Over the weekend, director Beau Prichard sat down with playwrights Samm Murphy and Julia Nardin to discuss the process of writing Starling: Confrontational's next full production, scheduled to open this June at theLAB@INScape.
First I’ll give you a question by proxy. Several times when I’ve told people what the show is about, I’ve been asked if you have a personal connection to the subject material. If not, what drew you to the subject matter?
Julia: World War II and the years leading up to it are a pivotal period in human history, and it holds a sacred place in our popular culture because of its transformative power. Unfortunately, all the “best” war stories are written by men, about men. It’s rare to find film or literature featuring heroes like Irene Sendler, Sophie Scholl and Virginia Hall, or any kind of media at all that examines the war from a female perspective. And there’s so much to choose from: Forced prostitution in the Pacific. Allied spies who wielded their gender as a weapon against the Nazis. Mass rapes committed by Soviet soldiers after Germany’s capitulation. The eight hundred thousand women who served in the Soviet Army. Samm and I decided we wanted to write a war story with female protagonists that took place during a conflict in which women played a significant role because there weren’t enough. That story is Starling.
When you’re writing about a real time and place, I imagine it can be completely different than just making things up from scratch. Tell me about keeping your writing grounded in historical fact.
Samm: We're writing fictional characters, in a fictional cellar, but the war unfolding over their heads was devastatingly real and still fresh in the minds of many. I find that writing about reality is about taking bits and pieces of true event and letting them shine, bringing with them their context to texture the story you're creating. You're always worrying, though, not only that you got something wrong but that you missed something important.
Julia: It helps to approach the process of writing a play like a dramaturg approaches a full production. There’s a book called Rising ‘44 by Norman Davies, and it’s roughly the size and weight of a cement block. It was also our bible while we wrote the first draft of the play.
Samm: Most of our research and focus wound up concentrating on the events of the Uprising and the timeline, reading anecdotes, and digging up texts like radio recordings and translated leaflets that occurred during that time period. We tried to create a vivid picture for ourselves and write from there.
I’m always fascinated by how differently writers operate. Where do you write? Do you need a particular kind of environment? Do you do a warm-up exercise?
Samm: I write at home, for the most part, or sneak out some words during lunchbreak at work. A lot of writers need or like playing music while they work - I am part of the stalwart minority who require dead silence or irrelevant background noise! Tea, coffee, or obligatory horrible energy drink is generally on hand when I begin, and warm up is mainly just reviewing material that inspires me and remembering that I can fix it in post.
Julia: Being in a familiar environment distracts me. I worry about the dishes in the sink or the last time I stripped the sheets off the bed to do laundry. Stupid, mundane anxieties. I end up rearranging the furniture and shopping for antique taxidermy on eBay. Cafes and libraries are great for getting real work done. There’s less space to procrastinate.
Tell me a little bit about writing with a partner, especially one that can’t sit in the same room with you.
Julia: Samm lives in Wellington. I live in Seattle. Our biggest obstacle is probably consistency. You want the end result to be so amalgamous that no one is going to ask you who wrote what because no one should be able to pick up on the fact that there are two of you. That’s very hard, even when you have similar voices and don’t encounter a lot of aesthetic friction.
Samm: I love writing with a partner. The constant feedback and encouragement and criticism is a luxury that you don't get when you're on a solo venture, and knowing you can bounce around ideas for hours with someone without feeling like you're driving your friend or family member insane is great. It is very difficult when said writer lives on the other side of the world, but fortunately Julia and I are pretty comfortable talking over fleeting Facebook messages and Skype, and working out of online shared documents.
Julia, you’re a relatively new import to Seattle. Tell me some of the things you appreciate about it.
Julia: The gloom. Is that weird? I love waking up to the rain beading on my bedroom window, and looking out to see the city washed in fog. Moss grows here like crazy. The people are polite. The seagulls are polite. A wealth of trees. Ocean smell. It’s a long list...
Tell me some things you appreciate about the city’s theatre community.
Julia: Seattle is a city that spends a lot of the year in the dark. It’s damp. It’s cold. But the people here just radiate warmth - there’s a genuine desire to be inclusive and see everyone succeed, artistically and financially. I have a very dear friend who has sort of been guiding me through the process and encouraging me to take risks that would be much more difficult in a less supportive environment. For a young playwright producing new work, it’s an incredible gift.
In your experience, is Seattle a particularly good place for new works?
