Michael Fredrick Bartlett - Essay Example

Student’s Name] [Instructor’s Name] [Class] Michael Fredrick Bartlett: An upcoming English playwright Michael Fredrick Bartlett is an upcoming English playwright born on October 7, 1980. Though his main occupation is playwriting, he is also a co-director of Shapeshifter Theatre Company. His entrance play My Child, which was premiered at the Royal Court Theatre on May 2007 has made the audience ardently remember him. The main house at the Theatre was adapted into a tube carriage for this production. Michael’s prominent position as a “writer in residence” is to be owed for this honored grant (Bartlett, 2008a) . A new-writing performing arts company by the name of Nabokov is hosting his most recent play, Artefacts, being currently staged before a National Tour, at The Bush Theatre in London till 22 March 2008. Michael has ventured into radio plays also, and his play ‘Not Talking’ being broadcast in March 2006 by BBC was highly celebrated. The play starred such celebrated actors as Richard Briers and June Whitfield. The performers take up their roles with the right amount of genuineness and pour substance in their depiction of assigned characters (Logan, 2008). Certain issues like the overall conscientious objection in the United Kingdom during World War II have been touched upon in the play apart from the issues of bullying within the military services. The bullying issue in the army is so deeply set that it needs to be depicted and this play does full justice to the concern. Bartlett also joined in the Old Vic's “New Voices” in July 2005 24 Hour Plays which led to the performance of his play “Comfort” to be scripted and staged in 24 hours. For “Not Talking”, Bartlett had the distinction of winning the 2006 Tinniswood Award of £1,500. In addition to that, he also won the 2006 Irnison Award on 18th of October 2007 for the drama by a writer who is a newcomer in the world of radio. His roles have not only been confined to writing, and he has also directed assignments within theatre. Bartlett has recently made hos palce in the British Thereatre as a new upcoming contemporary playright. His workls reflect not just the social class issues in the society but also reflect the traditions of the british theatre and its history in general. Most of his playes are revered as having a practical modern approach in the theatre and the audience ahs accepted the values it has changed in the changing culture of the region (Ramsden, 2008). Bartlett has given the theatre a new way in which it has used the theatre to focus on the non-traditional themes and have tied the audience and tehir concepts into the intricaties of life. His reflection on problems in life that are tied to the control and influence of our environment and culture upon us has made the traditional roles of the plays subdue in the background for the audience. The comparison of Bartelett with other playwrites in this era can only be made in the sense that he cleverly dilutes the structure of classes in his plays to make the audience subconciously think of tehm as the actual essence of the play (Ramsden, 2008). Some of the works by Bartlett are given here. ‘Artefacts’ the play was first staged at The Bush Theatre in London A" February / March 2008. Nabokov was the producer of the play and he also commissioned it. Next in line is “Contractions" performed at Royal Court in 2007, and modified for BBC Radio 4 with the title “Love Contract”. The story of the play revolves around Emma who's seeing Darren. She thinks she's in love. However, her boss thinks she's not abiding by the law. The situation needs to be seriously inspected. The play has great humour and tickles your funny bones. Again, relayed in 2007 is “The Family Man”. It’s a radio drama spanning 5 episodes. The play is produced for Women’s Hour on BBC Radio 4. Bartlett has written on a variety of topics and “My Child” is a play which presents the myths of fatherhood as to what it means to be a man. The play was presented in May 2007 by Royal Court Theatre. A play under contract from the Older Heat and Light Company has also been written by Mike Bartlett. The name is “Stuff I Buried in a small Town and it has been relayed in March 2006 with duration of 1 hour. “Not Talking” is under contract from BBC Radio 3 The Wire. Mike discovers the sarcastic dominance of silence through the experiences of his grandfather’s as a cautious protestor during the Second World War and a contemporary story from the armed forces. The play stars Richard Briers and June Whitfield. Another 24 hour play is “Comfort” which was commissioned by Old Vic New Voices in July 2005. “Silent Charities” is commissioned for the Earl’s Court Festival, which is a short play by Finborough Theatre. Next, a play under The Underbelly – Edinburgh Fringe has been relayed by the name of “Why people really burn”. The Workshop Theatre, Leeds commissioned a play “Swimming for Beginners in 