Mike and Virginia co-playwright Nick Ward talks to drama on the waterfront about preparing the runway for ideas and the experience of writing with Kathryn Burnett.
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| Nick Ward. |
“Where do you get your ideas from?” That is the question that every
writer dreads. Well, this writer dreads it anyway. It’s not because I’m afraid
of giving away my trade secret, not at all. I fear this question because I
don’t have an answer. Ideas seem to spring out of the ether - it’s the closest
thing I know to real magic.
Many years ago I remember hearing a very successful writer speak and he
said he never has any ideas, he simply spends all his time preparing a runway
for the ideas to land. At the time I thought he was just giving us a glib
answer. However in my main years as a proper writer I have come to believe him.
You have to ensure that runway lights are on and ground staff are in position -
all in the hope that, out of the blue, an idea will arrive.
You have to be open to ideas. In the case of Mike and Virginia, Kathryn
Burnett and I didn’t have clue that there was a story was circling, waiting to
touch down. The concept for the play started when we were taking a long car
journey. Confined together in a small space with no chance to escape the
interior of the car was either going to become an incubator or a bloodbath.
With Kath and I it’s always a bit of both but with a healthy amount of laughter
thrown in for good measure.
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| Kathryn Burnett |
On this particular journey we started having a conversation about our
students as we were both teaching screenwriting at the time. I was convinced my
students worshipped me (how could they not) and Kathryn was equally certain her
students adored her (doubtful). This quickly turned into a hilarious
argument and by the end of the journey we both looked at each other and said -
there’s a story in this.
So
were born Mike and Virginia, two film studies lecturers who hate each other and
then the worse possible thing happens - they fall in love. It’s a romantic
comedy about romantic comedies, so it gives us the chance to explore and
deconstruct the way romantic comedies work and have a fun time doing it.
Honestly we were laughing until we cried some days working on this show. However
there’s always a fear that we might be having more fun writing the play than
the audience will have watching it.
We
needn’t have worried. On the first read-through of Mike and Virginia we found
ourselves surrounded by smiling faces, belly laughs and a few bittersweet
tears. Our journey that started with a funny squabble in a car ended with a
very happy audience. Ironically on closing night of the play’s first run a
young woman approached me and asked me where Kathryn and I get our ideas from.
For the first time in my life I had a firm answer to that question. I smiled
and replied “We get them from being locked in a car.”
Mike and Virginia
23 March −
20 April
Tues – Sat 7.30pm and Sun 4.30pm (no show Mon)
Circa Two, 1 Taranaki St, Wellington
BOOKINGS: www.circa.co.nz or 04 801 7992
TICKETS: $46/38/25
$25 preview Fri 22 March and Sun 24 March
Tues – Sat 7.30pm and Sun 4.30pm (no show Mon)
Circa Two, 1 Taranaki St, Wellington
BOOKINGS: www.circa.co.nz or 04 801 7992
TICKETS: $46/38/25
$25 preview Fri 22 March and Sun 24 March
Mike and Virginia is a fast-moving romp of a play
from two of New Zealand's busiest screenwriters. Kathryn
Burnett (The Strip; Amazing Extraordinary Friends; The Cult) and Nick
Ward (Stickmen, Second Hand Wedding and Love Birds) who have set out
to explore and subvert every romantic comedy convention in the book resulting
in a love story that is smart, funny and surprisingly tender.
Starring
Will Hall, Gentiane Lupi, Jennifer Martin, Stephen Papps and Perry Piercy
