brilliant news!

first in-depth feedback - the play has gone down well with the english language theatre.
i had a meeting with sarah, the curator, three hours ago and i've been offered a space in the lab on march 4th.
ridiculously short notice.
i didn't tell her that i'm going to england tomorrow and back on 27th feb (good job she doesn't read this blog...or does she?!)
anyways, ally (my sister) has agreed to read the part of christie - and her flight is booked, so now i need to find dirk and rita.
and of course two people to read the chorus.
not forgetting that i've got to bribe tyrell or dion into reading k.b.
(anything involving computers usually works or chinese food)
oh i'm so excited!
watch this space....

thinking about dirk

dirk is a friendly white german guy, who nobody can really have anything against.
sure, he has his weaknesses, and in the play a couple of hefty ones are revealed, but great efforts have been made to show that he is a human fallible person who tries very hard to improve his ways. and he's in love with christie, a black lone parent. this is positive, right? hmm....

now, when i was creating dirk, i thought a lot about the relationships (friends, colleagues and partners) with white guys that i have had and i tried to recreate some of the emotions and conversations in him.
dirk is not a baddie.
he is just a white guy 'who doesn't know he's white'.

i did think about creating a character who was well aware of his ethnicity, of white privilege and his responsibility to challenge white supremacy. i came across a blog called 'ally work' while researching, and was very impressed by the discussions on it.
it's all very good, but this post on the importance of empathy caught my eye, and i recommend a read.

in the end though, i decided dirk needed to himself - not the person i wanted him to be (?!), so therefore he needed to be more representative of my experiences thus far.
i also think the character of dirk as he is provides dramatic tension and is someone with whom the audience will be more likely to identify with.

so what about white allies? apart from the passing reference to rita's ex-boyfriend (someone who 'knew he was white') they are not represented in otherpleasespecify.
it could be seen as a big omission.
or...thinking about my day-to-day life...maybe not...

i welcome feedback on how the character of dirk seems to you.
please let me know or post a comment below

deaths involving police officers

early this morning i fell awake - a very strange thing.
rarely for me i had had a lot of sleep in the previous 48 hours, so at 4am i woke up and stayed awake for about two hours.
i began to do a bit of research for the play and for this blog.
hmm.....

i actually had to stop in the end because what i found was so distressing.
the result of my research is to be found in the 'links' section - all the ones that begin with the word 'about'.

it occurred to me, that i might later be criticised for focussing in the play exclusively on deaths of black men as opposed to black people (non gender specific).
i thought about that for a while.
i certainly do not intend to belittle or sideline the tragic deaths of women like cynthia jarrett (UK) and maream ndeye sarr (Germany) - or those for that matter of many other individuals who have died in mysterious circumstances which involved police action or negligence (or worse) who are not black.

in the end i decided that i needed to start from the main character and work on what was going through her mind at the time in which the play is set.
and the main character is shocked by the recent deaths of black men - she identifies with this specifically because she is the mother of a young boy... a future black man.
this thought scares her completely - hence the focus on black men.

if you can, take some time to follow the 'about' links and spot the pattern...
and then lie down and consider that this is just a fraction of the deaths that i found out about.

who was jean charles de menezes?

i have wanted to write about jean charles for quite some time.
his story has been going round my head since i first found out about his death.
in fact, when news first broke that he had been killed (22 july 2005) i was pretty shocked about people's attitude to his death.
otherpleasespecify is set during this time.

who was this man? and why did his death affect me so much?

there is a lot of information on him already on the net. to research for the play, i googled his name and found information about him on the bbc website, on wikipedia as well as on a website set up by his friends and family.

suffice to say, jean was killed after the july 2005 bombings in london by the police in a tragic case of mistaken identity. it was mooted that he had been involved in terrorism and that he was about to strike again. however, the next day the metropolitan police issued a statement saying they had indeed made a mistake.

before the true facts of the shooting were revealed, i remember general popular opinion being that it was somehow jean's own fault for looking suspicious - have a look at the bbc discussion board for some of the comments. jean, it was commonly said, was a casualty of war. the police were the real victims here. i was so furious (this is the only time i can recall shouting at my mum ever in my life).

as time went by more and more details were revealed: no - jean wasn't wearing a bulky jacket, no - he didn't jump a turnstile to enter the underground and no - the police had not challenged him at any point.

numerous attempts were made to discredit him: the home office leaked his immigration status and some random woman came forward after his death and claimed that he was a rapist (later disproven by dna testing).

the shooting was such a blantant act of random violence against a person looking 'foreign' (apparently jean was positively identified because he had 'mongolian eyes' - i kid you not) i just didn't understand how the british public didn't see it.

my play isn't about jean, although i have seriously thought about dedicating it to him.
ultimately it's about the reality of looking and being out of the place - sometimes it can literally kill you.

jean, rest in peace.

white baby doll, black baby doll

those of you who know me well will not be surprised to learn that a key theme of the play is identity - how the main character views 'race'. there is a scene in the play where the main character discusses the issue as a three year old. the scene might seem a bit far fetched to some ("i don't think children see skin colour")

well, a couple of days ago, a friend of mine sent me this link:

http://www.komoradio.com/home/video/5001856.html?video=pop&t=a

it's about a documentary filmed by a high school student in the states. have a look and see what you make of it.

...it's quite painful

the first draft is complete!

now that i have completed the first draft of 'otherpleasespecify' i feel able to start a blog about it. it's almost certainly going to be a long road from this first draft to seeing it on stage.
to be honest, i'm just happy i've stuck at it this long - i've never completed a play before.
actually that's not entirely true - i once wrote a soliloquy (or is that a monologue?) which is kind of a play i guess? in one act?
also my very first play was written when i was in secondary school - in those days it was called the first year, but now i guess it would be called year 7.
it was called 'pride & prejudice'.
i gave it to my english teacher to read and give comments.
she did: she asked me why i'd written it.
i said: 'oh i dunno really - i was bored in the summer holidays...'
she said: 'that's exactly how i felt when i read it'
and i didn't complete anything creative after that for a very long time.

now i'm in touch with someone in the english theatre berlin to submit my play to 'the lab'.
i'll tell you more about that another time.
suffice to say, they were interested in seeing what i've written.
that doesn't mean a lot. they probably say that to everyone.
but they didn't give me a deadline - they just said 'get it to us asap'.
so i'm gonna stop blogging and start pdf-ing.
more very soon...