Julia: Seattle has a lot of very talented playwrights with strong, recognizable voices. It’s also home to companies like Annex and Macha Monkey, which are committed to championing new work. Staged readings happen all the time in every imaginable nook and cranny you can fit a few rows of collapsible chairs. There’s a real network here. The issue is that most other playwrights I know don’t have the resources they need to connect with producers who can finance full productions of their work in a viable performance space at a price everyone can afford. I’m working with a contact at the Dramatist’s Guild of America and a team of smaller theatre companies to curate a reading series that should empower Seattle’s emerging playwrights by connecting them with working producers and directors. We want to start having more discussions about storytelling. What are the stories that need to be told right now? How do we accommodate that? Who’s being represented and who isn’t?
What about Wellington?
Samm: I'm very fortunate to have landed in Wellington, which is a city where we say that a good day is particularly beautiful, and not only because it can be a bit bleak and pendulous the rest of the time. It's the capital of our country as well as the capital of our arts, with an incredibly diverse theatre community, and fertile ground for creativity. Our calendar revolves around the annual Fringe festival and biennial Festival of the Arts, with three major playhouses bringing in new material all the time. BATS Theatre in particular serves to foster new talent, which is also where Flight of the Conchord cut their professional performing teeth more than a decade ago. But I'd also want to credit the vaguely gritty underside where art is performed on the regular in dim bars and music venues, making for a low key, tight knit community of likeminded creatives, and home to some of my best friends.
Did you put the script through a final polish or anything to ensure that it had a singular voice? The script, as I read it, certainly feels consistent.
Samm: I think Julia and I enjoy a certain feel and texture of dialogue and atmosphere, and Starling hopefully has a particular feel to it. All the characters must be distinct, but they must all come from the same world and situation. We have both tried our hand at writing each character, and are shameless about going in and editing each others work, which is a barrier that has to blur if you're writing with a partner to produce a consistent script. At least, this was the case for Starling.
Julia: Right. When we talk about voice, we’re not talking about character voice - I hope that no two characters we’ve written are using exactly the same word choices and speech patterns to communicate. I’m talking about individual writing style, and I think Samm sometimes gets irritated with me because I’m very finicky, very particular, whereas she makes a lot of strong choices in the initial stages that she stands by until that final polishing happens. It’s a good quality to have in a writing partner.
Even if we only consider the historical distance, regardless of gender and culture, there's a big gap between folks today and those you are writing about. How do you approach that gap? How do you find the voices of people who, to one degree or another, really existed?
Samm: Fortunately, people are still people. I think it's important to make the dialogue relatable to a modern audience, but at the same time, you want people to sound like they come from where they come from. Reading literature from whatever era you're aiming for is helpful to capture a voice and a presence, I think, but that will always be framed through the voice of that author - so read diversely, and take chances.
Julia: English has become fairly relaxed in the last fifty years. We don’t speak or write with the same sort of specificity that we used to. When we communicate, it tends to be short and sloppy - it’s like bad sex that way. You get what you need from it, but there’s a lot you lose when you don’t really take time to explore and seek out all those little nuances. Writers are always trying to choose the right words. It’s a learned skill. That helps.
You’ve put a lot of work into the script since the table read 11 months ago. How different was the process after hearing the script out loud?
Julia: I always overwrite when it comes to the first draft. There’s too much, it’s too heavy, the pacing drags. Hearing a script read out loud helps identify what I can cut because it isn’t as important or as truthful to the story as I initially thought it was. We disassemble and reassemble. There’s a lot of editing involved. A lot of rewriting.
Samm: You realise that what you wanted to convey might not be getting conveyed, that the message is being lost in too many words, or the wrong approach is being taken. Since the reading, the script has been stripped back, fleshed out, stripped back again, in order to rediscover the bones of the story.
Do you write in other mediums other than theatre? Do you “art” in mediums other than theatre?
Julia: I read more poetry than I write poetry, but I occasionally perform my work at open mics, and have participated in a few slams. When I was a little younger, I had some erotica published under an assumed name to help pay the bills, among other things - I’m not sure that quite counts as art.
Samm: I fail to maintain at least one poetry blog, but it's always there whenever I feel the compulsion. I am constantly working on the next great New Zealand novel, which never has a form that stays fixed for long. I like Julia's idea about writing erotica, maybe I'll give that a go. But in seriousness, I have a strong passion for filmmaking, and I hope to participate in the vibrant independent film community here in Wellington as well as its theatre.
Finally, after the process of years, knowing that the play is being handed off to be performed, what is the most important thing you learned about writing? What’s the thing you’re most proud of?
Samm: Finish what you started. No matter how much you doubt yourself, a writer always has the ego to look back at their work in retrospect and say 'not bad'. The uphill struggle should be anticipated and conquered, and I hope to carry this lesson over into new projects.
