A woman slowly turns back into a man again – with dread, with fascination, with horror, with a growing sense of pride, with a growing sense of resentment, calling into image Tiresias, Busch, Fierstein, Ludlam, Quentin Crisp; gay lib and women’s lib at the same time.
It takes ten minutes to do something completely rapid and mundane that would normally take 10 seconds. Example: During a 10 second orgasm at the end of a brief affair between a lonely man and a lonely woman; one minute per second, we see the waves of realization and horror come over them, we see things happen in realtime in the body (the physical and neural events surrounding orgasm) and in dreamtime in the mind (the details of their meeting, their shame at this affair, their joy at this affair (sliding into or around a stranger reminding them of freer sexual times, of being bad, of bring a good lover mechanically, of the marriages and friendships betrayed by this affair). These were two good friends that have now messed up their friendship perhaps. A million details that interweave and contradict. Ten seconds can be a lifetime.
Thursday, October 21, 2004
six nights over
six nights and starting sanctuary: has had big impact on writing. ideas coming fast and furious but no time to get them beyond sketch stage. working also on producing another premiere; can't really talk about it yet, but it's a fantastic play with space to make new.
so pray with me - if you pray to the gods of whatever art where you worship - that the time to write again comes soon, i'm gonna bust.
x b
so pray with me - if you pray to the gods of whatever art where you worship - that the time to write again comes soon, i'm gonna bust.
x b
Thursday, July 22, 2004
More Ideas
New ideas coming in...
1. The immortality product (LifeX) needs frequent upgrades which extend life in "paks." The current pak lets people live to be 125 years old, prevents mental or physical aging. After that, an upgrade would be require to extend life to 135, then 150, etc. They are advancing the science the same way that chip scientists are advancing the evolution of microprocessors... they are not infinitely fast or efficient, but each new generation is faster and more efficient. Same with LifeX; and the benefits of this dynamic are similar to those experienced by chipmakers; customers have to pony up to get the latest upgrade or they lose out on the improvements to the technology.
2. We find out a covered up fact: Kate was a scientist involved in the initial stages of development of LifeX. She left when it was clear it would not be publicly available and free technology, but would rather be an expensive product only available to the richest people on the planet. The argument that LifeX used is that the funds permit continuous improvement. But Kate's argument was: you seem to be condemning the large parts of Earth's population to death. Having this background as a scientists and researcher bolsters the believability of her skills with genetic manipulation, and simultaneously gives her a stronger, more personal motivation for wanting to take down LifeX.
More ideas coming soon...
Friday, July 09, 2004
We’re not selling shares and any “profit” the company realizes will be ploughed back into more programs – more productions, more presentations, more commissions. We also have not asked the playwrights for future rights to these commissions. We’re trying to give them a playground where they can fly, and hoping that brings out their true – and enormous creativity. We’re into paying artists. That’s our mission. That being said, eventually it will pay us salaries and this project has already had a measurable impact on my own visibility, it’s the goodwill part of my portfolio. I’ll be rapacious as an artist and leave the nobility to my producer side. That oughta be amusing.
Monday, June 07, 2004
Simultaneity
OK... this is a capture of what in some ways are notes for the next stage in the evolution of this project.
It's clear that I'm strongly in favor of keeping the two worlds both present in the script. I got a LOT of notes saying that I needed to root the play in one world, and eliminate the other - the one most wanted eliminated was the fantastic world. The main note was that the future world is lost completely when the fantastic one intrudes, and the play becomes a plot machine and loses its ability to access subtlety. All true!
But there's a strong energy in the fantasy world, which actually represents a post-singularity world and is so strong I can't deny its actuality.
One cast member though had a key for me... Shakespeare's DREAM play introduces both worlds in scenes that alternate and eventually collide. That's the key to the success of this work.
1. Vera is having visions that have served her up until the story begins... giving her almost supernatual insights into her world and making her a terrific journalist, in fact, one of the greatest.
2. The visions begin to take on a more fantastic aspect... they in fact become what she knows of the Bush.
3. As the story progresses, her dilemma is made clear through increasingly surreal and strong visions. And she discovers the origin of these visions, and it's not what she expected it to be.
