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By Alissa Watson

“Poetic grit” is the term director Jan Selman uses to describe the writing of Alice Birch. By that same definition, Birch’s [BLANK] is a gritty piece of epic poetry and committing to mounting a production is a herculean task. The full script for [BLANK] is composed of 100 scenes – amassing over 500 pages – but instead of rigidly requiring a cast to take on all the material, Birch offers that “this play is a challenge and an invitation to you and your company to make your own play from these scenes. This play might have a narrative and recurring characters, or it might not – it is entirely up to you.” 

[BLANK] was a co-commission between the UK’s National Theatre Connections (the National Theatre’s nationwide youth theatre festival) and Clean Break a theatre company that works with women affected by the criminal justice system (established by two formerly incarcerated women). With a start like this, it is no surprise that collaboration is embedded in the ethos of this piece. Offering future artists a rare form of freedom with her work, Birch puts complete trust in subsequent production teams to contribute to bringing her work to life, empowering these artists as serious collaborators worthy of the task. By allowing groups to choose the material that goes into their production, each presentation of [BLANK] is completely unique. For Selman, it is not only that Birch is inviting us to “find out what [we] need to say” but also, that “I trust you to do that” and “I think that is pretty brilliant.”

Each team of artists must approach this piece as one would a new script. For the Studio production, Selman and the dramaturgy team spent early days sorting scenes like pieces of a puzzle. The process of scene selection started with note-taking on every scene and then organizing them with titles indicating their level of interest in them: “come back to this,” “maybe, depends what else happens,” or “no, not for this situation.” After months of reading, reflecting, and reorganizing, the team produced a draft, which once established, Selman and the actors tested over several workshops. With feedback from these sessions, Selman and the dramaturgs considered what scenes she and the ensemble were most passionate about and what would matter most for the audience she imagined would attend. The designers and Selman also spent many hours discussing each draft as Selman continued to consider how the piece was developing as a whole and what this version was trying to offer. Constructing the Studio Theatre version of [BLANK] was never a straightforward process; a lot was left on the cutting room floor, including additional cuts and edits since starting rehearsals at the beginning of January. “One is never done,” Selman adds with a chuckle. Selman credits all the artists involved in keeping the spirit of new work alive throughout the process. It has been “very interesting and lively to ask everyone to engage with the new play” and “to enjoy the new discoveries.” 

Throughout her career, Selman has been drawn to telling the stories that don’t often make it to our stages. Much of her early professional work was based in collective creation and documentary research so she immediately saw what Birch was commenting on in [BLANK] and really responded to it. One of the largest tasks Selman describes, is to use what is going on in the piece as fuel and not sentiment. It is the “trap of this kind of work to indulge in sentiment,” says Selman. She adds that even though Birch’s writing is not sentimental, she is “absolutely behind the women and youth she is writing about.” We must tell this story with “all sorts of love and care and anger and need to tell.” Selman and the team of artists carefully constructed [BLANK] to welcome you in, acknowledge that this isn’t going to be easy, but also show you that we are all in it together. The fuel that Selman mentions, is an offer to use your experience viewing [BLANK] as an opportunity to enact your own change. As I consider the effect both Birch and Selman’s careers have had on their communities, I can’t help but think the poetic grit Selman describes in Birch’s writing is akin to the fearless leadership Selman has exhibited throughout the gargantuan creation process of [BLANK]: the Studio Theatre version.

 

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Published February 2025