Script Slam
Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff
Wed 28 Apr
As with any showcase of new writers, there’s a hit-and-miss element to Chapter’s Script Slam. I’m in two minds about it. On the one hand, it’s a great way for new playwrights to get their scripts into the hands of experienced actors and up-and-coming directors. On the other, that inclusive approach means that they can attract a lot of dross, since the format hinges on the assumption that anyone can have a go at writing.
The idea behind the evening is that each writer submits a ten-minute extract from a play that is then performed script-in-hand before an audience and a panel of three judges: playwright Alan Harris, Sherman Cymru Literary Manager Sian Summers, and National Theatre Wales Company Assistant Mike Salmon. The judges give their feedback on the plays and, at the end of the evening, the audience votes on their favourite.
It’s a concept that tends to favour its writers over the audience, who are encouraged to present a scene that could be turned into a play. That’s not necessarily a problem, but it seems a little counter-productive. Writing to the tight strictures of a ten-minute play would surely be far more challenging for the writer, easier to judge, and more rewarding for the audience, who aren’t confronted with gaps in the narrative and underdrawn characterisation. The overwhelming success of the night, for instance, claiming roughly 80% of the popular vote, was Becky Brynolf’s On The Brain, a self-contained ten-minute marvel that was miles ahead of its competition. She had a wonderful concept, dramatising the two sides of the brain duking it out inside the writer’s head. Becky’s an established writer and standup comedian in Cardiff, and it showed: the writing was sparky and lithe, the plot pacey, the twists and turns deftly realised. It wouldn’t have been out of place in a Dirty Protest programme.
The remaining four plays, it’s sad to report, were, by turns, derivative, meandering, and – their biggest crime – often just quite boring. What they lacked above all were ideas. I gritted my teeth at the lily-livered reactions of the judges, who nibbled at the corners of the work. Script Slam is a great idea because it offers an opportunity to catch a rare glimpse of the creative process in a pacey format, but it could use a shot in the arm: writers who pen succinct, ten-minute plays, and critics who aren’t afraid to bare their teeth.
