tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-116337932008-06-25T10:26:47.937+01:00Ben Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16654820455368893078noreply@blogger.comBlogger222125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633793.post-47760979714649351062008-06-25T09:49:00.004+01:002008-06-25T10:26:47.976+01:00

Now this interests me. Michael Billington gave Anthony Neilson's production at the Royal Court a bit of a mugging last week. Neilson's taken the opportunity to respond (article here), taking issue with the play-as-thesis approach to communicating about theatre: A play-as-thesis is by nature reductive, an attempt to bring order to the unruliness of existence. But bringing order is the business of

Ben Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16654820455368893078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633793.post-55733730594783390132008-06-24T10:04:00.003+01:002008-06-24T10:18:40.585+01:00

Slavoj Zizek's latest tome, In Defence of Lost Causes, is out in hardback, which means that I will be reading selected passages in over twenty bookstores over the next six months while wondering if I should or ought or can. The thing is, he's calling for a return to the emancipatory fight for universal values. Having gone through university in the '90s, helping to campaign for niches of being

Ben Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16654820455368893078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633793.post-52603371643538809872008-06-20T08:55:00.000+01:002008-06-20T08:55:16.899+01:00

Performance anxiety. I remember when I did my grade 2 piano exam. It was held in a church hall in Warragul, a town that is about 100km east of Melbourne. The examiner was a curly grey-haired woman, with slightly orange teeth, and seemed pleased with the first part of the test, where I went through some scales and chords. Not bad. But then it came to the recital bit, and the first of four

Ben Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16654820455368893078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633793.post-56520334682868798662008-06-17T12:34:00.008+01:002008-06-17T13:19:11.441+01:00

The British 10K Run takes place on Sunday July 6, and I've decided to do it and try to raise some funds for Diabetes UK's research fund at the same time. You can support my run via the PayPal donate button I've added to the site. Or this button here: Some of you might not know that I have type one diabetes. It is a condition that I have had since I was five - almost thirty years - and I

Ben Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16654820455368893078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633793.post-612790949823996282008-05-25T10:44:00.004+01:002008-05-25T10:51:44.993+01:00

Here's a little something from last night to cheer us all... One could say that all sorts of interesting symbolic processes are going in this song. After all, it is the captain who says, "pirates are all we can be." You could try relating that in a sort of Lacanian way to the Name of the Father, or shunting it into the Imaginary-Symbolic-Real triad that Zizek's always going on about. Or you

Ben Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16654820455368893078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633793.post-52724366379205239162008-05-15T10:09:00.004+01:002008-05-15T10:19:32.649+01:00

Yay for TheatreVoice: the event, Celebrating the Play, which I reported on below, was faithfully recorded in two parts. You can listen to it right now if you have the time; and you could even correct my original paraphrases for me, if so inclined. Just as important, Mark Brown makes a case on the TheatreVoice blog for political theatre that is political in its handling of metaphor, rather than

Ben Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16654820455368893078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633793.post-56561049776146852008-05-11T11:21:00.005+01:002008-05-11T11:43:46.438+01:00

Further evidence published today of the depravity of the Iraq war: attacks on artists. Singer Muthana al-Jaffar, 37, from Baghdad, said: 'The government is not giving us any protection. I witnessed two of my friends being killed for singing western songs at weddings.' This is where the process (or lack) of planning for the war and its aftermath plays out. The effort that went into the lies and

Ben Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16654820455368893078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633793.post-70563841659798090452008-05-07T22:18:00.003+01:002008-05-07T23:28:58.502+01:00

It's the centennial of the Society of London Theatre this year, the society that more or less represents Official London Theatre in the West End. And they've chosen today to kick off some celebrations - involving talks, debates and Q&As. If you're a theatre junkie, that's actually quite a bit more appetising than it might otherwise sound. Somehow I made it onto the invitation list - as a blogger

Ben Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16654820455368893078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633793.post-71751077905967299172008-04-24T18:54:00.000+01:002008-04-24T18:54:12.985+01:00

A couple of things that you might want to look at. First is the American Theatre Wing website in general and the hour-long interview with some of the Steppenwolf Ensemble regarding August: Osage County in particular. (Click on American Theatre Wing here.) Skip across the Pacific via the Guardian, and Alison Croggon sums up her 2020 summit experience. Contemplating why I have a small (not

Ben Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16654820455368893078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633793.post-23565086039492331892008-04-08T17:55:00.004+01:002008-04-08T18:39:50.883+01:00

April is not necessarily the cruellest month, even with my birthday plonked in the middle of it and with Boris Johnson running strongly in the London mayoral election polls. I've been temping quite a bit lately and have now come up for breath. One of the positive things I'm pouring my own body's CO2 emissions into is a project with the Bush Theatre, working with four other playwrights. It's part

Ben Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16654820455368893078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633793.post-75054743399338472532008-03-06T18:38:00.000Z2008-03-06T18:38:59.876Z

"[I]f the butter of common national values is spread too thinly it will disappear altogether" - John Howard, praising Reagan and Thatcher in a recent speech. Well, I don't know about my national values, but he's got my stomach churning again. I've got a theory. The man has been dead for several years already and he's undead. He's the embodiment of resurrecting decayed morality and a deceased

Ben Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16654820455368893078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633793.post-9704370712922699772008-02-29T08:51:00.001Z2008-02-29T08:52:10.689Z

To my enormous surprise, according to the press agencies that the Age relies upon, the Taleban does NOT rely upon New Idea for its military intelligence.

