Alleyn’s Classics teacher, Shomit Dutta, shares the inspiration behind his play, ‘Stumped’ - a two-hander with Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter at a cricket match in the Cotswolds that goes wrong. The two, both Nobel-prize winning playwrights, were great friends who loved and talked about cricket but never played together. The play, which will be on at Hampstead Theatre this summer imagines what might have happened if they did.
Described by Michael Brearly in Prospect Magazine as ‘A delight...tight, witty, zany and, to me, touching,’ Shomit shares his inspiration behind the play, the ups and downs of taking the idea for the play to fruition and how writing, like sport, is a performance.
My interest in Beckett began in the sixth form. I found his work bleak but beautiful, remorselessly paring down of language and action with a gallows humour. I came to Pinter slightly later but was captivated by his precise use of language to create compelling worlds of menace and confusion.
The idea of creating fictional versions of Beckett and Pinter came about when a friend and I were asked to put together something to celebrate their close friendship and mutual love of cricket for the International ‘Happy Days’ Beckett Festival in Ireland. We decided on a cricket match followed by an evening event with actors reading passages, letters and anecdotes linking Pinter, Beckett and cricket. The friend suggested that, as part of that, I should write a short comic skit with Beckett and Pinter in a cricket match. I thought about it but decided against it because I didn’t want to do a rushed job. After all, cricket was my favourite sport and these were two of my very favourite writers. So the idea got put on the back burner.
I ended up writing Stumped (originally called Yes…No…Wait) a few years later during the first set of Covid-19 restrictions in 2020. Like most people, I found myself in a peculiar state of stasis, waiting indefinitely and stuck in one place; a situation akin to Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter. This informed my approach. I had Beckett and Pinter also waiting (to bat), seemingly stuck as I was, and the play ended up resembling a kind of anxiety dream formed in the merged minds of Beckett and Pinter filtered through with my own—a surreal menage of two characters and an author.
I’m not sure how well placed I am to share insights about playwriting. Writing is a solitary business, and every writer finds their own modus operandi. Still, here are a couple of reflections...
I used to be sceptical about the claim put forward by many playwrights (most famously Pirandello but also Pinter) that it often seems as though the characters, as it were, write the play for you, and that your job as the author is to get their words down. That seemed a little too arch. But I found myself changing my mind. Writing does seem to emerge chiefly from the subconscious, ideas and lines do just pop up, through what Joyce called epiphanies. The important thing is to be well placed to receive them, a bit like being ‘in the zone’ when playing sport. After all, writing is performing.
"The important thing is to be well placed to receive them, a bit like being ‘in the zone’ when playing sport. After all, writing is performing."
I also learnt that the process of getting a play put on is nerve-racking. So many things can go wrong, even at the best of times. Covid-19 and its crippling impact on the arts meant that getting the play cast, finding a venue, and rehearsing and recording it was a long journey with ups and downs. Oddly enough, this journey reflected the play’s original title. First, I arranged an industry reading at the Jermyn Street Theatre with the help of casting director Irene Cotton, whose daughter Sophie was at Alleyn’s, and actor Susannah Harker, whose son Finlay Glen was also at Alleyn’s and now plays cricket for my team; this lead to my finding producers (‘Yes’). Then, partly due to the impact of Covid-19, the project stalled (‘No’). Then we managed to get the thing back on its feet but with no fixed date (‘Wait’). After all that, when the queen died two days before we were meant to do the livestreamed performance for a live audience at Lords, the live event got cancelled, leaving only the on-demand digital recording. Still, despite these ups and downs, what made it all worthwhile was the fact that I had written exactly what I wanted to, not what I thought an audience might want hear. So, my credo, insofar as I have one, is write what your gut, and possibly your characters, tell you to.
Stumped is available to watch online until 23 September 2023. There is a discount code for the Alleyn’s community: STUMPEDFRIEND50.
The play will also be showing at the Hampstead Theatre from 16 June - 22 July 2023. Book tickets here.
A number of interviews with Shomit are available online: Prospect Magazine, The Guardian, FT Weekend and reviews of the play are available in The Guardian and Ham & High.
Junior School Open Day
The next Alleyn's Junior School Open Event is from 1.30pm to 3pm on Wednesday 22 May 2024. There will be a Head's Talk at 1.40pm after which you will be offered a tour of the school with a pupil. There is no need to book a place at this Open Event - everyone is welcome.
Last updated on 20 05 24 at 09:12
.jpg)
