On The Plays...

"My interest in theatre was fuelled by annual pantomime visits but then nearly quenched when I discovered most contemporary theatre to be seen in my native city did not much believe in transformations and miracles . But Faustus, ah Faustus! Poetry, perversity, farce and damnation! What more could I ask for? I adored its rapid changes of tone, its sheer theatricality." Speaking From The Dark/Keeping Company With The Cannibal Witches Essay by Clive Barker, (i) Daily Telegraph, 6 January 1990 (ii) Deadline, No 23, October 1990 (iii) Pandemonium, 1991 "Plays were interesting because they were a stepping stone from the writing into this other forum. I'm a weird kind of combination; introvert/extrovert. I really do like to be on my own. I really do like to be buried in myself. But another part of me likes to be out there having fun with life. Writing for the theatre, then directing the pieces gave me an opportunity for both." So Many Monsters, So Little Time... By Michael Brown, Pandemonium, 1991 "One of the things that I enjoy about writing the novels is that I am not involved in the debate about every word that I put down on the page . When you are writing for actors and you're writing for a company that already existed, there are a lot of things that you have to factor in - what people's strengths are, their weaknesses, what people prolifics are. Some of that is very good because it challenges you to find creative ways through narratives. Some of it is not so good because it is destructive to the freedom of the flow of your imagination." Hell's Events By [ ], Lost Souls, Issue 2, [September] 1995 "We had the usual dry-as-dust productions of 'Macbeth' or whatever, and I thought it was pretty boring. So I decided to write plays about magicians and dragons and mad Nazis - I've been consistent, you see - and they were pretty popular." Give me B-Movies or Give Me Death ! By Douglas E. Winter, Faces of Fear, 1985 "An incredible amount of what makes me feel I can do whatever the fuck I want has to do with the Dog Company, with our collective history, and you [Phil Rimmer] just said it. Of course I can do 'Hellraiser'. Of course I can get books published. Of course I can do other movies, musicals, kid's books, whatever - because…we did it once. We made things happen. And that is so much the source of my confidence in doing things now. That continuity is as important as the continuity of imagery, of concerns. The real consistency is that we never made a distinction between what was fantastical and what was realistic. It never even occurred to us that there should be some rigid belief system here. Gaining access to The Imaginative Experience was all." A Dog's Tale By Peter Atkins, Clive Barker's Shadows in Eden "The experience [reviewing and publishing plays] has not only been pleasurable but positively enlightening. It's aroused memories not only of the first productions of the plays but of my earliest encounter with the theatre, which was that most English of entertainments: the pantomime...Panto offered a glimpse of magic and spectacle that would fuel my dreams for weeks before and after my visit . And in truth there is much in the form I admire. Its artlessness, for one; its riotous indifference to any rules of drama but its own; its guileless desire to delight. And of course beneath all its tartish ways there is buried a story of primal simplicity: good against evil, love triumphing over hate and envy. This was one of the two formative theatrical experiences of my childhood. The other - and in some senses more influential experience - was that of puppet theatre. Like so many imaginative kids whose lives would take them into the theatre, my first taste of working behind the footlights was as a puppeteer. I made a cast of hand, rod and marionette puppets, and then proceeded to write elaborate vehicles for them... There was a good deal of cruelty in the stories I created. This isn't so surprising, given that my earliest exposure to the world of puppets was Punch and Judy shows: short, brutal tales of how the devious and unrepentant Mister Punch kills his own child, beats his wife to death and then inexorably murders the rest of the cast with his truncheon. My puppet tales also contained a measure of supernatural stuff, the appetite for which I trace to my maternal grandmother, who had a healthy nineteenth century appetite for the macabre." The Painter, The Creature and The Father of Lies: an Introduction Introduction to Incarnations, by Clive Barker, Los Angeles, 1995 "I'm interested, certainly, in getting to do some more theatre work. It 's really a question of factoring it into a schedule that's already crazy. It's been great to see people respond to the plays the way that they have. You know these plays are fifteen years, so it's doubly nice to feel that the work I did then still has some purpose. People are laughing at the jokes and being scared in the right places, that's great. " Confessions By [ ], Lost Souls, Issue 6, January 1997 (online at clivebarker.com - see links) "The Commedia dell'Arte..has always been an