Julia: You learn that you never stop learning. I think it’s wonderful, actually. As I’ve grown and matured as an individual, so has my voice as a writer. I’m proud that writers get to age gracefully, even if our work doesn’t.
First I’ll give you a question by proxy. Several times when I’ve told people what the show is about, I’ve been asked if you have a personal connection to the subject material. If not, what drew you to the subject matter?
Julia: World War II and the years leading up to it are a pivotal period in human history, and it holds a sacred place in our popular culture because of its transformative power. Unfortunately, all the “best” war stories are written by men, about men. It’s rare to find film or literature featuring heroes like Irene Sendler, Sophie Scholl and Virginia Hall, or any kind of media at all that examines the war from a female perspective. And there’s so much to choose from: Forced prostitution in the Pacific. Allied spies who wielded their gender as a weapon against the Nazis. Mass rapes committed by Soviet soldiers after Germany’s capitulation. The eight hundred thousand women who served in the Soviet Army. Samm and I decided we wanted to write a war story with female protagonists that took place during a conflict in which women played a significant role because there weren’t enough. That story is Starling.
When you’re writing about a real time and place, I imagine it can be completely different than just making things up from scratch. Tell me about keeping your writing grounded in historical fact.
Samm: We're writing fictional characters, in a fictional cellar, but the war unfolding over their heads was devastatingly real and still fresh in the minds of many. I find that writing about reality is about taking bits and pieces of true event and letting them shine, bringing with them their context to texture the story you're creating. You're always worrying, though, not only that you got something wrong but that you missed something important.
Julia: It helps to approach the process of writing a play like a dramaturg approaches a full production. There’s a book called Rising ‘44 by Norman Davies, and it’s roughly the size and weight of a cement block. It was also our bible while we wrote the first draft of the play.
Samm: Most of our research and focus wound up concentrating on the events of the Uprising and the timeline, reading anecdotes, and digging up texts like radio recordings and translated leaflets that occurred during that time period. We tried to create a vivid picture for ourselves and write from there.
I’m always fascinated by how differently writers operate. Where do you write? Do you need a particular kind of environment? Do you do a warm-up exercise?
Samm: I write at home, for the most part, or sneak out some words during lunchbreak at work. A lot of writers need or like playing music while they work - I am part of the stalwart minority who require dead silence or irrelevant background noise! Tea, coffee, or obligatory horrible energy drink is generally on hand when I begin, and warm up is mainly just reviewing material that inspires me and remembering that I can fix it in post.
Julia: Being in a familiar environment distracts me. I worry about the dishes in the sink or the last time I stripped the sheets off the bed to do laundry. Stupid, mundane anxieties. I end up rearranging the furniture and shopping for antique taxidermy on eBay. Cafes and libraries are great for getting real work done. There’s less space to procrastinate.
Tell me a little bit about writing with a partner, especially one that can’t sit in the same room with you.
Julia: Samm lives in Wellington. I live in Seattle. Our biggest obstacle is probably consistency. You want the end result to be so amalgamous that no one is going to ask you who wrote what because no one should be able to pick up on the fact that there are two of you. That’s very hard, even when you have similar voices and don’t encounter a lot of aesthetic friction.
Samm: I love writing with a partner. The constant feedback and encouragement and criticism is a luxury that you don't get when you're on a solo venture, and knowing you can bounce around ideas for hours with someone without feeling like you're driving your friend or family member insane is great. It is very difficult when said writer lives on the other side of the world, but fortunately Julia and I are pretty comfortable talking over fleeting Facebook messages and Skype, and working out of online shared documents.
Julia, you’re a relatively new import to Seattle. Tell me some of the things you appreciate about it.
Julia: The gloom. Is that weird? I love waking up to the rain beading on my bedroom window, and looking out to see the city washed in fog. Moss grows here like crazy. The people are polite. The seagulls are polite. A wealth of trees. Ocean smell. It’s a long list...
Tell me some things you appreciate about the city’s theatre community.
Julia: Seattle is a city that spends a lot of the year in the dark. It’s damp. It’s cold. But the people here just radiate warmth - there’s a genuine desire to be inclusive and see everyone succeed, artistically and financially. I have a very dear friend who has sort of been guiding me through the process and encouraging me to take risks that would be much more difficult in a less supportive environment. For a young playwright producing new work, it’s an incredible gift.
In your experience, is Seattle a particularly good place for new works?
Julia: Seattle has a lot of very talented playwrights with strong, recognizable voices. It’s also home to companies like Annex and Macha Monkey, which are committed to championing new work. Staged readings happen all the time in every imaginable nook and cranny you can fit a few rows of collapsible chairs. There’s a real network here. The issue is that most other playwrights I know don’t have the resources they need to connect with producers who can finance full productions of their work in a viable performance space at a price everyone can afford. I’m working with a contact at the Dramatist’s Guild of America and a team of smaller theatre companies to curate a reading series that should empower Seattle’s emerging playwrights by connecting them with working producers and directors. We want to start having more discussions about storytelling. What are the stories that need to be told right now? How do we accommodate that? Who’s being represented and who isn’t?
