Optimism and happiness are not the same thing, but they are becoming interchangeable, and it seemed to me that Voltaire's Candide gave me a way into something important happening in modern-day culture.
Mark RavenhillAlso, everyone thinks they know Candide - you hear people described as 'Panglossian'. So if Candide appears on a poster, it feels familiar.
Mark RavenhillThere is a remarkable nimbleness of style, a balancing act of tone, in Voltaire, which is hard to bring off on stage. When you speak the words out loud, the effect is very different from when you read them. So one needs to do something new with a stage performance, not simply 'tell the story'.
Mark RavenhillI have adapted the whole book [Candid] into tweets of 140 characters, and these are being sent out daily, at the rate of eight tweets per day .
Mark RavenhillTwenty years ago, when you bumped into someone and asked how they were, they would say, 'Mustn't grumble' or 'Getting by': now they feel obliged to say 'Just great!'. In both cases, the reply is just a social nicety, but the framework has changed, it's as if it's become a social duty to express happiness.
Mark RavenhillThe title's so upfront. It gives fair warning about the play's content. I'm writing about a kind of disenchantment, an anger, but quite a cool 90's anger, at a time when we're not very good at openly being angry. . . . I don't think I ever thought the title was titillating. I thought it was incredibly catchy. If the play is about the reduction in human relations down to a consumerist rationale, then thematically, the title is entirely linked into the thesis of the play.
Mark Ravenhill