TORQUE: The Title

Titles are a bloody nightmare. An absolute bloody nightmare. You have to think of something that sums up the play and is catchy enough to make people interested in it. Nightmare.

Because I'm so bad at titles, I usually nick them from famous quotes or poems. Like... I wrote a play set in a Doctor's waiting room called The Opposite of Talking lifted from the quote "The opposite of talking isn't listening, the opposite of talking is waiting" (Ann Lebowitz). Or, a play I wrote that is mostly written, slightly performed and almost forgotten called Roses in December which is lifted from a poem about memory by Robert Burns. I once thought of a really good title - White Flags and Hand Grenades - but couldn't quite think of a good story to go with it. But it's in the back pocket just in case!

So I was quite pleased at how quickly and easily this came to be named TORQUE. Torque is a formula to measure the angle required to make something move. I discovered it when I was reading Wikipedia to learn about the history of the weighing scales, and torque was mentioned as a means of measuring the movement of the scales to calculate balance. As the question the play is asking is about equality, it seemed like a good option, and the fact it sounds like "talk" made it perfect!