A Beginner’s Guide to ‘Autistic Naturalism’

**So George, for those who don’t know Simon Stephen’s work as well as you and the cast now do, what is Pornography?**

Pornography is a play about the 7/7 bombings, and when I say it’s about the 77 bombings its set during the week of the 7/7 bombings but I wouldn’t say its about them. It’s about what Simon Stephens saw as the cause, which he calls a culture of transgression. He says when the bombings happened he failed to share other people’s incredulity at the Britishness of the bombers; to him it made sense they were British as it came from a culture of transgression everyone participated in. Though that doesn’t really explain the title.

**Would it give too much away to explain the title? Or would that prevent the Overheard at Warwick posts about the title?**

I’m loving those, it’s free marketing. Simon Stephens says that everyone everywhere was transgressing and the way that people were able to do this is because people were objectifying each other, and this objectification of human beings was in common with pornography, which is where the title came from.

**And sex is something of an undercurrent throughout some storylines.**

Sex is an issue in it, but its not as prevalent as some people think, partially because of the title and partially because of the naked woman on the poster. Its not about sex, but sex is an issue.

**So what drew you to decide to do this play?**

I saw a production of it at the National Student Drama Festival in 2011 by Cambridge University and it was awful.

**I can attest it was.**

The thing was it won loads and loads of awards, which I couldn’t understand. At the time I didn’t know the text and I only found out afterwards that at the beginning it says you can perform it in any order, and they did it as the play dictated and it was boring, and i thought it was an incredible play, doing something different with dramatic form, and after having to present on it I did lots of research and so I’ve wanted to do this play for about a year. I think it’s explosive, it’s challenging and it’s a play about its audience; everyone was participating in the culture, including himself, so its about the audience as much as about the fictional characters on stage. That’s something I want to bring out.

**What can the audience expect then when they arrive?**

They can expect very exciting design elements. One of the things about the play is that I think there are two levels of perspective; one on stage, the level of the characters, the other is the level on which we perceive the wider events. The characters see these on various media and so we’re going to be experimenting with these. The audience will be almost over-exposed to media, but I won’t say anymore than that because I’ll give away some very essential parts. They’ll also, hopefully, be exposed to one another. I think something about this play and it’s invasive portrayal of media and several things the characters say is this idea that everyone is always watching each other, whether on a screen or in real life, two very different types of watching. The audience will always be watching the audience as well as watching the actors, and the actors will always be watching the audience. They’ll be put under scrutiny, and be forced to question their own role in 7/7.

**One thing that always sticks out with me for Simon Stephens is when someone validated the way he writes as ‘autistic naturalism’. **

What an interesting phrase.

**Probably not said by someone with autism. How have you approached this ‘autistic naturalism’ and decided to stage it?**

That seems to suggest what he does isn’t deliberate, and I think it is. There’s an obsession with detail, a willingness to say things that everyone thinks but doesn’t say- stating the obvious about things people don’t always acknowledge. Also the writing is rather hyperactive, a lot of the play is monologues, really quite long monologues, and there’s an obsession with tying them together even though they’re disparate characters. How do I go about directing this? Well the biggest thing is that stage direction at the start about changing the order. I’ve taken all this information he throws at you and putting it into some sort of order to make it do what I want to do. I’ve literally cut it into pieces and imposed another sort of order. He had to impose an order because otherwise it would be mess or entropy, that’s the word he uses, and you have to impose your own; there are hooks and details within the text that suggest an order, certain phrases the characters say, so firstly I had to put it in my own order. How to go about directing it? I think stylistically. I’m going for a slightly heightened naturalism because you could do it totally abstract, very stylised, but I’m not sure it lends itself to that. The text is slightly heightened- that’s something of the nature of monologues, nobody really speaks in monologues- so I wanted to bring that out, it’s not monologues about how somebody eats breakfast and how it reminds them of how granddad ate breakfast and now he’s dead. There’s a monologue about how a bomber is traveling to London and looks out of the window and sees everything that makes him want to do it. It has to be recognisable and natural at the same time. As if they’re very, very tightly wound.

**How’s the process been so far?**

We’re going up in nineteen days and it’s been great. I didn’t think we’d have as much time as we do and by the end of Sunday’s rehearsal we’ll have blocked the whole show, which gives us a whole two weeks to take it apart and put it back together again. It’s been very exciting; I’ve directed shows before but I felt slightly rusty the first couple of rehearsals. But once I began to get into my flow it’s been really nice to find that method of working again that I can try and develop. It’s been very exciting working with new people- some I’ve seen in plays but haven’t worked with, some I have worked with before but haven’t directed, and some who are fresh first years and they are great. You don’t want to work with the same old people, although sometimes if its right its right.

**In comparison to the last show many readers might have seen that you directed, Brokenville (Warwick Arts Centre 2011), how does this compare?**

We worked in a very physical style, this is not that type of theatre. Brokenville was all about storytelling and this has a story to it but its not a cohesive narrative like Brokenville was. Its much more about the bigger themes and the bigger ideas which Brokenville only suggested at.

**As a final closing invitation, what more can you tantalise the readers with?**

It will be multimedia in a way I’m not sure we’ve seen a student production at Warwick be. The staging will be very different. You won’t recognise the studio. And we’re doing very exciting things with cabling and polythene sheets. It will be very visual, and I can promise you uncompromising acting and that you will walk in and walk out thinking completely different things about yourself and yourself in relation to everyone else.

_Pornography plays at the Warwick Arts Centre Studio Wednesday to Saturday Week 7. Tickets are available through the Arts Centre box office._