At first the process of editing the play seemed daunting, as not only would I have to change the language of the play, but also I would have to cut scenes to ensure our play ran between forty-five minutes to an hour. I also had to add devised scenes and add verbatim at appropriate points of the play. To begin, I read the play through, in it’s entirety.  I read the directors notes, which were directions as to what scenes were important and which weren’t, as well as which parts of scenes needed to be kept. As I read through the play, I added notes for myself regarding what the scene showed, why it was important for Fallout and how this could be adapted to be important for our group’s purposes.

I made a lot of decisions regarding our final edit of the script. Through the process of writing I would often upload drafts of the script onto the WAKEUP Facebook group, asking the company member’s opinions of how the script had been edited. I took on board the feedback I received from all company members, especially the director and dramaturge as they would be the last port of call before the script would be sent to all cast members. However the majority of the creative decisions were mine in regards to the script.

As I began to type up the play, I first focused on adapting the language from the Carribbean dialect in which Fallout had been written. This was simple for some parts of the play, an example being the use of the word ‘bwoi’ or ‘dread’ which I altered to ‘mate’ or constructed the sentence without the use. However, some lines required me to do research to understand their meaning, an example being the line said by Emile ‘Come like her bwoi, well, he find out, innit’ (Williams, 2003), which was edited into ‘She’s like him. She’ll get it too’ (WAKEUP, 2013, p.14).

It was a long process of going through the play line by line and distinguishing which lines were significant for our purposes of portraying the impacts of knife crime whilst merely suggesting racism and injustice, as we had decided that the focus of the play would be on the actual act itself. I also had to make decisions as to where verbatim would fit. The dramaturg would send me extracts of verbatim fro the Stephen Lawrence and Damiola Taylor trial transcripts and it would be my decisions as to where to to places the extracts.

I also devised scenes and speeches which were discussed with the director to emphasise certain messages which the theatre company wanted to highlight. These scenes included a scene between a middle class couple discussing a knife attack they had seen on television, a speech introducing Kwame, the victim of the play, a speech where Ronnie admits to what she saw and a final scene suggesting a possible reason as to why Kwame was murdered.

In regards to the final edit of the script, it will be the directors decision as to whether certain scenes are kept, and also if lines are not being delivered as effectively as they should be, certain lines may be further edited to ensure that the message of the play is appropriately clear.

 

Works Cited

Williams, R. (2003) Fallout, London: Bloomsbury