I know this is still vague, but I don't want to sperl it...
It's clear that I'm strongly in favor of keeping the two worlds both present in the script. I got a LOT of notes saying that I needed to root the play in one world, and eliminate the other - the one most wanted eliminated was the fantastic world. The main note was that the future world is lost completely when the fantastic one intrudes, and the play becomes a plot machine and loses its ability to access subtlety. All true!
But there's a strong energy in the fantasy world, which actually represents a post-singularity world and is so strong I can't deny its actuality.
One cast member though had a key for me... Shakespeare's DREAM play introduces both worlds in scenes that alternate and eventually collide. That's the key to the success of this work.
1. Vera is having visions that have served her up until the story begins... giving her almost supernatual insights into her world and making her a terrific journalist, in fact, one of the greatest.
2. The visions begin to take on a more fantastic aspect... they in fact become what she knows of the Bush.
3. As the story progresses, her dilemma is made clear through increasingly surreal and strong visions. And she discovers the origin of these visions, and it's not what she expected it to be.
I know this is still vague, but I don't want to sperl it...
Saturday, May 29, 2004
Ugh, i have not nailed it
The comments are coming in and it appears that many colleagues are not picking up on what I was trying to do. Is this what I meant? Probably not.
Think I am definitely onto something and feel pretty damn obsessed about it, it's just going to require some more work.
There need to be two worlds. The worlds need to intermix better and earlier, so we don't have to meet the second world at the very beginning of act ii - I think it does slow down the play - instead we need the second world to be waiting on the first world to make the first move, back in Act I... and for the characters in the new world to ready/steady themselves for what is to occur back then.
Around the end of June it'll be picked up again and worked on.
Be good.
Think I am definitely onto something and feel pretty damn obsessed about it, it's just going to require some more work.
There need to be two worlds. The worlds need to intermix better and earlier, so we don't have to meet the second world at the very beginning of act ii - I think it does slow down the play - instead we need the second world to be waiting on the first world to make the first move, back in Act I... and for the characters in the new world to ready/steady themselves for what is to occur back then.
Around the end of June it'll be picked up again and worked on.
Be good.
Friday, May 21, 2004
Workshopped now - tired and happy
Ahhh... the six workshop productions - which took the form of staged readings - are now done.
The actors and director worked incredibly hard to do a low-tech realization of the draft. The energy they brought to the piece was palpable, and their talent and
Audience response was educational and sometimes heartening.
About 30% saw it and had a response similar to drinking a triple espresso... they responded with energy, excitement, enthusiasm, even. The draft as it stands today - "scene complete" but nowhere near finished or polished, inspired a lot of comments on its ideas and constant drive forward through its complex worlds. Those responses were heartening. I can expect that even if I get really wild, this 30% can stay with it.
As for the 70%... there were comments like "a play is *that*... a play is not *this*" - meaning a play is not what they saw. Most commonly this came over in a somewhat distressed tone. The draft is sprawling with characters, scenes, modes, ideas, words, images. It is not in its current form easy to follow. In a sense it has too much in it. But there was confusion between faulting it for its ambitions and faulting it for its complexity. It is too complex, it does need to be lined up and neatened. It does tend to burst out of the space and that's not always a good thing. In that sense, they're right... but they didn't need to be so distressed about it. The draft was a scratchpad for the play in a sense... a testing of various ideas and modalities for telling this particular story; exploration of possible character arcs and character forms from the ironic to mythic to the realistic.
What they saw was a series of experiments, testing the limits of what the play - when it's finished and actually becomes a play - can get away with. A few people somewhat condescendingly trying to define what a play was... nice of them... the definitions tended to fit into TV and well-made forma. One place, a few people talking, conflicts on a personal level. Someone actually said, a novel is about a conflict inside someone, a play is about a conflict between people, and a film is about a conflict of a person against the world. They are missing the point, but that's OK. Another person faulted the science aspects of the play, saying it's known the scenaria are implausible. Well, it's a work of fiction. But even so, scientifically it all really could happen.