2002. It is definitely not run-of-the-mill production and throws light on the lighter side of life. Michael Bartlett’s writings reflect the real life events and expose the exciting facets of families. He has an eye of correctly observing the dreadful exchange of words for family breakup as illustrated in his first play My Child (Bartlett, 2008a). Divorce can be a very traumatic experience having dire consequences and this is aptly dramatized in this play. The emphasis is on how a sad break-up can be a cause of further chaos, and things usually do not normally turn out well for both parties with additional pain. Sadly enough, the society accepts divorce as a common occurrence and the ugliness of it fades off fairly quick which is rather tragic. In this play, a divorced father is shown becoming more desperate as his vindictive ex-wife refuses him access to his son (Bartlett, 2008a). A mother can sometimes become ruthless to keep her only child and thus the title of the play is pertinently termed as My Child. There is a world of pain and a devastating sense of the debased heartlessness of our age. The drama’s mood is so raw and grief-stricken that it is heart-rending to watch it. Most of the characters in the play do not carry any name, and they are simply Man, Woman, Child and the like – and his scenes synergize so well with one another that a new one picks from the other as soon as it ends (Coveney, 2008). The issue of child custody is so tragically illustrated in the play that the audience is left with a sense of anguish wishing that the father would get hold of the child. However, things are most unpredictable in this play and till the last scene the audience is left with guessing what will happen next. The divorced Man and Woman are lost in a violent custody dispute over Child. The boy has grown up in a marital war zone, and this has made him value only brute force and material wealth (Bartlett, 2008a). There is an ironic twist to the story where the father loves his boy with a desperate sense of ache and compassion, and when it appears that the child will never be granted to him, the kid is kidnapped by his father. The play is not just something of a propaganda for Fathers4Justice. Instead of sticking to the conventional norms, Bartlett shows that often trying to be upright and good and being unselfish really does not work (Bartlett, 2008a). My Child is not an ordinary play which would earn cheers, but it coveys some insightful and prevailing truths. It’s really not ‘very’ good with an overdose of emotions, but what people like about Bartlett’s plays are its simple messages and bold truths. Plus, it teaches that to add value to theatre, we can go down to basics and raw emotions, and straight presentation of relationships, which you can rip through. The total time of the play is just 45 minutes written in harsh and aggressive dialogue with one or two really potent, poetic paragraph speeches though not really in line with Shakespeare’s work (Coveney, 2008). The presentation of the play is lively, unique and captivating but at the same time it is pitiless and horribly convincing. One is confronted with the harsh truth that we do have to have yet more misery, and more proof that children very rarely get the parents they really deserve. Michael Bartlett’s play, which lasts over 40-minute, peeks into the troubled arena of domestic violence and the cruel philosophies that stimulate them (Bartlett, 2008a). It's a boon for the performers and audience alike that My Child runs at just under 40 minutes. Any more of family life and the play would paint such a negative picture of family life that we would think it evil to ever return home again. It's a vicious, rousing offering from a platform that is making itself vital once more (Coveney, 2008). The plot unfolds itself in a very artistic manner. The unnamed characters execute the action in a classic simple style. A father goes on an outing with his nine-year-old son but when the duo return the son has a broken arm. The mother is furious as she has already undergone a divorce with the man, and so she denies him further access to the child (Bartlett, 2008a). The man becomes charged by the ridiculing of his former wife who challenges his parental rights and hence he becomes outraged. He does not even stop from taking the law into his own hands and kidnaps his son. He treats him as an emotional hostage, only to be pursued and countered by the boy’s stepfather and forced into a physical showdown. At last, the boy returns, needless to say with an air of graciousness to his mother. Thus, the father’s transgression of abducting the child is ultimately punished driving home the point in the play that good triumph over evil (Bartlett, 2008a). This is Bartlett’s first play. In this drama, he shows with precision how children are affected by tussles between divorced parents. But he never lets you hold on to quick and easy ethical decisions. Though