On Bear Ridge
As renowned playwright Ed Thomas returns to the stage, he sits down with Fedor Tot to discuss On Bear Ridge and its inspirations: childhood, change, and character.
Tell us a little bit about On Bear Ridge and what inspired it
It’s the first play that I’ve written for 15 years. It’s good to be writing a play again. There are things you can do in the theatre that you can’t do in telly and film in the same way. It’s about memory, a sense of place, and the times we live in. It’s set on a mountain where you never know what kind of happened, and there’s a stranger that comes, and that changes things. The plot? Pft, I dunno! Honestly, I’m not very interested in plot.
Why is plot not interesting for you?
Maybe because I’m not very good at them? [laughs] I like characters, and I like rhythms. In plays you can write language. I like to write about things that I don’t know anything about. Like, you know, rather than thinking, ‘oh I’m going to write a play about something,’ you discover what you write about and then try and make it as best as you can.
You’ve been in TV and film for the last 15 or so years. Have you changed as a writer?
Yeah, I think you change all the time. But writers tend to have the same obsessions. I’ve written more plays than I’ve ever written for telly. It’s a different medium, and when you look out the window these days, it’s extraordinary times. And I wanted to have a go at exploring those extraordinary times as a play.
Did you write with any of the cast in mind?
No, usually you just start off. I’ll write 100 pages, and I still handwrite it. And there’s no male or female, just rhythm and ideas. And then after 100 pages exactly, I stop. And in those 100 pages there will be fragments of bits of diary, all kinds of stuff, and I’ll stop and go, ‘right, this is obviously where I wanna go with all of this’. And then try and construct a story from that.
You like writing in terms of rhythm, are you conscious of the syllabic rhythm of how something is written?
Yeah, but not pedantically, I think I’m good with writing nonsense! My father would say some ridiculously nonsensical things and I think that’s rubbed off on me. When the rhythm’s right it feels right, and you know if you’re going to cut a line – if a really good actor has had a go two or three times and it sounds terrible, it’s not their fault. The line is faulty, cut it. To me, it starts with rhythm because language plays a different role in the theatre than it does in film and telly. I wouldn’t start this way if I was writing a screenplay, I would start in pictures, and maybe the dialogue wouldn’t happen until much further on.
On Bear Ridge is being accompanied by an installation in Penwyllt, titled No Petrol For 12 Miles. What is it actually going to be?
I come from that area – my parents had a butcher shop there – so it’s partly autobiographical. I made a couple of films which they’re in, recorded bits of conversations in the shop and in the slaughterhouse. The installation is set in a landscape where there’s the remains of a chapel, of a school, of what I remember as a family home. You download little pods of sound and then you walk though this landscape. You hear bits of these people speaking, bits of John Hardy’s score next to that. It’s very much evoking a sense of place through voices from another time and bringing it alive and kind of shaping them through this landscape.
What state do you think Welsh theatre is in at the moment? Who’s producing exciting work?
I think there’s a lot of people out there burning to tell stories and burning to put those ideas out there and collaborate, because if they don’t then opportunities pass them by. I’ve got an ethos of ‘get in the garage and make a sound’, you know, get involved rather than thinking ‘oh, I didn’t know it was happening’. We really need to engage, engage, engage. The future might be quite tricky. We’re going to have to out there and fight for it.
On Bear Ridge, Sherman Theatre, Cardiff, Fri 20 Sept-Sat 5 Oct. Tickets: £7.50-£20. Info: 029 2064 6900 / www.shermantheatre.co.uk