A subset of those who responded enthusiastically were non-American folks. I think for them the expectations that any work for the stage would have a necessarily linear plot with clear precedent at every point for the main characters, that focus would necessarily be primarily on the protagonst, are different. Whereas Americans are more used to TV entertainment that reaches all the way into their living rooms to get them; they have fingers that twitch at an imaginary remote control whenever they see something that doesn't draw them in instantly or that floats above their line of sight.
Now I'll be taking a break from The New Life for about a month - a necessary cooling off period before I go out to absorb everything I learned, re-read the draft as if someone else wrote it, and apply a gimlet eye. Always need to do that... otherwise I'll start the rewrite with a strong sense of ownership and the changes and cuts will be too hard to do. You can't have that sense and still make the brutal cuts and rewrites that will be needed to turn this mass of twitching machinery into a real play.
The actors and director worked incredibly hard to do a low-tech realization of the draft. The energy they brought to the piece was palpable, and their talent and
Audience response was educational and sometimes heartening.
About 30% saw it and had a response similar to drinking a triple espresso... they responded with energy, excitement, enthusiasm, even. The draft as it stands today - "scene complete" but nowhere near finished or polished, inspired a lot of comments on its ideas and constant drive forward through its complex worlds. Those responses were heartening. I can expect that even if I get really wild, this 30% can stay with it.
As for the 70%... there were comments like "a play is *that*... a play is not *this*" - meaning a play is not what they saw. Most commonly this came over in a somewhat distressed tone. The draft is sprawling with characters, scenes, modes, ideas, words, images. It is not in its current form easy to follow. In a sense it has too much in it. But there was confusion between faulting it for its ambitions and faulting it for its complexity. It is too complex, it does need to be lined up and neatened. It does tend to burst out of the space and that's not always a good thing. In that sense, they're right... but they didn't need to be so distressed about it. The draft was a scratchpad for the play in a sense... a testing of various ideas and modalities for telling this particular story; exploration of possible character arcs and character forms from the ironic to mythic to the realistic.
What they saw was a series of experiments, testing the limits of what the play - when it's finished and actually becomes a play - can get away with. A few people somewhat condescendingly trying to define what a play was... nice of them... the definitions tended to fit into TV and well-made forma. One place, a few people talking, conflicts on a personal level. Someone actually said, a novel is about a conflict inside someone, a play is about a conflict between people, and a film is about a conflict of a person against the world. They are missing the point, but that's OK. Another person faulted the science aspects of the play, saying it's known the scenaria are implausible. Well, it's a work of fiction. But even so, scientifically it all really could happen.
A subset of those who responded enthusiastically were non-American folks. I think for them the expectations that any work for the stage would have a necessarily linear plot with clear precedent at every point for the main characters, that focus would necessarily be primarily on the protagonst, are different. Whereas Americans are more used to TV entertainment that reaches all the way into their living rooms to get them; they have fingers that twitch at an imaginary remote control whenever they see something that doesn't draw them in instantly or that floats above their line of sight.
Now I'll be taking a break from The New Life for about a month - a necessary cooling off period before I go out to absorb everything I learned, re-read the draft as if someone else wrote it, and apply a gimlet eye. Always need to do that... otherwise I'll start the rewrite with a strong sense of ownership and the changes and cuts will be too hard to do. You can't have that sense and still make the brutal cuts and rewrites that will be needed to turn this mass of twitching machinery into a real play.
Thursday, May 06, 2004
Rehearsals well under way
Rehearsals are going well... a little creatively chaotic (after all we have a fairly difficult 2-hour play with original songs to rehearse in five sessions - you have to admire these guys for their enthusiasm, talent and efficiency!).
It seems that the ideas and tableaux in the play seem largely to be borne up in rehearsal, and as always there are hundreds of deeper things there in the script that make it funner and funner to work with as you rehearse - some of these are intentional and some, at least overtly, not.
But it's apparent there's a static block of a scene sitting in the middle of Act II... so I've now cut another character (Donna Morgan) and am back to my writing room to completely rewrite that entire section. The best part of it is that watching the rehearsals has given me a set of clear ideas on exactly what to do. Now it's just a question of making it, and making it fun.
