One year on.

This post, almost twelve months after the production opened, has been prompted by mrbubbleandsqueak, who recently left a comment on an earlier post asking for advice on how to approach staging Martin Crimp's work.

Flattery will get you everywhere, mrbubbleandsqueak. I take it from your comment that you saw our production of Attempts on Her Life, and I thank you for your kind words. I apologise for the delay in replying, and will probably need to apologise for not being able to help much, but perhaps the following points might be of some use.

Anyway, I have to say that I don't know "Face to the Wall" but Crimp's style is idiosyncratic and I would assume that the text presents similar difficulties to "Attempts".

How to comprehend his work? Approach it with an open mind and trust your gut instinct. If a definite meaning isn't clear, then don't sweat over trying to intellectualise too much. However you respond to the text should work fine. Crimp does give you a fair bit of scope for interpretation, and your individual reaction to and understanding of the words on the page is likely to be just as good as anyone else's. I wouldn't necessarily agree that there's no such thing as a wrong answer, because that can tempt you into shoehorning the play into a concept that it simply doesn't fit.

The best way to approach the text is collaboratively. Share responsibility for the ideas and don't let one single person bear the burden of finding solutions.

A good place to start is with characters. Try to find a phrase in the text which might be characteristic of a personality. You can use this to flesh out the traits of the speaker and create a fairly extensive set of Given Circumstances from a single utterance. Once a set of characters has been established you can put them in situations and see how they interact.

There are a couple of good resources that might be of help. The first in the information pack from the National Theatre's 2007 production, which you should be able to download from their website. I found it useful. Also there is a book called The Theatre of Martin Crimp by Aleks Sierz, published by Methuen. It has some commentary on the play you are working on.

Ultimately, however, you are left simply with the words on the page. Ignore them at your peril! The openness of the script is deceptive - Crimp has selected, shaped and ordered the writing with great care and intent. Pay attention to the rhythms of the language, question why he has used one particular word over another. Concentrate on the mental images that are painted by his words. Everything is actually there for you. The meanings aren't necessarily hidden, often the simple and obvious is the best option. Sometimes there isn't any meaning at all. In an interview with Crimp in the National's information pack, he talks about writing for the sake of writing, with Previously Frozen an example of a writer just playing around with words and dialogue, with no agenda, no message as such. Just the sounds and the shapes.

That's probably the extent of any 'advice' I can offer. I'm sorry it isn't any more specific, but that's the nature of Crimp's work. Above all, have fun, and the courage to change your mind, even at the last minute. I made major changes to two or three scenes of Attempts in the last week before we opened. They were the right decisions, but I was still left wishing I had another three months to work on the play. I suppose the same can be said for any play.