Ben Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16654820455368893078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633793.post-34325019693433529532008-02-28T13:50:00.000Z2008-02-28T13:50:17.096Z

LRB · John Lanchester: Riots, Terrorism etc John Lanchester writes, engagingly as ever, of Nick Davies's Flat Earth News in the latest LRB. Having returned from a recent trip to Australia via long-ish stopovers in Tokyo and Singapore, I can say that I'm now jet-laggingly familiar with news stations like CNN and BBC World and would add that television news is no longer news, but seems to fall into

Ben Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16654820455368893078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633793.post-51265705473002869432008-01-09T11:07:00.000Z2008-01-09T11:14:43.276Z

Two entirely unrelated things today. The first - a blog written by playwright Christine Evans, writing as an expat from the US, with plenty of insights into her process and thinking. I feel silly for not having taken notice sooner. You'll find lots to agree and to disagree with, and I like in particular her wondering about "how Beckett or Ionesco or for that matter, Sarah Kane or Howard Barker

Ben Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16654820455368893078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633793.post-20243560380005106922008-01-04T14:55:00.000Z2008-01-07T16:52:01.216Z

** UPDATE 7/1 - you can help try to save the Bush Theatre by signing their on-line petition at www.bushtheatre.co.uk before January 15. Worth a visit even if you're not sure ** Welcome back. Hope you all had restful holidays and rituals. I spent parts of my December in Tallinn, Estonia and in County Wicklow, south of Dublin, variations of white and green. Not the sort of places I wanted to blog

Ben Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16654820455368893078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633793.post-45966403516555604032007-11-30T18:27:00.001Z2007-11-30T18:39:16.753Z

You have to earn a crust somehow. This little blighter entertains me when I'm pounding the keys at home. Finished writing my November play, only to fall 5 pages short of the target for Nawriplmo (75 US Letter pages). No matter. I've wanted to have my own go at a Woyzeck-inspired structure for sometime now, and having a "write a play in a month" festival was a great way of getting me to apply my

Ben Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16654820455368893078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633793.post-25657763460369542202007-11-16T18:06:00.000Z2007-11-16T18:21:37.677Z

David Eldridge posts his response to Michael Billington's new book, State of the Nation. After reading some of the to-ing and fro-ing in certain other UK blogs about form and content, I have to say that I'm with David on point 3 of his response. In the history of theatre-making, you could have had a group without a playwright explore sexuality in the 1970s for weeks and come up with an

Ben Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16654820455368893078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633793.post-21633613328256555282007-11-16T09:11:00.000Z2007-11-16T09:25:48.724Z

It's not really play-related, but this has given me more hope for the world than just about anything else I've read in the last few days. The headline? Xenophobia destroys EU's ultra-rightwing MEP group (from The Guardian). Racist fascism has a very limited capacity to be unifying force by definition, I suppose. Nice to see the supposition in action. As for me, been struck by a particularly

Ben Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16654820455368893078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633793.post-59361499928281987622007-11-09T16:32:00.000Z2007-11-09T16:34:22.811Z

Source: theage.com.au

Ben Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16654820455368893078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633793.post-59000178948008411772007-11-08T08:39:00.000Z2007-11-08T08:43:58.745Z

... when I grow up, I want to be Slavoj Zizek: Today's Left reacts in a wide variety of ways to the hegemony of global capitalism and its political supplement, liberal democracy. [...] [For example,] it recognises the temporary futility of the struggle. In today’s triumph of global capitalism, the argument goes, true resistance is not possible, so all we can do till the revolutionary spirit of

Ben Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16654820455368893078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633793.post-23790047564010546142007-10-31T18:17:00.000Z2007-10-31T18:51:41.780Z

On this very topic I've been highlighted in a Guardian theatre blog by Kelly Nestruck. Goodness, I had no idea that I came up that high on Google searches for playwriting blogs. I know from the stats counter that I get a lot of people who've been looking for pictures of Nicholas Sarkozy or things to do with parachutes. To those who don't care for Sarkozy or parachutes - or in fact care more for

Ben Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16654820455368893078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633793.post-8964293077356133032007-10-30T16:41:00.001Z2007-10-30T16:44:26.679Z

Labor's own Macbeth takes time out to campaign in Sydney yesterday. (For non-Australian readers, this man used to be our elected head of government.)

Ben Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16654820455368893078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633793.post-85448484900514008782007-10-29T11:06:00.000Z2007-10-29T11:21:38.097Z

The Final Shot finished its amazing and very successful run at Theatre503 on Saturday night. I don't think I've ever been held responsible for making so many people cry before. (Is that what maturing as a playwright is all about?) As much as some wonderful reviewers would like us to transfer, it's hard for me to see it happening without 'enhancing' it into a farce or a bit of a sing-a-long. Given

Ben Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16654820455368893078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633793.post-5459813966792518222007-10-29T10:57:00.000Z2007-10-29T11:06:22.951Z

Here's an interesting review in Eureka Street of a new book by Hilary Glow about politics in Australian playwriting. The book, Power Plays, features analysis of works by Hannie Rayson, Wesley Enoch, Andrew Bovell, Patricia Cornelius, Reg Cribb, Katherine Thomson, Stephen Sewell and, er... me. Having read the book just recently, one of the really interesting features is the way Hilary manages,

Ben Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16654820455368893078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11633793.post-89406425046268514182007-10-26T12:06:00.000+01:002007-10-26T12:13:42.262+01:00

I would love to be able to begin a post one day that reads, "We here at Parachute...", but I can't as there's only one of me. But there are two of the West End Whingers, and they have been very nice to me as well as reviewed The Final Shot. I blush. If you're in London and you're thinking about catching one of the final two performances, call up and reserve a seat for tonight or tomorrow. We've

Ben Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16654820455368893078noreply@blogger.com