It seems that the ideas and tableaux in the play seem largely to be borne up in rehearsal, and as always there are hundreds of deeper things there in the script that make it funner and funner to work with as you rehearse - some of these are intentional and some, at least overtly, not.
But it's apparent there's a static block of a scene sitting in the middle of Act II... so I've now cut another character (Donna Morgan) and am back to my writing room to completely rewrite that entire section. The best part of it is that watching the rehearsals has given me a set of clear ideas on exactly what to do. Now it's just a question of making it, and making it fun.
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
And the beat goes on...
Have received lots of notes from several colleagues as well, plus there are my own observations and the notes from the reading itself. Quite a lot to digest, and have to confess it's been a good break from working on it, as the necessary distancing between the script and my sense of ownership occurs. At this phase, to rewrite, I must elicit a certain brutality -(Faulkner's darlings-must-be-killed; that means watch out for ETIOM - Effects That Impress Only Me...).
Tuesday, met with Peter Papazoglou, director for the next phase - workshopping the play before an audience over the next couple weeks.
Over coffee (at Starbucks) Peter had very incisive comments re structure and lots of logic questions.
You know, I spend entirely too much time talking about my approach. But what might be interesting: the approach has been somewhat story-mystical, if that makes any sense. It’s largely been world-building and character voice. The thinking was, we needed a really present world to 'set' the story (gemologically) best. Logic can suffer with that approach. Once you know the sense of the world, and the way the characters talk and feel about each other.
Been a quiet phase, but things are about to get hot again... cranking a new draft to the cast by mid-weekend. Been experimenting with a new character, one of the genetic scientists who built the Bush. Strong chance, he could be scaffolding soon. There are so many dimensions to this world that I must leave out of the play. There is enough to this fictional world to make a whole series. Hmmm....
Tuesday, met with Peter Papazoglou, director for the next phase - workshopping the play before an audience over the next couple weeks.
Over coffee (at Starbucks) Peter had very incisive comments re structure and lots of logic questions.
You know, I spend entirely too much time talking about my approach. But what might be interesting: the approach has been somewhat story-mystical, if that makes any sense. It’s largely been world-building and character voice. The thinking was, we needed a really present world to 'set' the story (gemologically) best. Logic can suffer with that approach. Once you know the sense of the world, and the way the characters talk and feel about each other.
Been a quiet phase, but things are about to get hot again... cranking a new draft to the cast by mid-weekend. Been experimenting with a new character, one of the genetic scientists who built the Bush. Strong chance, he could be scaffolding soon. There are so many dimensions to this world that I must leave out of the play. There is enough to this fictional world to make a whole series. Hmmm....
Wednesday, April 14, 2004
First draft *IN*
Dancing the night away... finally got through a complete draft. There's holes, sure, but we're ready for the reading TOMORROW NIGHT. Sent a copy to the cast and then spent the entire day today working on the draft, polishing and rewriting several scenes in Act I, especially scene 1 - which lost 10 pages today, glad to say - removing notes and other scaffolding, and then got back to work smoothing Act III scene 3, the climactic battle scene. Sounds funny to think there'd be a climactic battle scene in a stage play, but there ya go, doing all kinds of crazy time here. In about a half hour, will send the reading draft out to everyone, and call it a night. Do something brainless - or possibly brainful, like watching Robert Altman's Nashville - what a flick!
See some of you tomorrow night... hope all this malarkey was worth it. All for love, all for love.
See some of you tomorrow night... hope all this malarkey was worth it. All for love, all for love.
Friday, April 09, 2004
character reflection
The New Life has a menagerie of characters... one of the things decided when i realized we'd have 9 actors involved at the idea stage was not to restrict the number of characters we could have arbitrarily. (as it would happen, the number 9 has special significance for dante in the poem behind the title, so there's a near scary confluence there.)
So in the middle phase, there were suddenly over 20 principal characters in the play. Madness! The audience would need a scorecard, tons of doubling means lots of context shifts for the actors, making the play harder to realize. not that hard is always bad. but in this case, the play is ambitious in so many ways, and with the sometimes timid response difficult scripts get from some theatres, one must do everything possible to give a play a chance to see the stage again. What to do to solve this, reduce the number of characters?
