"No one claps at the end of a novel" - A Conversation with Laura Wade — Page 3:
CW: Do you make minor changes in your work during the rehearsals?
LW: Yes. We made more changes to Colder Than Here than to Breathing Corpses. Partly because in Breathing Corpses the structure is so tight that we tried to get it right before we went into rehearsal, because it is the kind of play where you take out a line in one scene and it has a repercussion somewhere else and it all gets very complicated; it's built like a house of cards really. I worked with the director before we went into rehearsal, and we had a draft that we were really happy with before we started rehearsing. But with Colder Than Here it was a bit more open. There were a few things that I hadn't made clear enough. The interesting question in terms of changing things in rehearsal is whether something is wrong because you've written it wrong or because it doesn't fit with the way the actor is playing the role or with the actor's particular set of skills.
CW: Did you ever feel that you had to defend your text? Were there changes that the director or the actors suggested which you didn't like?
LW: Yeah, there were a few, and I find that if I can defend it, if there is a really good reason and I can explain that reason, then that's a reason for leaving it how it is. When I'm floundering, when I can't think of why I've done it, or I've just done it for some instinct or arbitrary reason, then that's when I will consider changing it. But sometimes, the actors ask for it to be changed when actually they just haven't found the right way to do it yet. And actually to change it would have repercussions in the rest of the play which would perhaps bend it out of shape or change it, steer it off in a direction you're not happy with.
CW: You mentioned that Colder Than Here was translated into German and might soon be produced in Germany. As in Germany productions tend to depart from the text much more than over here in England, how would you feel with a production that treats your text as material rather than as a script which is to be followed?
LW: I haven't experienced that yet, so I don't know. I'm very interested because I understand you have a very different approach in Germany, so I imagine I'd just be fascinated if that happens and I'm going to see it. Partly I wouldn't know, because my German is minimal. So I might not even know if they changed it unless they put an elephant on the stage. But I'm interested to see it. Even in any straight translation there are changes you would have to make anyway in terms of culture. At the moment, I'm having to make some changes to Colder Than Here. It will be produced in New York by the Manhattan Class Company (MCC) and I'm translating a few words in it into American because there are things that they don't understand. I'm having to work through it and find places where it needs to be changed so the audience is not alienated - for example by not understanding what a jaffa cake is.
CW: Having seen both plays, I had the impression that Colder Than Here was much more realistic than Breathing Corpses. Would you say that this also applies to the writing or is that impression due to the different registers of the productions?
LW: No, I think that's right. Breathing Corpses is quite realistic inside the scenes, but the structure makes it less so. In production it was given a slightly gothic atmosphere, because of all the screaming noises during the scenes and bangs and crashes. Some things were striking and expressionist in the design and I loved that. But I can imagine a different production of it that would make it appear much more realistic.
CW: Did you write any of your plays with a specific theatre space in mind?
LW: I've written a new play for the Soho. For that one - because it was a commission - I did have a theatre space in mind. But when I'm writing, I tend to see the characters in a 'real' space rather than on a stage a lot of the time. Some writers can see the stage all of the time. Writing Colder Than Here, I was imagining a mother and a daughter picnicking in a field and not really thinking about stage design.