interest of mine. I'm very interested in Fools: Fools obsess me and always have, clowns too. And Pulcinella or Punch has always fascinated me because he's so cruel and so funny at the same time." Transcript of talk at UCLA 25 February 1987 Clive Barker's Shadows in Eden "We want to combine well-told and often outrageous stories that involve not only the actors' but the audience's imagination, as well as the visual effects and wit - theatre that entertains and asks questions. We 're completely independent and receive no funding except what we earn through fees and the box office - a situation we're eager to change. But in spite of economic problems, we're growing fast." Linda Talbot at the York and Albany By Linda Talbot, The Hampstead and Highgate Express, 10 July 1981 Crazyface CRAZYFACE I came to Rome for forgiveness. ANNIE You're forgiven. CRAZYFACE But you're a cheat. You shouldn't be the Pope. ANNIE I'm the best man for the job; really I am. CRAZYFACE They'll find you out. ANNIE Probably. But in the meanwhile - CRAZYFACE Does...does God talk to you? ANNIE All the time. CRAZYFACE Really? ANNIE In my bath; while I'm dressing; at the circus. All the time. CRAZYFACE What does He say? ANNIE Mostly bad jokes. She laughs a lot. And She - CRAZYFACE She? God's a woman too? ANNIE She is when She speaks to me. "[Alasdair Cameron] invited me to write a trio of plays as summer workshop projects at the Cockpit. Crazyface was the first of these, and after the constraints of writing for a small touring ensemble like the Dog Company, which regularly performed in tiny spaces above pubs, it felt wonderful to be unleashed; to be able to create stories that called for a large cast, and to write scenes that employed an ambitious range of lighting and scenic effects. Excited by the sheer scale of what I now had at my disposal - comparatively speaking - I wrote Crazyface as a kind of fool's epic...The result is a play that is part pageant, part circus and part meditation on the glory of clowns. I loved writing it, spiking its high spirits with sudden eruptions of violence and scenes of strange melancholy." Laughter, Love and Chocolate: An Introduction by Clive Barker, Los Angeles, 1996 "If Crazyface's journey teaches anything, it is that the rich and the mighty are not any more secure than those they lord over. The laughter and the high spirits of the piece should never quite drown out the sound of the four fatal horsemen, coming to claim both the Kings and the Fools of the world." Production Notes by Clive Barker, Los Angeles, 1996 Colossus GOYA I think perhaps the dead see more than we do. I envy that. BARBARA Envy? GOYA If they can see more, yes. Other men have to fill their mouths all day, I have to cram my eyes. Looking's a vice with me. I have to devour everything I so much as glance at, what the angels and the fallen angels made, it's the same to me. And when I've got the sights in here I want to make them all over again, in paint, and sign them, yes sign the world and say: 'Goya saw this!' "In writing the play, my central challenge was how to create a portrait of Goya and his world without falling prey to the cliches of biographical fiction: scenes of famous folks meeting more famous folks at historically significant events. The solution, I decided, was to create a drama in which Goya was effectively invisible much of the time , a situation which would allow me to explore the idea of the painter as a witness to events he could do little or nothing to influence." The Painter, The Creature and The Father of Lies: an Introduction Introduction to Incarnations, by Clive Barker, Los Angeles, 1995 "Like a man in extremis, the play constantly glimpses hints of Heaven and Hell. A sub-structure of dream images lurks beneath the surface of the piece, haunting it as surely as any ghost or demon. We live, the play suggests, in more than one world. It's only when events shatter our simple constructs - when the order we have imposed on reality falters - that we sense this multiplicity. The revelation may drive us crazy, or help us better understand ourselves. The choice is ours." Production Notes by Clive Barker, Los Angeles, 1995 Dog DOG I'm not unhappy, Eloise.My life is a constant pleasure to me. Smell the soup. ELOISE What soup? DOG The air, Eloise. ELOISE I can't smell anything. Oh yes I can. That sour stink, what is it? DOG The sour blue smell with the green pieces floating in it? That's Costello; and he's in your clothes - ELOISE It is! That's Costello's smell. DOG And your breath; can you smell that? ELOISE No. DOG Or my paws? ELOISE No. DOG Or that smoke in the air? ELOISE Not a whiff. DOG You see, to you the air is emptiness. To me it's a gravy, a thick, ripe soup made of the meat off the backs of stevedores, out of the heads and hams of sweet women, unknowingly nosed as they go about their business. Without moving a single step I can pluck buds, sniff children, drink girls, chew tissues, gulp the flukes under the tails of bitches... "I escaped to London, and to a self-created world, where I painted and wrote a number of experimental pieces