What about Wellington?
Samm: I'm very fortunate to have landed in Wellington, which is a city where we say that a good day is particularly beautiful, and not only because it can be a bit bleak and pendulous the rest of the time. It's the capital of our country as well as the capital of our arts, with an incredibly diverse theatre community, and fertile ground for creativity. Our calendar revolves around the annual Fringe festival and biennial Festival of the Arts, with three major playhouses bringing in new material all the time. BATS Theatre in particular serves to foster new talent, which is also where Flight of the Conchord cut their professional performing teeth more than a decade ago. But I'd also want to credit the vaguely gritty underside where art is performed on the regular in dim bars and music venues, making for a low key, tight knit community of likeminded creatives, and home to some of my best friends.
Did you put the script through a final polish or anything to ensure that it had a singular voice? The script, as I read it, certainly feels consistent.
Samm: I think Julia and I enjoy a certain feel and texture of dialogue and atmosphere, and Starling hopefully has a particular feel to it. All the characters must be distinct, but they must all come from the same world and situation. We have both tried our hand at writing each character, and are shameless about going in and editing each others work, which is a barrier that has to blur if you're writing with a partner to produce a consistent script. At least, this was the case for Starling.
Julia: Right. When we talk about voice, we’re not talking about character voice - I hope that no two characters we’ve written are using exactly the same word choices and speech patterns to communicate. I’m talking about individual writing style, and I think Samm sometimes gets irritated with me because I’m very finicky, very particular, whereas she makes a lot of strong choices in the initial stages that she stands by until that final polishing happens. It’s a good quality to have in a writing partner.
Even if we only consider the historical distance, regardless of gender and culture, there's a big gap between folks today and those you are writing about. How do you approach that gap? How do you find the voices of people who, to one degree or another, really existed?
Samm: Fortunately, people are still people. I think it's important to make the dialogue relatable to a modern audience, but at the same time, you want people to sound like they come from where they come from. Reading literature from whatever era you're aiming for is helpful to capture a voice and a presence, I think, but that will always be framed through the voice of that author - so read diversely, and take chances.
Julia: English has become fairly relaxed in the last fifty years. We don’t speak or write with the same sort of specificity that we used to. When we communicate, it tends to be short and sloppy - it’s like bad sex that way. You get what you need from it, but there’s a lot you lose when you don’t really take time to explore and seek out all those little nuances. Writers are always trying to choose the right words. It’s a learned skill. That helps.
You’ve put a lot of work into the script since the table read 11 months ago. How different was the process after hearing the script out loud?
Julia: I always overwrite when it comes to the first draft. There’s too much, it’s too heavy, the pacing drags. Hearing a script read out loud helps identify what I can cut because it isn’t as important or as truthful to the story as I initially thought it was. We disassemble and reassemble. There’s a lot of editing involved. A lot of rewriting.
Samm: You realise that what you wanted to convey might not be getting conveyed, that the message is being lost in too many words, or the wrong approach is being taken. Since the reading, the script has been stripped back, fleshed out, stripped back again, in order to rediscover the bones of the story.
Do you write in other mediums other than theatre? Do you “art” in mediums other than theatre?
Julia: I read more poetry than I write poetry, but I occasionally perform my work at open mics, and have participated in a few slams. When I was a little younger, I had some erotica published under an assumed name to help pay the bills, among other things - I’m not sure that quite counts as art.
Samm: I fail to maintain at least one poetry blog, but it's always there whenever I feel the compulsion. I am constantly working on the next great New Zealand novel, which never has a form that stays fixed for long. I like Julia's idea about writing erotica, maybe I'll give that a go. But in seriousness, I have a strong passion for filmmaking, and I hope to participate in the vibrant independent film community here in Wellington as well as its theatre.
Finally, after the process of years, knowing that the play is being handed off to be performed, what is the most important thing you learned about writing? What’s the thing you’re most proud of?
Samm: Finish what you started. No matter how much you doubt yourself, a writer always has the ego to look back at their work in retrospect and say 'not bad'. The uphill struggle should be anticipated and conquered, and I hope to carry this lesson over into new projects.
Julia: You learn that you never stop learning. I think it’s wonderful, actually. As I’ve grown and matured as an individual, so has my voice as a writer. I’m proud that writers get to age gracefully, even if our work doesn’t.
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