The Power and Guile of the First Line

“If music be the food of love, play on.”

That's the first line of a play.  Easy enough to guess Shakespeare, but which one?  Taming of the Shrew?  Richard III?  Midsummer?  If you guessed Twelfth Night, you'd be correct.

From a dramatic standpoint, the first moments of a play have to hold the heart of the conflict.  It's disguised, layered, waiting to be unveiled, but it has to be there.  The first moments have to sustain an energy that will propel the characters through the next two hours.  

"What I find most astonishing... is the belief that I might very easily-- as they say-- lose my mind one day, not that I suspect I am about to, or am even... nearby...."

The author throws in a few extra clauses into that long sentence that I omitted, sentence fragments meant to disguise the central theme of the play, but you can still feel the energy.  And if you know what play it's from, you feel it even stronger.  Guesses?  It's the first line of Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance. Yeah, makes sense now. 

It's rare, though, that I writer invests the central conflict or theme in the very first line.  Typically, it's spread throughout the first scene.  It takes enormous control of your narrative to successfully embed it the way Albee does here.  So it's with a bit of awe that I write Jez Butterworth's first line for Jerusalem.  

"Time."

A question delivered as a statement.  Though spoken to Parsons, Mrs. Fawcett is calling "time's up" on Johnny Rooster Byron; Butterworth is dramatizing the changes of time in England, from the glory of old-- with its myths and power-- to the mundanity of new.  Nearly every character in Jerusalem refers to time, and for Johnny Rooster the question is whether he can call the ancient power of the past into the present in time to save his skin.

Powerful stuff, first lines.

What’s “shocking” in theatre?

 

Albee’s Zoo Story.  Or Sylvia, or The Goat.  Or Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? for that matter.  Profanity certainly isn’t shocking anymore; more appalling in excess.  Nudity always has some appeal but it doesn’t really “shock” in this day and age.  And of course there are a handful of truly taboo subjects… and a few dozen flimsy, politically incorrect, expressions that substitute for the truly taboo.

Our current production could be (let’s face, most likely someone will be) called shocking.  In a recent interview, Albee became insulted when the reporter suggested that he was intentionally shocking in his work.  Albee replied that he “put it in there because that’s what was happening.”  It was the logical extension, expression of the character's given circumstance, psychologically. 

In writing A Beautiful Home for the Incurable, a play about an agoraphobic man, I became concerned that as a comedy it would either be considered offensive or un-funny.  I spoke with a friend who suffered from agoraphobia, and she said that if I just wrote the truth it wouldn’t be offensive, but it would be funny.  There wasn't any humor in the experience of mental illness, but its expression was often quite funny. That’s how I feel about the idea of shocking.  As a tool for engaging the audience, shock tactics are trash, manipulation of the worst kind.  The truth can be plenty shocking on its own.  In The Disappearance of Mary Rosemary the shocking elements are a natural extension of the characters; in my mind, they are the only outcome, the only choice that made logical sense.  Perhaps people would be less shocked if I had fully explored things in a more literary fashion, from a distance, but that would also lack truth.  One doesn’t have to “explore” a glass of water being knocked over; it simply happens.  And the glass does get knocked over.

UPDATE 10/10/13:  I predicted that this production would be called shocking, but it wasn't until it happened that I recognized what polite "finger-pointing" looks like in this  day and sensibility.  People, especially those that want to considered educated and liberal, don't like to appear "shocked" by anything that might reveal them to be narrow minded.  Instead, they devise euphemisms to convey their dismay, while portraying themselves as "unshocked."  A reviewer, after being wholly distracted by the fact that the play wasn't a Woman in Black clone (a play they felt we produced exceedingly well in 2009), remarked that the ending was "VC Andrews" but not in a good way.  Which is the polite way of saying it shocked her sensibilities, but she didn't want to admit it.  The problem-- besides wanting the play to be something it wasn't designed to be-- is that being shocked means being thoughtless, unreflective, taking one's own preconceptions and values as universal without examining what the text may be conveying.  The problem with "shocked" is that it is entirely self-satisfied.

Great Critics = Great Plays?

Can great and enduring plays emerge from communities without insightful and valued critics? Certainly, back in Shakespeare’s or Chekov’s day the answer seems (at least at this distance in time) to be a resounding “Yes:” There appears to be no connection between the criticism of the day and work being produced. But today, in our contemporary society, I’m not sure the answer is so clear.


Last week, the Pulitzer Committee announced the winner and runner-ups in Drama. In order to be considered, the play had to have received its world premiere during 2013.  In some respects, a Pulitzer is given as much to a production as it is a play.  This year, all three plays/productions had the New York productions. The Big Apple is known for theatre, and the city (and its newspapers) take it seriously. Can it be that there was no play/production from Chicago worthy of even runner-up status? Seattle? LA? San Francisco?  Not one out of three was recognized outside of NY?  Certainly, there must be accomplished playwrights producing at the top of their abilities in these cities?

