Briefly staged in 1959 at Scarborough, the writer's long-standing base, the comedy Love After All was never performed again and even at the time consisted of only a handful of typed scripts for actors and stage staff.
The script calls for actors to enact the sounds of clocks, bells, snow and a (probably anachronistic) bulb in an overhead light fixture.
The work is remarkably performance-centric: whether scripted or based in improvisation, the movies often seem composed around the people who appear in them, rather than starting with a set script for which actors are then recruited.
Parlour Song is another new script for the actor who has made a habit of appearing in zeitgeist-defining premieres, including Joe Penhall's Blue/Orange at the National (with Bill Nighy and Chiwetel Ejiofor), Jonathan Harvey's Aids drama, Hushabye Mountain, and, most recently, Sam Shepard's The Late Henry Moss.
The press release of this remake stated the script was written for actors Richard Gere and Denzel Washington.
Once written, his scripts became springboards for actors' astonishingly free transformations of them.
The whole genre is decidedly homemade, a little lazy even, bailing on the need for scripts and actors, for riffs and romps.
Worse, O'Neill's script is so difficult for actors to make real that their attempts come across as hugely deficient.
Due to the strange nature of the language, the Century 21 writers would brief Unwin on episode plots and then leave space in their scripts for the actor to draft all the Unwinese dialogue himself.
"Up in the Air" also had a strong showing, with six nominations, including best picture, best director for Jason Reitman, best adapted script, best actor for George Clooney and two supporting actress nominations, for Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick.
for Netflix's streaming service in the coming months, real battles will begin: for actors, for scripts, for directors and producers, and of course, for viewers.
