By Dalya Alberge, Arts Correspondent
A TRAINEE teacher followed in the footsteps of Tom Stoppard and Edward Bond yesterday by winning one of the most coveted theatre writing awards in Britain — for a play that was turned down by every theatre in London.
For the first time in the competition’s 38-year history, the prize has gone to an unproduced play, eclipsing dramas by some of the country’s most established playwrights.
Fin Kennedy, 29, who teaches play-writing to teenagers in youth clubs in inner-city London, is the 2006 winner of the Arts Council England’s John Whiting Award, which recognises “excellence in theatre writing”.
The judges were so bowled over by the quality of his writing and his imagination, they were astonished to discover that theatres had repeatedly rejected his manuscript.
Theatre producers are now likely to beat a path to his door, offering to stage How to Disappear Completely and Never be Found — the story of a young executive who, reaching breaking point, decides to disappear.
Visiting a fortune-teller, the character is haunted by visitations from a pathologist who swears he is lying on her slab. He begins to relive the nightmarish final hours in which his body is retrieved from the Thames, stripped of everything that made him who he was.
Speaking to The Times, Kennedy recalled that theatres either turned it down or failed to respond. He said: “The play doesn’t fit the traditional mould. There’s a general lack of imagination in mainstream new writing houses in London. They tend to do quite traditional, plodding episodic naturalism — plays about people’s love lives which are really quite dull.”
Inspired by Albert Camus’ classic novel The Outsider, and “a streak of existentialism”, he split the structure into two “realities” so that the audience finds out near the start that the character is already dead. The theme is the different paths that our lives can take.
He said: “It seems to have puzzled a lot of people. One of the comments made was, ‘Is he alive or is he dead?’. That’s not the point. It’s a play about the nature of existence and reality. This is why awards are so important. They are not having to worry about balancing the books. They can take risks.”
He knows of “brilliant” playwrights who trained at Goldsmiths’ College, where he gained an MA in play-writing, who are not working: “It’s an indictment of the current commercial climate that such people are falling by the wayside.”
The rejection letters never dampened his spirits, but after “two long years in the wilderness, without any interest in my work”, he enrolled on a PGCE teacher-training course at the University of Greenwich.
Yesterday he deferred the second half of his course: “I’ve left it on the strength of this award because I want to invest the money [the £6,000 prize] in my career. I still envisage working in schools and colleges, but as a visiting play-writing specialist rather than a full-time teacher. The kids find that more exciting too.”
The award was established in 1965 by the Arts Council in commemoration of John Whiting, the playwright. It is given to a play that demonstrates “a distinctive development” in dramatic writing, with “relevance to contemporary society”.
HOW TO DISAPPEAR COMPLETELY AND NEVER BE FOUND
Charlie, an advertising executive, runs away from London and attempts to disappear because he is wanted for embezzlement.
Mike owns a fortune teller’s shop in Southend, which Charlie visits and which is a front for the work that Mike does in helping people to change their identities:
Mike: What makes you who you are, Charlie? A name? An address? A random collection of experiences, a few memories? The Government starts tracking you from the moment you are born. It knows what time of day you popped out, where you popped out, how much you weighed, your Mum and Dad’s names, where they were born, the name of your midwife, whether you were premature, late or bang on time.
When you enrolled in school the Government started tracking your family’s income, your medical history, your IQ, your ability to conform. When you were a teenager and too stupid to know any better, you filled in all their forms and took all their tests and willingly handed over all the information they asked for just so as you could drive or go to college or sign on.
Charlie Hunt is nothing more than a collection of pieces of paper. You learn how to supply the bureaucrats with all their little papers, stamps, cards and tracking numbers, and they’ll leave you in peace for the rest of your days, and instead hound someone who’s long ago ceased to exist.
You are who you can prove you are. You are what people think. And that’s the easiest thing in the world to change.
timesonline.co.uk © The Times 2006