The Great Acting Blog: “Good Actors Are Incredibly Creative And Generous”
Maggie Clune is a playwright. In this Q and A, she talks about the process of workshopping her new play, Hangman, with a company of actors.
TGAB: Tell us a little bit about Hangman….
MC: Hangman is a play based on a true story about the State executioner John Ellis, who was hangman in England from 1901 to 1924. Ask most people to name a hangman and of the few who do, most would name Albert Pierrepoint, who hanged Ruth Ellis in the 1960s. But John Ellis was caught up in another cause celebre back in the 1920s when, at the end of his career, he was the executioner responsible for the hanging of Edith Thompson.
Mrs Thomspon’s husband was stabbed to death by her lover Freddie Bywaters, but Edith Thompson was hanged for the crime. Her court case was a sensation and her plight aroused huge waves of hostility and pity. A million people signed a petition to have her spared the death sentence, but in January 1924 she was hanged by Ellis.
Mystery still surrounds the exact events that took place that day, and my play addresses some of the myths and puts forward the most likely scenario. Her case became a campaign story in the subsequent calls to end capital punishment in the UK.
I am always nonplussed by the idea that people fret about what grisly events regarding Thompson’s hanging are being kept secret, without considering that maybe the act itself was pretty repugnant, whatever the guilty person’s crime. And let’s not forget that Edith didn’t actually wield the knife herself: she was hanged for driving a man to murder through passion – and for being a “shameless” adulteress.
But my play, while it involves the Thompson case, is really about the “psyche” of the hangman. The various criminal history books focus on the facts gathered about the exeuctions, but little time is wasted on the people involved in carrying out the execution, beyond the sharing of a few basic facts.
I came across a seemingly ghost-written autobiography by John Ellis, in which he relates the details of some of his more “famous” commissions. But he doesn’t give much away about his own feelings – and this is a man who ended up killing himself in a most horrific way.Another little fact gave me the idea of the play itself: After retiring from his post as executioner, John Ellis appeared in a play in Gravesend in 1927, playing a hangman. The melodrama, which he is believed to have bankrolled, gained a certain notoriety but was a dismal flop in the end. What on earth drove Ellis to put himself in the limelight in this way? My play is therefore set backstage, draws together the history of Ellis’s bizarre and ultimately tragic career, and is an imagined investigation of what it might mean to carry out legalised killing on behalf of the State.Researching the period detail was huge fun (I fell in love with the Jazz age music, the fashion and the world of silent movies on the eve of the arrival of the talkies in 1927), and I even got to carry out a bit of detective work, trawling the National Archives for details of Ellis’s involvement in Edith Thompson’s execution. The case files on Thompson’s trial and execution are officially closed till 2023, but there are tell-tale clues about what happened in the Archives.
The play has six characters – Ellis and five people who, for their own reasons, want to know what is going on in his head – his wife, the actors he’s working with, a local journalist and Edith Thompson herself, whose memory torments him in his quiet moments.
TGAB: Why did you take that route? What did the workshops entail? What impact did they have on the play?
I was encouraged enough by the reaction to crack on with the script, which was enlarged and went through various changes (different characters, different plot developments, different scenarios) until I had a six-character, two act play of 100 minutes. Then, with the help of some really fantastic people – Russell Floyd, Samantha Bolter, Duncan Henderson, Jolie Booth, Tom Dussek, Peta Taylor, Emily Gallichan, Tim Blissett, Martin Nichols – I stood the whole thing up for friends. We added music, effects, costume, just to get a sense of how the script could potentially work as a complete piece. This was truly invaluable. I could see plainly what worked, and what didn’t. The result, several further drafts later, is a much tighter, more focused piece of work. Most important of all, I feel, was that as a new playwright I was hugely encouraged and supported by my actors – who both performed and served as a critical audience. The workshop process gave me the confidence to push on and keep rewriting. It was an inspirational process.
TGAB: How much do you think about the actors while writing?
MC: I trained and worked as an actor for eight years – so I tend to think like an actor. I can hear and visualise characters quite clearly and their voices become very distinct in my head. Of course, characters have to work in tandem with plot, themes, structure etc, but I am fundamentally driven by two things – a good strong story and characters. Anything else that comes out is probably part of an unconscious process which for me is really interesting. You end up thinking: “Wow is that what I truly believe, or feel?”
I love working with actors. The rehearsal process for me is what it’s all about – building and creating something new, watching it evolve. Good actors are incredibly creative and generous. It’s a huge compliment to see someone pick up what you’ve created on the page and make it their own. You see new things in your work all the time as a result. The actors who’ve supported Hangman were also great for challenging me on dialogue, down to single words!
The process would not have been possible either without the support of our director Martin Nichols, who really pushed me in the writing. His positive attitude really helped me to raise my game.
It is my play, my idea and my writing – but in producing this first script I’ve learned a lot. The creative process should be a collaborative one – my actors and director have helped me to learn a little bit of creative humility, to be open to different ideas and to be prepared to let go of cherished old ideas along the way.
I can’t wait to do it all again!
TGAB: That’s great Maggie. Many thanks!
Maggie is currently running a Kickstarter campaign in order to raise funds for a performed reading of Hangman at the Tristan Bates Theatre. Check-out the campaign here.
