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Absurd Person Singular Quotes By Alan Ayckbourn |
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"In Absurd Person Singular I've tried
to explore people a little more, and at the same time to cut back some of
the high jinks. When I'd written it someone said 'What's the second act? ' I
said ' It's about a woman committing suicide'. But it's a farce situation
because nobody knows that she is. She puts her head in the oven and they
think she's trying to clean it. And they're all trying to help, and all for
the wrong reasons. You have to be careful if you're going to write about
suicide, but it's funny if you see why they're doing it, and feel sorry for
them. One of the great touchstones for me is whether I feel for them. I've
got at least to love them while I'm writing them, and understand why they're
like they are."
Regarding the Broadway production of the play: "They [the producers] had this idea that it should have a guaranteed number of laughs, and they had two men sitting in the house, counting them. The laughs. No, really - and they got in touch with me and said, "There are 92 laughs in the first act and 75 in the second, but only 51 in the third. What do you make of this?" I said, "Well, I make out that the third act is not as funny as the first." And they said, "What are you going to do about it?" And I said, "It's not supposed to be as funny, so if they're not getting laughs, I must come over and congratulate the cast." * (The Washington Star, 22 February 1976) * To find out more about the Broadway production of Absurd Person Singular and the laugh-count saga, click here.
"Sidney is the hero of Absurd Person Singular in the sense that he's the central link in the plays. I have certainly not written him as contemptible as I feel that this was to impose a view on a character who should be allowed to speak and if necessary condemn himself out of his own mouth. The play does indeed make the point that, in contemporary society, the really determined and ruthless man will succeed where other nicer and probably less profit-motivated people won't. Practically all the other characters have the virtue of feeling (although Ronald has totally opted out of anything). Marion cares, Geoffrey is weak and vain but ultimately has a few rather feeble liberal views and Eva feels. Certainly Sidney's way is the way to worldly success. But not much else. But then a man like Sidney wouldn't realise that there was anything else." (Personal correspondence, March 1976)
"I like to have a problem, because I think it
takes care of one aspect of the play. Take Absurd Person Singular. I
had the theme of the ascendancy of one couple and the decline of the other
two, set it in the sitting room, started off as normal, and I think in terms
of content it was quite interesting - you know, I'd got the couples sketched
rather well. But there was an edge missing off it, and by transferring it
into the kitchens - setting it backstage, as it were - one got an additional
angle on it, which made it much more interesting. I think it lifted it from
being a reasonable play into a better play. I do like to charge things.
People assume that theatre is a very good medium just for people sitting
down and discussing. Having worked in theatre, as a theatre person all my
life, I do love to make use of the medium."
"Dramatically, Eva's suicide scene is one of my first experiments in the use of dramatic counterpoint, i.e. using a deeply serious action against a background of comic events (or is it the other way around?) Both serving to strengthen the other but hopefully neither selling the other short. Jane is just as serious about cleaning her oven as Eva is to commit suicide. It's all a question of priorities." (Personal correspondence, 14 February 1987)
"I started by setting it in a sitting room,
but it got desperately boring very quickly."
"It was originally intended as a slightly
veiled attack on the get-rich-quick society which has got even worse since
then. It seems even more relevant today that it did when I first wrote it."
"Offstage characters often add depth to a play - it's like a perspective device in painting. Dick and Lottie helped enlarge the world of Sidney and Jane - not just in the first act but throughout the play. Even in Act III, though absent, they've managed to steal Ronald and Marion's sons away (Well, they probably went willingly!)" (Personal correspondence, 23 January 1996)
"I wanted to write about the fact we can never take anything for granted. That fortunes do change rapidly, that the dedicated fiercely ambitious money-maker who eschews any form of emotional tie (Sidney) can usually make it over the rest of his kind, weighed down as they are by the baggage of emotional involvement. I leave the audience to judge which is preferable." (Personal correspondence, 23 January 1996)
"My late agent, the great eccentric Peggy
Ramsay, hated me writing plays set at Christmas. 'Oh Alan,' she'd say, 'not
another bloody Christmas play.' But I'd explain to her that Christmas was a
gift to a dramatist. You're always looking for a reason to stick a group of
people together who can't stand each other, aren't you? Dinner parties are
good, but what better time than Christmas? You've got three days together
and there's always bound to be at least a cousin no one can stand. I've seen
it at my own Christmases - two relatives arguing bitterly over who should
sit in which chair."
"We were in a lift up to Michael Codron’s
office and I suddenly said ‘Absurd Person Singular. That’s a good
title.’ I hadn’t got a play! And then I wrote a play a couple of years later
and thought: this is Absurd Person Singular."
“I’m really showing how sad it is that people can try to be nice and that it sometimes doesn’t work. I’m saying that a lot of the worst things that happen in life are the result of well-meaning actions.” (Personal correspondence)
“Despite its enormously long running time that [first] night – I think our technical staff were stretched to their limits creating three kitchens on the first floor of a library – it remains one of the most successful first performances of mine that I’ve ever not sat through. It was, I suppose, particularly satisfying because it was the first time I’d ever had the courage, as a writer, to weave some slightly darker threads in amongst the comic tapestries. In fact, the first time I allowed the characters their own destinies rather than like, say, the puppet master I’d been in Relatively Speaking to dictate their destinies. It’s ironic in retrospect that having voluntarily given up that role as a writer, I handed it to one of the characters, Sidney Hopcroft. “The play also contains two of my own personal favourite offstage characters, Dick & Lottie Potter. I always feel that whatever criticisms may be levelled at me now and in years to come, in my defence I can say that at least I left the Potters in the wings. This was not always the case. When I first started the play it was intended that it should be set in the sitting rooms of the three households. After only a few pages, along with the rest of my characters, I fled to the kitchen in order to escape the awful Potters.” (Source to be confirmed)
All quotes on this page are copyright of Alan Ayckbourn and should not be reprinted in any form without permission |
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