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Liz Lochhead: Scottish WritingDavid Chadderton reports from the Edinburgh Book FestivalDateline: 20th August, 2008Scotsman theatre critic Joyce McMillan chaired a discussion at the Book Festival with leading Scottish playwright and poet Liz Lochhead about what happens to a play after it has been performed when it becomes (or does not become) 'literature'. Lochhead believes that the only one of her plays that has achieved 'literature' status is Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off (1987) as it is studied frequently in schools, and for this she thanked Nick Hern Books, the play's publisher, although she said it will probably be demoted later on. Her adaptation of Medea by Euripides won the Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award in 2001 and so may be on its way to achieving its 'literature' badge. She said that to become literature, a play must have linguistic muscularity, citing David Mamet as a modern example, although as a writer you can't indulge yourself in a speech as it has to do something. In Medea, she said, people do not just come on to tell us what is happening — they all have a reason to speak. Dialogue is not just speaking; it is action. A poem is a poem as soon as it is written and typed up in a fair copy, but a play is nothing until it is performed. Lochhead loves Greek drama and Shakespeare, but although she was introduced to the latter at school, she thought of Shakespeare as 'Shakespeare', not as plays. Plays to her were what her mother acted in for the Women's Guild, but she later performed in plays at school and for amateur societies. Greek theatre is her idea of real theatre, with "hardly any sets, fantastic costumes and fantastic actors". When she was asked to translate Medea by Graham McLaren of Theatre Babel, she at first refused as she believed there are plenty of good translations already available, but he insisted he wanted a new one. She considers Medea to be a very contemporary play in a way that The Bacchae isn't, as its themes and issues have direct equivalents in today's society. She thinks herself lucky to have been able to translate Molière as it means that we can have a new version of a great old text. With Shakespeare, she said, most of the comedy isn't funny any more and we can't re-write them, whereas the French and others can continually have new versions of the plays when new translations are made. Having said this, she said that she always tries to do a translation "as straight as possible" and doesn't even think in advance of using Scots dialect. Lochhead is currently working on a play about three sisters in their 50s or 60s in 1947, which she said she may have mentioned when she was at the Book Festival last year but at least she has started it now. She said that she has written a 'fear of 40' play and a 'fear of 50' play and now this is her 'fear of dying' play, and speculated that the three together might become literature as a trilogy. However she said it is currently a mess with no structure to it and she may not even finish it. This discussion was peppered with Lochhead's readings from her own writings, which gained a great deal of clarity and meaning from being heard in the poet's own voice rather than remaining literature on the page. David Chadderton
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