State of the Play

By Roger Hall

Peter Dingwall, a once successful playwright, is running a weekend course on the art of writing plays. Five - the minimum number for a course - aspiring playwrights gather with varying degrees of enthusiasm and expectation for his class in this little country town. Clare, a housewife, ambitious for social as much as artistic reason; Brian, the wisecracking dentist; Margaret, whose bout with polio twenty years ago has left her in a wheelchair; David, a secondary school teacher of English and Neil - abrasive, sure of himself and a surprising choreographer! They have all been asked to come prepared with a piece written about their fathers and to read this aloud to the rest of the group. From this exercise, and others over the weekend we learn the legacy each has struggled to live with - a theme which is central to the plot.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Victoria University Press
• Release date: Apr 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9780864737809

Roger Hall

Roger Hall, a free-lance writer, editor, and novelist, lives in Delaware.

Book preview

ROGER HALL

STATE OF THE PLAY

A work written during the writer’s tenure of the Robert Burns Fellowship in the University of Otago

STATE OF THE PLAY

Roger Hall

Price Milburn

for

Victoria University Press

Contents

Title Page

Dedication

First performance

Characters

State of the Play

The Transvestite Sequence in Scene Three; by Roger Hall, Anthony Taylor and David  Carnegie

Hallmarked—Roger Hall’s Three Comedies, by  Ian Fraser

By the Same Author

Copyright

For my Father—who was never like Dingwall’s

First Performance

STATE OF THE PLAY

was first presented by Downstage Theatre, Wellington, on 8 June 1978 with the following cast: 

PETER DINGWALL

Peter Vere-Jones

DAVE HEDGES

Ray Henwood

CLARE WATSON

 Penny Downie

MARGARET JENNER

 Anne Budd

BRIAN MARSHALL

 Stephen Gledhill

NEIL PETERSON

 Michael McGrath

Directed by Anthony Taylor

Set designed by Paul Shirriffs

Costumes designed by Trish Tennent

Lighting designed by Malcolm Savage

Characters

PETER DINGWALL

. Forty-five to fifty-five. He was once a successful playwright, but hasn’t written anything for some years. He runs the weekend course with very little enthusiasm, having done it too many other times to expect anything fresh to emerge.

DAVE HEDGES.

In his fifties. A secondary school teacher of English. He loves the subject but is unable to convey this love to his pupils. He is on the verge of giving up caring, and his clothes indicate that he no longer pays much attention to his appearance.

CLARE WATSON.

Twenty-five to thirty-five. She is an attractive, smartly dressed housewife, ambitious for social as much as for artistic reasons.

MARGARET JENNER.

Thirty-five. Polio, from which she suffered twenty years previously, has left her in a wheel chair, but she still leads an active life and has a great many interests.

BRIAN MARSHALL.

Thirties to forties. He is a smartly dressed dentist. His weak jokes quickly become infuriating, but reproof makes him sulk.

NEIL PETERSON.

Twenty or twenty-two. He dresses in rather striking clothes, including a long scarf. Being both sensitive and knowledgeable about theatre, he quickly senses Dingwall’s weariness, and for the most part is cynical about the weekend course.

The Play

The action is set in the classroom of a secondary school in a small town. 

State of the Play

Scene One

Music: Dan Hill’s Sometimes When We Touch.

Friday evening.

The classroom of a secondary school in a small town. On the walls are posters of Jane Austen, Trollope, Oscar Wilde, Shaw, Keats and Dickens. Each poster shows a picture with a descriptive text underneath. The classroom desks are arranged roughly in rows but many are askew. Near the teacher’s desk is a mat with a paper dart lying on it. Fixed to the wall is a blackboard with some set work in English on it. PLEASE LEAVE is written beside it. In one corner is a record player.

PETER DINGWALL

enters, turns on the light and moves to the teacher’s desk. He looks around the room with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm. Finding some chalk, he begins to write up on an easel blackboard a list of topics:

Exposition

Characterisation

Construction

Theme

Dialogue

DAVE

enters. He is in his fifties, dressed in an old sports coat and corduroys—a man who doesn’t take much care with his appearance. He looks well worn, and is now both slightly harrassed and embarrassed.

DAVE

: Got everything you want?

DINGWALL

: Seem to have.

DAVE

starts to stack and arrange desks and chairs.

DAVE

: The others won’t be long. I said seven prompt.

DINGWALL

: How many signed up?

DAVE

doesn’t answer for a moment. He then sees DINGWALL

is still waiting.

DAVE

: Embarrassed . Four.

DINGWALL

: Four!

DAVE

: Five. Er … look, I’m not sure I did the right thing. I … er enrolled myself—to make up the minimum number. On reflection, you might have preferred me to wipe it altogether.

DINGWALL:

Four!

DAVE:

I thought there’d be a lot more. With your name and everything.

DINGWALL

: Tch, that’s showbiz.

DAVE

begins arranging five desks and chairs.

DAVE

: I’m sorry if you’d rather have cancelled it … I didn’t know what to do.

DINGWALL:

Doesn’t matter. It’s the last time I’ll be doing this anyway.

DAVE

: Is it?

DINGWALL

: Probably.

By now

DINGWALL

has added to his list on the board:

Tension

The dramatic entrance

Climax

When he has finished, he stands back and notices a paper dart at his feet. He picks it up, unfolds it and reads what’s on it.

DINGWALL:

Who’s Pisspot?

DAVE

stops and stares at him, wondering where the information came from; then he sees the dart and understands. He shrugs, and carries on setting out the desks.

DINGWALL

: So you’re not in the budding playwright category?

DAVE

: No.

DINGWALL:

Well, it’s never too late. Neither Shaw nor Chekhov wrote their first play till they were thirty-six.

DAVE:

I know.

DINGWALL

: So you never know.

DAVE:

Thirty-six. Keats had been dead for ten years. I’ll go and get the roll.

DAVE

goes out.

DINGWALL

gets out a whole lot of notes from his briefcase and dumps them on the teacher’s desk. He looks at them and sighs. He sits down at one of the desks,

CLARE

enters. She is an attractive woman in her late twenties or early thirties. She is well dressed, slightly better dressed, in fact, than the occasion demands.

CLARE

: I know you’re Peter Dingwall, so this must be the right place. I’m Clare Watson.

DINGWALL

: Getting to his feet . How do you do?

CLARE

: Looking round the room. Still killing kids’ interest in literature for life, I see.

DINGWALL

: Somebody has to do it.

CLARE

gets out a cigarette, then offers

DINGWALL

one.

DINGWALL

: Thanks. She lights his cigarette . Thanks.

CLARE

: I’ve enjoyed your plays. Over the years.

DINGWALL

: Thank you.

CLARE:

It’s a long time since the last one—it’s time you wrote another.

DINGWALL

: So I’m told.

CLARE

: Is there another on the way?

DINGWALL

: Oh there’s always another one on the way.

CLARE

: You sound like a Catholic housewife. It must be a marvellous life, writing. Doing what you want. Meeting people. Travel.

DINGWALL:

Utter loneliness while you work. Weekends in places like this,

CLARE

is a bit hurt by the last comment.

She moves off to walk around.

DINGWALL

: And what brings you to this course?

CLARE

: With a shrug . Interest. She peers at the desk and reads the graffiti. Only 365 days till this time next year. I’d like to write a play of course.

DINGWALL

: Every housewife’s dream. Once they’ve realised the dwindling market for short stories and had half a dozen poems rejected. Reads from the desk . "Help stamp