Abubilla Music

Top 5: Plays what make me want to write good

Written by Imogen

I’m new to this blogging business.  I’ve thought about it for a long time.  I’ve stared at this blank screen for a lot longer.  Eventually I had to get Jimmy on the phone for a few tips on where to start.

He led me to think about what should be the easiest topic for me to get stuck into.  Since I’m coming to Abubilla from a theatrical direction and am more at home writing plays and stories than getting musical and funky why not start with a list of my top five most inspiring plays/productions?  It sounded easy peasy but I’ve had to condense an immense love of theatre into a tiny list. 

This hurt my brain a lot but here goes:

1. ‘Zoo Story’ by Edward Albee

I had to present on this crazy play at University and at first hated it thinking it was just a dull conversation between a crazy man and a normal man.  After a week of reading it silently, then reading it aloud and finally attempting to act it out until my housemates started eviction proceedings I started to like it.  I don’t know why.  I had to present on why it was amazing and shamefully 5 years on I can’t remember.  I just think the easy language and sparse setting struck a chord and my first two plays were heavily influenced by Albee’s stunningly simple coversational style.

2. ‘Angels in America’ by Tony Kushner

I loved every second of studying this and watching it on stage and, to a lesser degree, watching it on the box.  The sheer range of improbable characters exisiting in the same space is beyond my tiny little mind and I just know I could never write like this guy.  The timing of the play in the 90s amidst the AIDs crisis caused controversy but essentially asked what Community meant to the audience and what it is to be essentially isolated from everything.  The scenes in the Arctic make me happy.

3. ‘Trainspotting’ adapted by Harry Gibson

I had the pleasure of watching this stage adaptation when I was 13.  Pretty influential stuff for a shelteredcountry bumpkin girl.  The whole set was just a really really dirty mattress and a few needles strewn around the stage.  The pace was furious and we all got totally sucked in.  There has never been a quieter bus of schoolgirls travelling back home all slightly warped of an evening.

4. ‘Alegria‘ – Cirque de Soleil

This is the first Cirque de Soleil show I saw and what srtuck me most was the live music.  It told more of a story than the slightly flimsy story woven between the circus acts.  The made up lingo and lilt of their voices sounds beautiful to me and I often write along to the Cirque de Soleil soundtrack.

5. Cats/Old Possums Book of Practical Cats – Andrew Lloyd Webber/T S Eliot

I’ve hidden this one at the end of my list.  It is my all time favourite theatrical experience and one of the first things I ever saw.  Just makes me feel happy and I don’t have to think about plot lines or themes or anything with this one.  That ties in with why it’s bottom of my list though.  I was ridiculed at University for loving anything musical shaped as it wasn’t considered serious enough to be ‘good’.  Elaine Paige hits a note in ‘Memory’ (Ed would be able to say which it is but I have no technical clue) that makes me want to sing with all my heart.

First blog…DONE