Granted, the Pulitzer is administered out of New York. It’s a rather secretive process. The first line of reviewers can be from anywhere in the nation. Their recommendations are forwarded to the final panel, whose members either reside or meet in the Big Apple. So it’s easy to see how NY productions that are more readily accessible and visible to the panel tend to be chosen for the prize. When Next To Normal won two years ago, it wasn’t even recommended to the final panel. An enthusiastic panelist suggested they all go see it together (now might be a good time to note that the final Pulitzer panelists aren’t theatre professionals, it’s not their field of work). Giddy enthusiasm and lack of actual expertise won the day—much to the fury of the initial reviewers—and Normal won.

But I don’t think the location of the Pulitzer Committee provides a complete picture of the issue. The Pulitzer is only one indicator of “great and enduring” work. Arguably, a major play hasn’t emerged from San Francisco since Angels in America. And here I think is the crux of the matter.

It’s not that great, enduring work isn’t being created in other cities; it’s that they are not emerging from other cities. Here in San Francisco, our ability—both artistically and logistically – to highlight exceptional new plays has deteriorated over the past decade. There are lots of factors: newspapers give less resources to theatre arts, audience reviews have become more persuasive, theatre reviewers sometimes vary wildly in expertise, the economics of producing discourages major houses from premiering new work, and the sense that theatre should represent a specific community has been lost.

Without a doubt there is still exceptional theatre being produced in San Francisco, and both major and minor houses are surviving the economic storms. But increasingly, I see the deterioration of a viable eco-system for theatre. Our diminishing cadre of reviewers, the diminishing number of column inches, and diminishing importance of their words may have tragic consequences.

Critics don't make theatre or playwriting better.  It's not in their power and it's not their job.  But they facilitate its emergence into the world.  They need to be insightful, to seek out new work, to elevate and advocate new plays, to be learned in all aspects of theatre production, to act as the voice of the theatre community; they need to return emails when invited to shows like working professionals, set aside their egos, find ways to be creative in the face of diminishing publishing opportunities.  They are not solely responsible for championing new work and making it visible on a national level-- theatre companies play have a responsibility as well-- but they have a unique leadership role.  And if we ever want to see the Pulitzer recognize a San Francisco production again, they're going to have to step up to the plate.

Writing in Elliptical Motion

Compelling dialogue rarely progresses in a logical, step-wise fashion. Rather, it contains a duality-- a line drive structure on the surface and an elliptical motion below.  Furthermore, there always exists a "break" in the linear movement.

You probably remember the exercise where someone asks you to adentify a serious of shapes:

The first you identified as a square; the second as a triangle; and the third you may have incorrectly called a circle. A circle doesn't have a gap in it-- your mind completed this one.  It "jumped the gap" in order to make the circular image fit with the others.  Good dialogue does the same thing.  The little gaps propel the dialogue

forward to the next idea.  These dialectic gaps, like the broken circle, are filled in by the imagination of the character who is listening.

Leave Room for the Insanity

Early in my career, playwright Joe Besecker urged me to leave more room for the insanity of my characters.  Over time I came to understand that insanity isn't a disconnect from reality; nor is it about the character's perculiarities and quirks (though garden variety insanity often expresses itself in disconnects and quirks).  It's about our inherent, irrational nature wreaking havoc on our everyday interactions.  We fall prey to it even in the most mundane conversations.  A line, statement, or question always has some earlier reference that colors it.  Because the characters arrive on stage with a history.  When two characters know each other well, that history can be shared; but even strangers carry a history into their conversations.  "Could you take out the trash?" carries the history of all the trash takings, of who got up at 2am to care for the baby, of who works longer hours or makes more money.  In real life those histories are (hopefully) dealth with and put to bed long before the simple question of trash is raised.  In the theatre, we only ask questions where the history is still raw-- where it is a driving force in the direction of the relationship.  And that history creates the elliptical motion of dialogue.  The line, statement, or question arcs backwards to collect the history of the character and then jumps forward into its expression. If you can pardon this poor drawing, the movement of dailogue looks more like this:

 The "Line" is the statement or question of the speaker. The listener connects it to their history, pushes it forward, and thus their reply is to both the speaker's words/subtext and their own history. The logic of the reply skips forward because now they are talking about two things.

Examine the language of Pinter.  It's incredibly jumpy and elliptical-- in ways that are often absolutely electric.  For those unfamiliar with his work, the size of the gaps can grow so large that Pinter tires out his audience who are left wondering what the characters are talking about.