Went through the script over the past month, telescoping characters and was able to reduce the number to 18 this way. Looked for another way to make a change to clarify and simplify. And it hit me. Matt had given a note during the open rehearsal - that there was a tiny influence of the Wizard of Oz in the play. As you'll recall, in the "set up the world" long first act before the inciting incident, the people Dorothy meets (Mrs. Gulch, Dr. MarVell, Hunk, etc.) are played by the same actors who later become the Wicked Witch of the West, the Wizard, and the Cowardly Lion. And there are links between the Kansas characters in terms of how they're played. That was it. Though I'd have the same actor playing multiple roles, I'd link the characters they played, so that the core characterization and verbs could be highly similar. Bingo.
So in the middle phase, there were suddenly over 20 principal characters in the play. Madness! The audience would need a scorecard, tons of doubling means lots of context shifts for the actors, making the play harder to realize. not that hard is always bad. but in this case, the play is ambitious in so many ways, and with the sometimes timid response difficult scripts get from some theatres, one must do everything possible to give a play a chance to see the stage again. What to do to solve this, reduce the number of characters?
Went through the script over the past month, telescoping characters and was able to reduce the number to 18 this way. Looked for another way to make a change to clarify and simplify. And it hit me. Matt had given a note during the open rehearsal - that there was a tiny influence of the Wizard of Oz in the play. As you'll recall, in the "set up the world" long first act before the inciting incident, the people Dorothy meets (Mrs. Gulch, Dr. MarVell, Hunk, etc.) are played by the same actors who later become the Wicked Witch of the West, the Wizard, and the Cowardly Lion. And there are links between the Kansas characters in terms of how they're played. That was it. Though I'd have the same actor playing multiple roles, I'd link the characters they played, so that the core characterization and verbs could be highly similar. Bingo.
Wednesday, April 07, 2004
tiny scraps when whole cloth not available
Just an observation whilst writing; when sometimes I can't write a whole scene through, instead I make little scene bricks. Sometimes they're specific to a situation, which means they can only be used in one place; other times they're specific to (usually two) characters talking to each other, which means they can be assembled into many places in the play; sometimes this requires adjustment to make the arc clear for that moment.
lots of interesting stress starting of course... the project is due for a reading April 15. see you there, I hope, same place as the open rehearsal, Champion Studios, 257 West 39th St., NYC, and same time - 7:30 PM. RSVP to me at jude@pipeline.com. Love to see you there; if you can put up with this blog, which is dry, think of how much more fun you'll have at the real thing, the play that's developing underneath the blog.
lots of interesting stress starting of course... the project is due for a reading April 15. see you there, I hope, same place as the open rehearsal, Champion Studios, 257 West 39th St., NYC, and same time - 7:30 PM. RSVP to me at jude@pipeline.com. Love to see you there; if you can put up with this blog, which is dry, think of how much more fun you'll have at the real thing, the play that's developing underneath the blog.
Thursday, April 01, 2004
the atrocity of this future world
A fellow playwright whose advice is impeccable helped nail one aspect i'd been trying to bring out... how to rationalize Vera running instead of staying put and trusting the system. There's something fishy about it, they way they won't admit how much damage the rebellion is really doing, won't even allow the rebellion ten minutes onscreen. Her mention of the Rebellion is censored. The society they live in, despite its benefits and amazing possibilities, is also built on lies and death. There are a couple of possible atrocities they could commit. Sacrificing Mortals to add to their extant virus information - so they can track viruses across the Cities... that's one possibility. Or perhaps there's a worse, 22nd century form of genocide. Well that's a happy thought. How cheery this play is. It's just non-stop wads of cheer.
Saturday, March 20, 2004
Stages, not acts
Been writing little notes to self at the top of each scene. In bold. Pep talks about each scene. Seems to work... the technique sort of lets you put up temporary scaffolding and sandblast the idea until all the crap's off it.
