Interview with a writer - Tin & Fishes

Had a wonderful opportunity to meet the author of the play I have been working on with the Level 3 students 

 'Tin and Fishes' 

A Play for Voices, by Pauline Sheppard.

This is what she said:

Began writing for women's magazines in the 1970s.  
Set up a theatre company in 1976 in St. Ives.
Began adapting classic stories and found her 'voice'.


Started to write about Cornwall.  Initially mixed with artists of various kinds and then began to get to know the 'real' people - farmers, scrapyard workers, drunks - aka REAL people!  Found what she wanted to say through writing about Cornish people.


Influenced by the socio-political style of Steinbeck.


The play originated from a Short Story.  It was based around a family:  Matthew, an unemployed redundant and dying miner; Lizzie, his long-suffering wife; Susie, their daughter who went away, but is returning to have her baby in Cornwall.  


The characters are a mixture of the people Pauline met in researching this play.  There is quite a lot of herself in the play, despite the fact that she does not originate from Cornwall.  Research included interviews, visiting old tin mines (Geevor), Looking through archives of 'The Cornishman' newspapers, watching footage about the Maggie Thatcher days and the closing of the tin mines.  The newspapers revealed far more than just 'news' - they gave her names of local shops, prices of things, particularly the prices of tickets from St Just, that took passengers on liners to 'anywhere in the world - even America'.  


The play shifts between time zones - memoir, flashback, present day - as a play for voices, this is liberating, but it makes it more difficult as a stage play because of the set and costumes changes necessary.


The students I have been working with for the Autumn term are semi performing the show at The Acorn on 9th December 2009.  Semi, in that they have minimal props and costumes.  The play will be acted and moved, but all the actors will remain on stage, seated on stools throughout.  Most students play more than 1 character, and some have huge chunks of script to learn.  They are doing a shorter version of the original play - between 15-20 minutes.  They have also written songs based on the play, which they will perform, along with a dance piece that I have also worked on with them.  It has been based on gestural work, originating from direct quotations from the script and given motifs that resemble tin mining and fishing.   


This is all part of the Creative & Media unit entitled 'CAPTURE'.  As well as being filmed, the students will record the play as a radio play in order to meet the criteria of this unit.