I praise the play’s vicious directness, I wish it had more room for public criticism. According to Bartlett, we live in a world where there is space for only winners, where be on the back foot is considered a weakness and where children are attracted by the person who offers them the most sophisticated toys. Still, Bartlett’s work does not include many of the meaningful questions. One would like to know also, who is really responsible for creating the kind of selfish culture with its undeniable presence all around us. The play reflects the personal psychology much more than public analysis. Bartlett concludes that everyone is to be blamed -ridden in the casual cruelty of today’s world. Artefacts is another one of Bartlett’s work. The story is about a girl in the United Kingdom and then revolves around the conflicts of cultures in her heritage. It begins with the girl’s story and concludes with that of another girl in a totally different background. It is basically a political fable, all in all. Lizzy Watts who acts as Kelly, is an English teenage girl who thinks her father is dead but then she discovers he is in Iraq and also that she has a half sister in Iraq. Hence in this way, the girl who assumes her father to be where no one returns is rejuvenated with hope, which is the essence of all happiness. The news of her father transfers her to an exalted state of mental elation (Bartlett, 2008b). The father stationed in Iraq being a museum director, brings a very beautiful and priceless vase for his daughter. Perhaps, the psychology behind this extremely priceless gift of an antique is to compensate for the long time spent so far from his loving daughter. We might think that the gift, which is a warm expression of a father’s love, is well received by the daughter. Rightly so, however Kelly breaks the vase into three parts deliberately (Ramsden, 2008). It seems that the father has to consider his Eastern daughter also back in Iraq since later on, he needs the invaluable vase to pay as ransom for his Iraqi daughter. It so happens, that Kelly has further reduced the value of the priceless antique by applying superglue to it. The allegory is apparent yet it works. The metaphor is obvious but it works. The history of Iraq is related by Kelly when she prepares to visit her father in his native country. Kelly narrates how Iraq was formed from three distinct regions, Basra in the South, Mosul in the North and Baghdad in the middle. The same way Kelly breaks the vase, she tells how the Americans and British troops invade Iraq to rid the country of Saddam Hussein. They try to put the country back badly together after breaking it up, as if with superglue. Bartlett has used themes in this writings that portray the difficulties in life through different coherent stigmas of society. His depiction of social problems as found in many parts of not just Britain but also globally has made his titles into a thought conceiving and image reconciliation social issues. The audience of the plays are presented with the idea of life and the difficulties that may arise through cause and effect. The pays depict how one event may alter the course of life of an individual while affecting all those around them (Ramsden, 2008). His writings may have been categorized as contemporary but Bartlett covers the problems of society in a fashion that the relevance of time may fit the themes in any part of society and time frame. The social norms are discussed in the play to debate on the individual behavior that affects many people and the results are burdened not by just the individual, but by all those around him/her. Bartlett has used the society and the roles of people in them to elaborate and draw a dynamic picture of the relationships of people and how they are formed. These relationships have been portrayed in all forms- mother, child, husband, leaders and so on, to paint a picture of how one stigma can evolve to take apart the lives of many people. His plays are referenced to the audience where their own experiences are used to translate the values of the play and the p\lay is set to narrate to each individual person in their own life experiences. These dynamics of the writings of Bartlett have given room for playwrights to use the social stigmas in relevance to the current mind sets of the audience and society and may one day reform the vision of the drama industry. Works Cited: Bartlett, M. 2008a. My Child. A & C Black. Bartlett, M. 2008b. Artefacts. Methuen Drama. Logan, B. 2008. Time Out London [Online]. Available from: http://www.timeout.com/london/theatre/events/666746/artefacts.html [Accessed 1 may, 2008] Ramsden, T. 2008. Reviews Gate [Online]. Available from: http://www.reviewsgate.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3907 [Accessed 3 May, 2008] Coveney, M. 2008. Reviews [Online]. Available from: http://www.royalcourttheatre.com/whatson_reviews.asp?play=476 [Accessed 4 May, 2008] Read More