Michael Lesslie on writing And Then The Dark
And
Then The Dark came about when Nick Frankfort and Tobias
Round at CMP Ltd commissioned me to write a contemporary scary
thriller that abided by the traditional rules of the genre – a
single set, a real-time narrative, a small number of characters and a
breakneck plot. We all agreed that these plays engage audiences in a
truly theatrical way by capitalising on their presence in the room,
establishing a claustrophobia from which the only escape is the final
curtain.
however, there seems to be a real dearth of them in contemporary
theatre – they are perhaps looked down on as “entertainments”.
I started researching the genre and became all the more excited to
see that its most successful examples – such as Gaslight
or Rope – aren’t just disposable nights out
but proper plays that distill the anxieties of the time of the time
in which they’re written and have flawed human characters at their
heart – they’re only scary, after all, if the audience can
empathise with the people in jeopardy.
What’s
more, the question central to so many of these plays – do ghosts
exist? – seems particularly pertinent to our sceptical generation,
in which a suffusion of information can preclude a faith in a world
beyond our own. If we can rationalise the universe around us, they
ask, why do we need to believe in a higher power? And if there is no
higher power, why must we try to be “good”?
So,
armed with these themes, I set about writing a tense, honest play
that was all the more exciting because it wrestled with big
questions. Most importantly, however, it had to be fun! When Peter
Rowe at the New Wolsey Theatre read the first draft, he agreed that
we had an opportunity to entertain audiences without pulling our
punches and we worked on the play to get it where it is today.
I
expect the script has changed over the course of rehearsals, as the
actors have taken ownership of their characters and found the
building rhythms of the story, so I’m extremely excited to see what
they’ve produced. I hope audiences are too!
