Rehearsing drama in progress

This week, theatre audiences will have the opportunity to view a trio ofplays still in development, and to participate in an open discussionafterwards. It's rather like the policy in the US of audience-testing moviesbefore the final cut , writes Rosita Boland

Creative work usually comes to its audience ready formed: published books, exhibitions of paintings, films and plays. It's not often we get to see something of the process of arriving at that point. This week, audiences will have an opportunity to look at three plays-in-progress at the Peacock, which will be given public readings for one night only.

"Summer Stories" is the name given to the trio of plays which are still in development by playwrights Michael West, Hilary Fannin and Siofra Campbell. The Abbey's literary department has commissioned seven pieces of work so far this year, three of which will receive the rehearsed readings this week. Each play will have been given two and a half days' rehearsal. After each reading, there will be an open discussion chaired by Jocelyn Clarke, the Abbey's commissioning manager. It's the first time the Abbey will be trying this method.

"This format of discussion is common in the US, but not in Ireland," says Ali Curran, director of the Peacock theatre. "It gives audiences an opportunity to engage with the work at a very early point." Commissioning a play always involves an act of faith, with a caveat that it may not work out. However, as Curran explains, "Commissions are issued with the ultimate desire being for a full production on one of the Abbey stages."

Doldrum Bay is the title of Hilary Fannin's play, her second stage play: she also writes regularly for BBC Radio. Fannin's career in theatre began on the other side of the curtain, as an actress. What made her turn to writing?

"I couldn't stand being unemployed," she admits, with frank and fresh honesty. "It was sometime in the 1990s and I hadn't worked as an actress for about a year. I was in London and had met my brother in a bar. He told me if I spent two hours a day writing that something might come out it, but the way I was going, nothing was coming of my days."

Mackerel Sky, which was subsequently produced by the Bush Theatre in London and then in Ireland with Red Kettle, was the result of that sibling encouragement.

Doldrum Bay, an 18-scene play, has been through two drafts so far. Fannin began it six months ago, only weeks after the birth of her second child. "Doldrum Bay is the name of a bay in Howth," Fannin explains.

It's a clever choice of title, with its double meaning both of placename and a troubled state of mind. "It's about loss and memory. My father died 18 months ago, and I realise there is a lot of him in there." In as much as a work in progress has a shape, the action of the play roughly focuses on two men with advertising backgrounds, Francis and Chick, who are charged with the task of revamping the PR image of the Christian Brothers, by way of attracting new recruits.

The successes and failures of the two men's lives are explored both in professional and personal terms: they have challenging and volatile relationships with their partners, Magda and Louise. The play is punctuated by several long expressionistic-type monologues: "I wanted to look at the interior and exterior world of the characters."

So what is it like for a playwright to put a work-in-progress before an audience? "If I was rating it out of 10 as to how far it is completed, I would give it two - but heading towards 10," she says. "It's not a finished piece. Certain scenes to me have a pulse, a life, a centre and I feel excited about them - they work. Other scenes don't, but part of this process is to push towards an end. The end as it is in this draft is crude, but it's an end."

If a playwright knows instinctively that some scenes work and some don't, what is the difference between the two? "Time. You can fix the bits that aren't right, but it takes time. That's why everyone will finish a play at a different pace."

Several times in conversation, Fannin uses the image of a play being something physical and tangible, to be literally shaped into completion. "It feels like I'm working with terrain, something actual," she says. "Or like working with a piece of embroidery. You can leave gaps, islands, in the piece you're working on and go back to them later. The end result will still be the same, a completed piece, it doesn't matter when you filled in which gap by the time the whole thing is finished."

Finished plays usually preview before they "open" officially, so that performances can be sharpened and direction amended. Does Fannin see the opportunity to show an audience a rehearsed reading as a type of preview-in-writing? "It's not like that at all. The map is already there with a previewed performance. If this was a map and you took it into the jungle, you'd be lost!"

The US policy of audience-testing certain movies, usually those with large budgets, before the film gets its final cut is long established. Possibly because of the money involved, audience reaction to these test screenings are treated very seriously and movies - usually their endings - can often alter dramatically as a result of the feedback received. Theatre, however, is far less reluctant to barter its creative soul in advance. Given that an integral part of the three evenings will be the post-reading discussion, how much of the audience response will influence Fannin in the way she returns to the next draft of Doldrum Bay?

"The most valuable part of the whole process for me will be the two and half days of rehearsals. It doesn't suit all writers to work in this way, but it suits me. I won't be relying on audience responses to finish the play, because the finished play will probably be unrecognisable from the draft," she stresses, pointing out that she will be one of the audience herself, which she admits is strange but exciting.

"Hopefully the audience will see how plays come through a process, that they don't just arrive from nowhere."

"Summer Stories" at the Peacock Theatre, Dublin: The Evidence of Things by Michael West is on Thursday; Doldrum Bay by Hilary Fannin is on Friday; Lovers Reunited by Siofra Campbell is on Saturday. All readings are at 7 p.m. in the Peacock and are followed by an open discussion. Admission €5. For further details, telephone 01 878 7222.