for the theatre. They were mime pieces to begin with (three years of English and Philosophy had silenced me), and then, once my faith in language had returned, plays. The first substantial piece was called Dog, from which our company took its name: a highly stylised tale of sex, transformation and apocalypse which drew on the Commedia dell 'Arte, pantomime, personal psychosis, the Bible and werewolf movies. It was not a success. But its fantastical nature, its philosophical pretensions and its use of effects, violence and low comedy began to define my approach to theatre work." The Painter, The Creature and The Father of Lies: an Introduction Introduction to Incarnations, by Clive Barker, Los Angeles, 1995 "[Dog is] a play of Joycean complexity, and length which may in the fullness of time find its way onto the printed page." Laughter, Love and Chocolate: An Introduction by Clive Barker, Los Angeles, 1996 The History of the Devil (Scenes From a Pretended Life) ACTOR In law, there are no certainties. Suppose we tried our loved ones? Made a list of offences against us. How long before we'd amassed enough resentment to hang them by? Now, we put the Enemy on trial. How long before we find enough reasons to love the Prince of the World? "We had a production of History of the Devil which was banned in England by one of it's venues. This brought it great notoriety and sold the show out wherever it played." Confessions By [ ], Lost Souls, Issue 10, June 1998 (online at clivebarker.com - see links) "The metaphysics of the piece is not particularly original, but the characters are lively, I think, and what the play lacks in profundity it makes up for in audacity. One of the critics, reviewing the first production, described it as: 'a mixture of Decline and Fall, Paradise Lost, Perry Mason and Flash Gordon.' Lord, I loved that description! Why? Because it evokes a stew of high art and low, of intellect and spectacle, pretension and fun." The Painter, The Creature and The Father of Lies: an Introduction Introduction to Incarnations, by Clive Barker, Los Angeles, 1995 "It's hardly a Shavian text, because Shaw clearly intended his plays for publication. He takes complete control of the thing, padding it with introductory essays, copious notes and stage and character directions, like he wants to be a kind of paper director as well as the writer. My stuff was never like that. I didn't intend them for publication - they were written strictly to be performed. The reader of 'Devil' should bear two things in mind - it was written to be performed by a group of people I knew very well, and it was written for me to direct. This means I could write in a kind of shorthand way, a gestural way, knowing that between us we were going to get it right. "Readiness [to accept breaks in reality] is something I expect from my audience. History of the Devil - indeed, all my plays - are full of radical changes of tone, pace and style, along with an almost cinematic cross-cutting between scenes. My plays are like collages; they're collections of thoughts, eclectic and full of strange narrative thrusts ...I realised, after the first production, who the ideal Devil would be. The Devil is the still and near-invisible centre of the drama, present and yet curiously translucent - the thing on which everybody projects their own guilts, shames and hungers. So the ideal casting is the most famous invisible person in the world - Andy Warhol." A Reader's Guide to History of the Devil By Peter Atkins, Pandemonium, 1991 "The Devil is an actor: a man of masks, never the same tempter twice. It's appropriate then that a play exploring his life and times should be an actor's piece, using word-pictures in place of elaborate sets, in the stream of which a large number of characters are carried, some of them healthy swimmers, many swept away by the protean evil that is the play's true constant...If this story's worth telling it's because it's about being human. The Devil's tale is the tale of our own confusion, ego and inability to live without hope for Heaven. His wings removed, Satan is dropped into the world wounded, and though he conceals his frailty well enough, putting on a fine show of dispassion, he's never far from throwing back his head and raging like an abused child. If the play persuades its audience to look at what this mirage of external evil is - in short, an excuse; a brushing off - then it has done something of what I intended." Production Notes by Clive Barker, Los Angeles, 1995 "'Devil' was written with quite a lot of involvement [from The Dog Company]. It got changed a lot and developed in the rehearsal process. If memory serves, I think the material underwent quite a few changes as a consequence of the actors' suggestions and contributions." Hell's Events By [ ], Lost Souls, Issue 2, [September] 1995 Click here for more of Barker's comments - more plays Plays Index | Incarnations bibliography | Forms Of Heaven bibliography | Home page This page has been created for information and entertainment purposes only. All quotes remain the copyright of the original owners.