Games - by James Saunders (1971)© 1973 James Saunders published by Samuel French (London, England), 1973 (Games and After Liverpool - James Saunders) ISBN-10: 0573025010 ISBN-13: 978-0573025013 also contains After Liverpool "Games arose from a confrontation of four elements: myself; a Reuter report; the company (of four) who were to perform the piece, considered both as actors and as a particular group of particular people; and the director of the group. This script is not the final version, but the raw material from which the actors, the director and I worked out a more or less finished production. There is therefore nothing definitive or sacrosanct about any of the script. A different group performing the piece will probably - I hope - want and need to sweat out their relationships to it, treating themselves as both actors (and director) and individuals, so that the results of this process becomes part of the production. Games is about freedom, responsibility and choice, treated not as theoretical concepts but as aspects of an actual event which takes place during rehearsals and during each performance. The play is about the fact of its being put on; but this fact concerns not only the the actors who have chosen to do it, but the audience - which is both an audience and a collection of individuals - who choose to accept it or reject it, to let it proceed smoothly or to interrupt it or to wreck it. But it is not enough to present an audience with the fact of a choice; the possibility of using it must be put within their limits. Gauging these limits so as to avoid the two extremes of frozen acceptance or an untheatrical chaos means that there is no such thing as a definitive performance." - James Saunders (Introduction to the play) |