Now look at Mamet's early work: it's highly repetitive, but at the same time the repetitions draw and build upon the characters' history and jump in their own manner.

As an example, consider the following bit of dialogue from Vigilance (yes, sooner or later I was bound to work our current production into the post).  The scene begins with Duncan proclaiming that he built the house Marla lives in.  He goes on to say that he never dreamed he would be living in one of those houses himself.  This follows:

  MARLA:  You live in Woodland Hills?

  DUNCAN:  2525 Stanford.

  MARLA:  You're... you won the house?

  DUNCAN: That's right.

  MARLA:  Well, congratulations.  I thought you owned a... uh....

  DUNCAN: Tattoo shop.  That's right.  I do some work on the side for my cousin.

  MARLA:  Building houses?

  DUNCAN:  Useta.  Back when I had to get my hands dirty.

This simple exchange is filled with dialectic jumps and ellipses. Take the first three lines: without ever discussing it, we learn that Duncan has newly arrived to Woodland Hills, and that there is some "issue around how he took possession of the house.  The issue has to do with him as a person-- Marla starts to refer to him and then switches to more objective, balanced language ("you're this" versus "you did this").  During the short exchange, the language-- and the silences-- are filled with judgement.  That's the history of their relationship, even though this is the first time they've met.  Notice when they speak in polite, complete sentences, and when they fragment and jump. A clear example is when Marla asks "Building houses?" and Duncan replies "Useta." He provides information not asked for.  The answer is both "yes" and the time frame, delivered in a slightly blunt manner.  He, in fact, chooses not to say yes directly.  At two points in the dialogue he implies yes, avoiding the opportunity to openly affirm Marla-- first when he could have said "yes I live at 2525 Stanford," and here when he might have answered "yes, back when I had to get my hands dirty."  These two aren't enemies yet, but they suspect they might become enemies.

Is this an example of compelling dialogue? I'll leave that to others to decide. But its a clear example of what I mean by jumps and elliptical structure. Are these characters "insane?" Do we see something irrational in their responses?  To compare, let's re-write the dialogue without the jumps:

  MARLA:  Do you live in Woodland Hills?

  DUNCAN: Yes, I live at 2525 Stanford.

  MARLA:  You're the one who won the house?

  DUNCAN:  That's right.

  MARLA:  Well congratulations.  I thought you owned a tattoo shop?

  DUNCAN:  That's right.  I do some work on the side for my cousin.

  MARLA:  Building houses for him?

  DUNCAN:  Yes. Back when I had to get my hands dirty.

We learn the same information, but do we have the same sense of the characters? Of how they feel about this information? Does it have the same energy?  Tension?  At this point, are we as the audience settling into our chairs for a long scene, or alert to the possibility that things may change in an instant?

So how does one make elliptical choices in their writing?  There are numerous ways to approach this, but most important is to know your characters.  The ellipses/jumps must come from them. Consider how they feel about each other and what they're saying... and then don't say it.  Reflect it.  Embrace that even strangers often know the end of each other's sentences and thoughts.  And choose moments in time with real stakes behind them.  In the above scene between Marla and Duncan, neither character has an overarching objective; there are no big goals or conflicts.  This 30 second fragment of dialogue is about testing.  Their goal is to understand each other. They're listening and responding. But their history and their instincts tell them that the other is about to become a sworn enemy.  And they do.

Ficke Me

Anyone paying attention will surely note that I'm not a regular blogger (or tweeter for that matter). Once in a blue moon I'll explain that 2nd Wind's Blog and Twitter only come alive when we're in production. We had a short hiatus this year, so that period of silence was longer than usual. But as you can see... with each word that skims past your optic nerve... I'm writing again. Which means we're producing again.

The problem with only writing when in production is that it leaves the impression that our blog is little more than a marketing tool designed to part you, the reader, from your hard-earned cash. But the truth is that while my "noise" is sometimes about ticket sales, my "silence" is never about that at all. Only the luckiest of artists doesn't pine for more time to create. The hours are elusive, and it takes days, weeks, and sometimes years to fashion a single piece. When I blog or tweet (especially if I'm trying to tweet about something other than my lunch), a fair a mount of time vanishes into planning and implementation. It uses a different part of my brain, and the writing juices stagnate and dry.

This blog is devoted to opening up the process of creating theatre. It's about holding a shared space for artists and audiences. I believe that to be hugely important. I believe that the mystery and magic of creation is so deep, that sharing it-- unveiling its secrets-- only leads to deeper magic. But writing... writing is something different.

Playwrights are constantly encouraged (and badgered) to be collaborative artists. We're asked to workshop, develop, co-create, and explain. Sometimes these requests come at the perfect time to aide our work. There are writers who thrive on this interaction; and yet I don't think it should ever be considered integral or expected. The idea that artists should be collaborative frankly irritates the bejesus out of me.

