Tragic lovers for a new generation

Jan 11 2008 by Philip Key, Liverpool Daily Post

The RSC is bringing a gritty social drama to the Liverpool stage. Philip Key reports

WHEN the Royal Shakespeare Company brings one of its latest productions to the Liverpool Playhouse next month, there will be not a word of the Bard. Instead, the company has decided to tour to Liverpool with Noughts and Crosses, a stage version of a best-seller by the British writer Malorie Blackman.

Ms Blackman, 45, is an author who specialises in work for young people and teenagers, and indeed Noughts and Crosses is on the school curriculum.

It is the tale of a divided country where the Crosses are the privileged elite and the Noughts the downtrodden masses.

When Sephy, the young daughter of a Cross, falls for Callum, the son of a Nought, violence breaks out.

Shakespeare fans will immediately recognise a comparison here with Romeo and Juliet, and Ms Blackman admits that her story is loosely based on Shakespeare’s tragedy. There is also an element of racism – the Crosses are black, the Noughts are white.

The book – which came in at number 61 in the BBC survey of Britain’s best-loved books for The Big Read – has been adapted and directed by Dominic Cooke, former associate director of the RSC and now artistic director of London’s Royal Court Theatre.

He says that, while at the RSC, he was always looking out for shows for young people and children.

“Working with young people is important in terms of finding a new audience,” he explains. “It is also very honest. You can’t get away with cheating on young people in the audience.”

He had already adapted The Arabian Nights for youngsters – a preview of that for 500 five-year-olds he describes as “fascinating and terrifying” – and had looked at other classics for adaptation but could not find anything that worked.

“Then I came across Malorie’s novel. After about 20 pages, I thought this has got to be put on the stage.”

Ms Blackman was contacted about an adaptation and she was “thrilled that the RSC would be interested in my book”.

She was also involved in the stage production from the start. “I spoke a lot to her,” explains Cooke. “She was really open and encouraged me to make it work for the theatre. She recognised that the stage has different demands on a story than a novel.”

Adapting the novel was not difficult but still a challenge, he says.

His first decision was to focus on the relationship between black Sephy and white Callum. “Anything that did not have a direct impact on that relationship I could leave out.”

Secondly, he recognised that the novel was basically a selection of short scenes. “Because audiences take longer to get inside a character’s head than an individual reading a novel, I had to be mindful of how, if we moved around too quickly on the stage, you would never really get inside any of the experiences in the book. So I focused the shape of the stage show around Callum in the first half and Sephy in the second.”

Malorie Blackman offered a lot of advice and met the cast, and got a real kick out of it all. “I love the theatre and always have done,” she reveals.

“There’s something so much more immediate about seeing a drama performed on stage. Seeing it acted out before you is always going to be different to reading the book where all the drama takes place inside your head.

“Going to the theatre is also more than just seeing drama on stage, it is a chance to share the experience with others in the audience – that’s what makes it is special.”