’t like it? Tell the judge.
Kieron There was no judge. I’ve just been instantly transported here by the magic of theatre.
Jailer What do you want me to do about it?
Kieron This is a mistake. She’ll be back.
Jailer Heard it all before.
Kieron We adore each other.
Jailer If the governor phones I’ll be sure to let you know.
Kieron Is there like a parole system?
Jailer Nope.
Kieron Time off for good behaviour? Eligible for early release under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement?
Jailer Turn out your pockets. That’s it. Now empty your subconscious.
Kieron My what?!
Jailer On the bench, let’s go.
Kieron How am I supposed to empty my subconscious?
Jailer What am I; Buddha? Just put ’em in the envelope as I call ’em off. Hopes. Dreams. Honeymoon destinations. Baby names.
Now: sexual fantasies.
Kieron Uh!
Jailer Come on; hand ’em over.
Kieron reluctantly complies.
Jailer (cont’d) (reading them as she receives them) What do we have here?! A fierce, animalistic coupling when she’s still sweaty from beating you at tennis. Taking her from behind on a deserted beach at sunset as her knees sink into the wet sand. What’s this one?
Kieron Do I have to?
Jailer You better tell me, boy.
Kieron (sighs, humiliated) She’s wearing a thick cable-knit Aran sweater and her fond nestling gradually turns to aggressive smothering.
Jailer What is she saying as you climax?
Kieron Do I have to tell you?
Jailer Let’s hear it.
Kieron ‘Shush, shush, my baby. Don’t cry, don’t cry.’ God this is humiliating.
Jailer Don’t be embarrassed. No judgement here.
Kieron Thank God!
Jailer Just kidding. What a whack-job. Get used to the single life, Buffalo Bill.
Kieron Welcome to heartbreak.
Jailer Why are you welcoming me?
Kieron No; it’s a kiss-line to the scene. I survey my surroundings, and say ‘Welcome to heartbreak.’ Then you segue to the Kanye West song. It’s quick, it’s neat, it’s appropriate.
Jailer Appropriate? What; cos you’re in prison –
Kieron Yeah.
Jailer — and he’s black?
Kieron God no! Where’s all this racism stuff coming from?! Play whatever music you like. Honestly. White. Black. Gamelan…
Jailer What’s Gamelan?
Kieron It’s like a Javanese percussion orchestra. I love other cultures. In fact I’m sort of an immigrant when you think about it.
Jailer Get in there, Captain Cashmere.
Kieron A lot of writers did their best work in prison.
Jailer Welcome to heartbreak.