Actors need privacy to explore and take risks in order to give the most truthful, powerful performance they can. Designer's need quiet and solitude to create and refine their ideas. Playwrights, tasked with creating a rickly detailed and complete world, need privacy and solitutde to imagine, explore, and document that world. So while at times I wish I could continue the online conversation, there are periods when I need to withdraw into my creative cave, my only offering being the promise of something wondrous upon my return.

Over the next three months we're going to being pushing the boundaries of the sharing process. This blog will come alive again. This time round, I'm hoping to open the discussion even further, talking with theatre pros from other companies and organizations. In addition to producing a new piece of theatre, we're exploring some new ways of doing business-- of involving audiences and promoting discussion. So come back and join us on the journey. It's sure to be a ride.

Vigilance

Feb 2-25

Phoenix Theatre, SF

http://www.secondwind.8m.com/

The Origins of a Play

A play idea is a gossamer thing. It begins, deformed, in the primordial darkness of one’s subconscious, awaiting a spark from above. A new idea to ignite in the heavens and dive down below, creating a chemical reaction. For a play idea is never one idea, it’s an interconnected set of molecular ideas that bind to each and create their own energy. Old ideas are fomenting beneath the surface of consciousness; and finally a new idea—the right new idea—brings them to life.

Beneath my surface in primordial darkness sat ideas about intimacy, about whether truth was necessary for intimacy or if lies could produce the same bond. About language, which can hold both truth and lies, power and weakness. About the damage that can come from compromising one’s integrity. What these ideas needed was a spark.

About a year ago my fiancée, who’s a bit of a history buff, reminded me that Truman only had a high school education. He’d attended a semester or so of college, but that’s all. And I was struck by two things: first, how a farmer’s boy managed to become president of the United States without higher education; and second how a president just three months in office could have made the decision to drop an atomic bomb. The weight of that decision. I realized I had many preconceptions about this, but no real knowledge of the event.

My favorite question as a playwright is “how did we get here?” I often see the end of my plays very clearly—before anything else is in place. Then the beginning appears; it’s the middle that’s murky. I knew Truman’s beginning, of course, and I knew how the story ended. I had strong feelings about them already. An important rule of playwriting is to never write plays about things you have black and white feelings for. The work comes out lopsided, lacking dramatic energy because there’s no real opposing force, and you’re inclined to preach. It’s a rule almost as important as always write plays about things you have black and white feelings for. Not that all plays should fit into that category, but if you feel that way about something you should write about it. If it’s that clear, that simple in your mind, you haven’t explored it and you don’t understand it. Getting to know characters I find distasteful is some of the most rewarding writing I’ve done, and some of my best. Characters who stand for things I don’t like will always have clearly independent rhythms in their speech; I have to find the truth about their viewpoint, what is honest and sincere. I grow, and their characters are often more richly three-dimensional. Writing about characters you deeply admire is a rather sickly experience in comparison.

The Truman I knew from history books was beloved for ending the war, for always speaking plainly, and for keeping the interest of the average working man at heart. I had my doubts about the first point; during the course of my research I developed a new appreciation for the second point, his tendency to “speak his mind.”

In order to do his character, and that moment in time, justice, I realized I had to get some distance on it. In doing so, the characters of Will and Mel arrived. Truman became Harry. Harry could be more human, less constrained by our predetermined expectations of him; he could symbolize more than himself. The Harry of my play isn’t supposed to be an exact replica, a precise personification of Truman. I don’t think that’s possible; there were only a handful of people who ever really knew the complete man because he was a complex and somewhat guarded fellow. His biographers might claim that they knew him by his deeds and actions, but in the 1990s our knowledge of those deeds began to shift with the release of declassified documents. It raised questions about the events, and thus the man. I became fascinated by those questions, and they became one of the focal points of the play.

But the play is equally about Mel and Will (who never leaves the stage). They bring forth the older questions about intimacy, truth, language, and integrity. In the end, they became the heart of the play, a passionate, violent, and lyrical organ within the framework of history.

On Directing as the Playwright

We're entering a more frenetic time, production-wise. The flurry of activity and tension is due to the fact we're scheduled to film the video segments of the play this weekend-- and thus need costumes, lines, and scene work to be spot on-- and also because we're about two rehearsal days behind where I'd like to be. It's unusual for me; most of the time I'm able to pace the process more closely, but so many elements (and as I've said before, so much physical movement) have made it more difficult. Yesterday was the first formal "off book" day. It was rough, but in general they did pretty well. There are glimmers of beauty, but a lot of mud to clean up. So I thought I'd talk about my approach to directing, particularly as it relates to the strengths and weaknesses of being the playwright.

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