War at home

"A skilful and imaginative scheme," pronounced the Civic Trust when it recently handed out one its coveted awards to Oxford's North Wall Arts Centre. The award is for the conversion of North Wall from a Victorian school swimming pool into an intimate 250-seat theatre. Since it opened, North Wall has presented an eclectic mix of events - a description that certainly fits the centre's forthcoming second Summer Festival, where the programming ranges from classical music, to 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover, to Tony! The Blair Musical.

Among the festival's drama offerings are three short plays by Mark Ravenhill, of Shopping and F***ing fame. Called Shoot, Get Treasure, and Repeat, they have been selected from a cycle of 17 plays exploring the personal and political effects of war on modern life. Production is by Paines Plough, a long-established theatre company dedicated to new writing. The company's artistic director is Roxana Silbert, and I met up with her as she arrived in Oxford to measure up the North Wall stage.

"The reason I've chosen these plays is that there's one character who is constant through the three of them," Roxana explained. "She's a middle-aged, middle-class lady. She's married with a family, she's trying to do her best, but she finds herself in a very extreme situation. The best way I can describe these plays is that it's as if what is happening in Iraq is happening in the middle of Oxfordshire.

"You're going about your daily business, bringing up your family, holding your job together, trying to pay your mortgage, and you're suddenly in the middle of a war that you have no idea how to manage or cope with.

"In the first play, we meet the character at breakfast time, and she is talking about a stomach affliction that she suffers from. She's tried many ways of getting rid of it, but it's become clear that what she is really dealing with is a sort of political stress that she can't identify.

"In the second play, she has a soldier living in her house, and that creates a very difficult dynamic. Finally, in the third play, she decides to interview refugees, to see if she can help them. But actually they are very resentful of her.

"These are all very recognisable situations, and although my description makes it sound very bleak, these are very, very funny plays. The great thing about Mark Ravenhill is that he loves his characters, but he's very aware of their limitations - it might sound very odd to compare him with Jane Austen, but he is a bit like her, he finds joy in the characters' follies. But he's also very respectful of how difficult war is for all concerned."

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan perhaps seem closer to home in Oxfordshire than they do in some parts of Britain, with regular news coverage of bodies and seriously injured soldiers being brought back to RAF Brize Norton, as well as high-profile inquests at Oxford Coroner's Court.

How, I asked Roxana, do you persuade audiences that they want to supplement depressing war news on television by spending an evening watching plays on the same subject?

"I think theatre does two things. You can go to the theatre for escapism, or to work out something that you're going through yourself in a public environment. These plays are very entertaining, because Mark writes very well, makes them funny. They are really trying to engage us in a dialogue with ourselves about how we cope with being at war, when that war in some ways feels very far away.

"But, as you say, at moments that same war seems very close. What he's captured is the dilemma of a normal person in that situation. It's not the experience of the extraordinary, it's the experience of the ordinary."

You don't have to talk to Roxana Silbert for long to discover that she loves putting a story before an audience, preferably a story that can be illuminated by a judicious use of humour.

"The first play I directed was Loot by Joe Orton. It was much, much funnier than I had ever imagined. It was at the ADC Theatre in Cambridge, which must seat about 200 people, and they were all just falling off their seats with laughter. It was the most extraordinary experience - I hadn't spotted how funny the play was. It was an amazing moment.

"I went into theatre directing relatively late - I was in my thirties before I started. I took a literature degree at Cambridge and I also did a lot of travelling. But I wasn't sure what I wanted to do after that. I returned to my home city of Norwich, and started working front of house at the Norwich Arts Centre. I got more involved, and started running a small theatre group there.

"Then I thought I'd better professionalise myself, and did a graduate director's course - I'm a social animal, rather than a solitary one, so I was never going to sit at home and write scripts or novels. I love the relationship with the actors more than anything. And I love being in front of a live audience - it's thrilling to me that you don't know what your show is until you put it in front of people." Besides directing, Roxana Silbert's job at Paines Plough involves reading the scripts of new plays - about 500 of them a year. And, Roxana assured me, all submissions are read. So there can be nobody better qualified to offer a tip or two to aspiring playwrights.

"There are things you can't teach, and one of those things is writing dialogue. You either have an ear for dialogue, or you don't. The sensibility of a play is also important.: what is the playwright reaching to speak about? Also, a play needs to have characters that an audience will care about: would you want to sit in a room with them for two-and-a-half hours at a dinner party? If you wouldn't, why should someone pay to sit in a theatre listening to them? But they don't have to be nice people - nasty characters are often much more interesting!"

Paines Plough presents Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat by Mark Ravenhill at North Wall Arts Centre, South Parade, Oxford, on July 11 and 12. Tickets: 01865 319450. For details of the Summer Festival visit www.thenorthwall.com