Aimee Riddell is a new playwright who enjoys rewriting classic stories and fairytales for a modern day retelling.
Her version of 'The Portrait of Dorian Gray' by Oscar Wilde - 'The Modern Image of Dorian Gray' is being produced at Spotlites Theatre Company in Chatham in November.
We are delighted that Medway River Lit will be screening an accessible, subtitled online version as part of the festival, premiering on Saturday 23 November, then available to catch up for a week.
Aimee joined us in a guest blog about her writing process and the play.
I’ve always had a creative bug but struggled with the discipline with actually seeing any ideas and projects through to the end. Once I hit a creative block, I would simply move on to the next idea and then become completely out of touch with the previous one. I can probably show you several different “stories” I have started over the years which just abruptly stopped.
I came across playwriting when my husband and I started running our own theatre company and I wanted to produce original work, but I needed a starting point. My first play 'Rumpelstiltskin' was focused on rewriting a well known fairy tale that can be targeted towards the very children we teach. However I knew I wanted to write something with more depth, brings up darker topics and speaks to an older audience.
I have always thought about how certain stories would look like should they be re-written in today's society, and how that would change the hurdles and problems the protagonist would have to overcome in order to reach their dramatic conclusion. There have been numerous re-tellings over the years, but seemingly over the same kind of stories, 'Cinderella', 'Beauty and the Beast' and 'Romeo and Juliet'. The premise of these particular stories have gone on to influence many a book and movie.
One story I was always fascinated by and wondered how it would work in this modern day is 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'. The original features the main character having a portrait painted of him, in which he makes a deal with the devil for immortality and eternal youth. This dark and original tale by Oscar Wilde brought about questions on philosophy and religion. However who gets a portrait painted of them these days? In today’s world photography has taken over with nearly everyone having access to a camera, along with everyone being on social media. It made quite the interesting tale in my mind, because how would the immortal tale of Dorian Gray go when surely it would be difficult to never age and it not be noticed, and what about image editing software surely an image of him becoming corrupt due to the corruption he has faced in his life wouldn’t necessarily shock people.
A play to honour Dorian Gray's original characters and storyline
Like many ideas, this originally was all that it was. An idea. Which I then fixated and dwelled on, but I didn’t want to write a story. Stories require the author to use words to aid the readers imagination and belief in them. But a play? A play allowed me to focus purely on characters and storyline. It is allowed to be beautifully simplistic in scenery and character amount, but be full of dialogue. Before I knew it when I started to write the play, I couldn’t stop. With every scene I could clearly picture the end goal and how I wanted to get there. The original story by Oscar Wilde is of course the biggest inspiration towards this piece, so I wanted to ensure that the play honoured the original characters and storyline to some degree but with a modern twist. Before I knew it I had written the play, and I decided to self publish. A finished project for me - when finishing a project can be such a hurdle - meant I wanted to ensure others could access it and see it. Not just have the work sitting on my laptop and never see the light of day.
My next biggest hurdle which I am admittedly still working on is the overwhelming sense of imposter syndrome. It is so easy to think your work isn’t good enough and be your own worse critic, however the saying “You never know until you try” comes to mind, which has helped me with putting my work out there for others to see. From this work I do wish to create more retellings of old tales with a modern day twist creating a whole new moral of the story that benefits today’s societal standards.
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Aimee's version of 'The Modern Image of Dorian Gray' will premiere at Medway River Lit on Saturday 23 November, via an online screening. The link to order tickets for the online showing will be available soon.
If you would like to book tickets for the live show at Spotlites Theatre, please visit https://www.spotlites.co.uk/whatson where you can find out more.
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