Haunting Julia - Background

Background

The inspiration for Haunting Julia came the stage adaptation of The Woman in Black, written by Susan Hill, adapted for the stage by Stephen Mallatratt. It premièred at the Stephen Joseph Theatre (then at the Westwood site) in 1987, directed by Alan Ayckbourn's co-director, Robin Herford, whilst Ayckbourn was on sabbatical at the Royal National Theatre, London. He considered that the ability to make audiences jump was little to do with special effects and a lot to do with acting and a tense storyline. This idea grew into Haunting Julia, performed seven years later. However, as Ayckbourn acknowledged, although the play remained a ghost story, the theme that grew to dominate the play were three men, and their relationships to Julia, a gifted musician who took her life aged nineteen.

The departure from a straight ghost story may also have been down to Ayckbourn wishing to explore the conventions of the ghost story format rather than ghosts themselves. Ayckbourn deliberately sought to keep the character of Julia as one that ordinary teenage girls could relate to, in particular the way that ordinary parents push their children to achieve things on their behalf. Her character was also influence by gifted people having little concept of the needs of others, like a "slight autism" - a characteristic Alan Ayckbourn said he slightly shares. Nonetheless, Ayckbourn said he once felt the presence of his father's ghost in Scarborough a few years after his death.

This play has the unique characteristic of being the only Ayckbourn play to have been written for the proscenium but premièred in the round. At the time of writing the play, it was planned that the Stephen Joseph Theatre would have moved to its new (and present-day) site at the old Odeon cinema, where there would be both a round and an end-stage theatre available. However, it turned out the new theatre was not ready until 1996. An idea to open the end-stage theatre concurrently with the existing theatre in the round was considered and quickly rejected, and Ayckbourn decided to go ahead with Haunting Julia at the current site as Westwood.