Relatively Speaking: Articles

This section contains articles about Relatively Speaking. Click on the links in the right-hand column below to access the relevant article.

This article was written by Alan Ayckbourn for a revival of Relatively Speaking at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in the Round, Scarborough, during 1977. It marked the first time Alan had directed a professional production of the play.

Relatively Speaking

Articles by Alan Ayckbourn

○ Relatively Speaking (1968)
○ Writing Relatively Speaking
○ Relatively Speaking (1970)
○ Playing Greg (TBC)

Articles by Other Authors

○ It Was 40 Years Ago Today…
○ Relatively Speaking: The Aftermath

In general, the people who liked this play when it was first seen remarked that it was 'well constructed'; those that didn't called it old-fashioned. If the latter is true, then I suppose it's because, as the song goes, I am too.

As to whether it's well constructed, well, in a way I hope it is, since I did set out consciously to write a 'well made' play. I think this is important for a playwright to do at least once in his life, since as in any science, he cannot begin to shatter theatrical convention or break golden rules until he is reasonably sure in himself what they are and how they were arrived at.

And this knowledge is really only acquired as a result of having plays produced, torn apart and reassembled by actors and held up to public scrutiny for praise or ridicule.

I suppose I am extremely lucky, writing for a small theatre company as I did for so many years, to have had almost a dozen plays put through this very process before reaching the age of thirty.

Not only this, but to have had to fight all the limitations of a small theatre - the number of actors available, difficulties of staging, even lighting complications - and, most important, being aware that if my play didn't at least break even at the box office, we'd all be out of a job on Monday.

I wrote, in a sense, to order, and there was no harm in this, since the order was always of a technical nature and dealt only minimally with content.

But there is no sharper lesson for a dramatist than to find himself sharing a dressing room with an actor for whom he has written an impossible quick change.

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