{"id":3857,"date":"2020-05-05T10:27:51","date_gmt":"2020-05-05T09:27:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/?p=3857"},"modified":"2020-06-18T22:27:32","modified_gmt":"2020-06-18T21:27:32","slug":"playwright-profile-will-harding-the-aesthete","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/?p=3857","title":{"rendered":"Playwright profile: Will Harding the aesthete"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

South African theatre does not have a strong literary tradition. Most of the work we see on our stages are workshopped or devised, which is a method at which we excel. But we do have our writers, very good ones. Playwrights are usually in the background, part of the framework supporting what we see and hear. We’ve decided to bring them to the fore.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Headshot
William Harding headshot. Photo by James Reynolds<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

If The Critter were to compile a list of the ten best plays we\u2019ve seen (which we won\u2019t), Tobacco, and the Harmful Effects Thereof<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>and Cenotaph for Dan wa Moriri<\/em><\/a> would undoubtedly be among them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nOn some days they might be right at the top, on others something else\ncomes to the fore, but they\u2019re always revolving on the playlist. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nI guess you have a tendency to remember the plays that made you weep,\nand then crackle with joy, which is what both these did. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They trace delicate arcs. ‘Tobacco’<\/em>, that of a mild man undone, and reassembling himself anew. ‘Cenotaph’<\/em> less linear, a personal elegy which blurs the transition to ritual, and all the finer for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThe writer of both is William\nHarding, who is young, educated, and enjoys delving into relatively\nobscure writings. He also gives credit where it is due.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u2018Tobacco\u2019<\/em> and \u2018Cenotaph\u2019<\/em> were \u201ccollaborative experiences\u201d, he says, having agreed to a Zoom interview. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nOn one level there was the\ncollaboration with past writers such as Chekov, Joyce, Kafka in the\nvoice, tone, style and approach of the writing, before it was handed\nto Sylvaine Strike, who directed it, and Toni Morkel and Andrew\nBuckland, who acted it. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nStrike, Morkel, Buckland shaped the adapted and spliced text into\nsomething Harding did not expect. Turning the lectern into a canoe\nopened up a new direction. Fresh ink had to be spilled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\u201cIt became more layered than I\ncould have managed,\u201d says Will. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nIt went on to tour South Africa and\nplayed at the Amsterdam Fringe as part of the Best of The Fringe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then \u2018Cenotaph\u2019<\/em> came about when Tony Miyambo and Gerard Bester approached him to create a text out of hours of interviews \u201cbetween the two of them\u201d, in which Miyambo speaks of his memories, and lack of memories, of his late father. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\u201cI was sent the transcripts and given free rein to do with them\nwhat inspired me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThere\u2019s the \u201cconfusion of memory\u201d, says Will. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt the time I was obsessed with the film Last Year in Marienbad<\/em>, a French film released in 1961 which won and Academy Award for best screenplay. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt influenced me in terms of what I thought could happen (with Cenotaph<\/em>). I had to stage memory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\u201cThe staging of memory: I think that\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Will talks about having to activate the desire to remember, and the inescapabeability of memory shift, it being unreliable in its own right. There are the studies into how memory is continually recreated, each memory an image of the last time we brought it to mind. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\u201cHow much of my memory are old home videos in a way?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In \u2018Cenotaph\u2019,<\/em> Will shows he can move from the arm\u2019s length of stitching, splicing, restringing existing texts, to the immediate and personal thread; Miyambo, who transcended himself in acting the work, was speaking of his own father. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThese plays are book-ended by two\nothers by Harding. Travels Around My Room<\/em>,\nwhich came first, and most recently, The Kings of the\nWorld<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThe Critter has seen neither of\nthese, but Will was kind enough to email copies of the scripts. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Travels\u2019<\/em> is a play that would work perfectly for the time of Covid, if only we could go to the theatre. The title is self-explanatory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nHere Will delved into a monologue by French military man Xavier de\nMaistre, who wrote the original in 1790 when arrested and confined to\nhis room for 41 days after being involved in a duel. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nIt is a masterful observation of the\nmyriad stories that inanimate objects hold. Think on what beds have\nseen, all that has been contained within four walls. The shift into\nmadness that solitude incurs, the lack of any external view to\nprovide reference, only characters in books for company. One can be\nanything. The doors of perception wait to be swung open. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Kings\u2019<\/em>, strangely, is also fitting. It too contains an interiority, although there are three characters. There is a sense of paranoia, of being beset, yet privileged, a frayed, and fraying buffer existing between them and the rough gravel of actual poverty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nOther than the references to the new place down the road, which is at\nthe same place as the old place, where drinks can be had, it could\nvery well be set in a lockdown. A perilous state exists. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nIt was staged at the Market Theatre\nin January, and Covid-19 put a hold on other stages. Our present\nexperiences are only likely to add weight. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThe South African critical impulse is to make connections to\npolitical reality, to the structure and state of our society. At its\nbest it is a humanitarian impulse, a desire to be aware of society\naround us, to take our fellow passengers into consideration. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nAt its worst it is didactic and polemical. Will avoids politics. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\u201cI feel it is not my place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\u201cI feel what I have to say is not\nimportant. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\u201cI wouldn\u2019t contribute much to\npolitical theatre although I have tried my hand at writing it but it\nfelt fake and didn\u2019t go anywhere. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\u201cThere are people who do the political plays much better than I.\nI\u2019m in a position of very happy privilege and feel it would be fake\nand disingenuous.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nHe is a man of letters, taking pleasure in the aesthetic, the beauty\nof words strung together. What alignments, with social concerns\nemerge are a by- product, a happenstance. A happy one for sure, for\nit indicates a mind that harbours empathy, which is itself\nintricately linked to a sense of beauty. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nAnd from that humanitarian impulse, the subversively political\nemerges, unintentionally. There if you wish to see it. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\u201cI hope whenever I write a play\nthere are people able to see themselves in it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThe simplest and most effective way to reach across time, through the\npage, over the stage, to touch the raw, bleeding pulse behind the\nribs. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nHe gestures toward a bookcase behind him (glass-fronted, possibly)\nwhere self-penned texts bide their time. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Will says he has three scripts gathering dust and four in the process of being rewritten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Experience has taught him that scripts are not finished works, they can, and mostly need to, be changed as weaknesses and strengths become apparent during rehearsal and the process of sharing with a director and actors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is about having the belief in the text, and the courage to place it in the crucible of the rehearsal space, to open it up to critique and rewriting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\u201cI think I\u2019ll be bolder in my staging them after this (Covid\nlockdown). Allow myself to fail and build again.\u201d \n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South African theatre does not have a strong literary tradition. Most of the work we see on our stages are workshopped or devised, which is a method at which we … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3858,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[986,11],"tags":[70,988,798,987,862,866,926],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3857"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3857"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3861,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3857\/revisions\/3861"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}