If you get a chance, check out The Best Democracy Money Can Buy by Greg Palast. This is the investigative reporter that Michael Moore and the like get some ideas from. It's important to have balance in your diet.
The meaning? Of the heading up there? Ah. The phases of the new life are stages, so the acts take on those stages. that's what that means.
If you get a chance, check out The Best Democracy Money Can Buy by Greg Palast. This is the investigative reporter that Michael Moore and the like get some ideas from. It's important to have balance in your diet.
The meaning? Of the heading up there? Ah. The phases of the new life are stages, so the acts take on those stages. that's what that means.
Saturday, March 13, 2004
Open Rehearsal
The focus was to honor all of the actors with a script worthy of this group, you made it look great and sound great and you should hear that as soon as possible.
Always thank the one with the thankless task first. So thank you to the hard-working and *fluent* Karin, doing the thankless task of reading stage directions. Larry gracefully switching between BEARER 1 and DAMIAN. Colleen, the Russian embassy needs a translator. Joe, you put Chiron in a Leisure suit and gazillionaired like a gazillionaire… imagine if it were “three-sexillionaire” (3 with 18 zeroes). Kimberly you made everyone want to take Japanese drugs (big surprise). Kirsten you found the cuore (heart) of Vera. Chris you picked the damn script up cold tonight and brought us the character of Net. Matt, you got us in there. Courtney made sure people found the place. Thank you all.
The play is by no means finished, but what we heard tonight was material that will for the most part survive, possibly cut down (cutting is a favored way to improve a script).
The actors took the material and were able to fly with it. That means the indirection is there, the voltage is in the wire and actors can take the material and make it their own.
The hard work is starting to pay off. But coffee break's over, time to get back on my head.
Always thank the one with the thankless task first. So thank you to the hard-working and *fluent* Karin, doing the thankless task of reading stage directions. Larry gracefully switching between BEARER 1 and DAMIAN. Colleen, the Russian embassy needs a translator. Joe, you put Chiron in a Leisure suit and gazillionaired like a gazillionaire… imagine if it were “three-sexillionaire” (3 with 18 zeroes). Kimberly you made everyone want to take Japanese drugs (big surprise). Kirsten you found the cuore (heart) of Vera. Chris you picked the damn script up cold tonight and brought us the character of Net. Matt, you got us in there. Courtney made sure people found the place. Thank you all.
The play is by no means finished, but what we heard tonight was material that will for the most part survive, possibly cut down (cutting is a favored way to improve a script).
The actors took the material and were able to fly with it. That means the indirection is there, the voltage is in the wire and actors can take the material and make it their own.
The hard work is starting to pay off. But coffee break's over, time to get back on my head.
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
An early draft is out there
Sent the early draft - pre first draft - to the cast for the open rehearsal. It's 9 scenes, from the fugue at the beginning through 8 more movements. At this point, if I hear it works and it's off the beaten path, that's what I need to hear. If it doesn't work, I'll fix it. It's a complex piece and it's lucky there are so many seasoned players in the group; what they got tonight is a workout... but it's going to be fine.
Questions I plan to ask Friday -
1. Are we starting to get the stuff across?
2. Some characters are boldly drawn and others are a little blurrier, depending on how close they are to the focus. Who are these people?
3. The story moves against a world hanging in the background. Mortal Coil is a whole world, but if you live in a world you don’t go round talking about it, you’d just live there. Are the rules of the world clear?
... and surely more questions will come.
Questions I plan to ask Friday -
1. Are we starting to get the stuff across?
2. Some characters are boldly drawn and others are a little blurrier, depending on how close they are to the focus. Who are these people?
3. The story moves against a world hanging in the background. Mortal Coil is a whole world, but if you live in a world you don’t go round talking about it, you’d just live there. Are the rules of the world clear?
... and surely more questions will come.
Monday, March 08, 2004
Open rehearsal Friday March 12, 7:30 PM
Mortal Coil will have its first public presentation by Praxis Theatre Project NYC at an open rehearsal Friday, March 12 at Champion Studios, 257 West 39th St., NYC, 7:30 PM. If you have been reading this blog and now plan to attend, please shoot me an email at jude@pipeline.com, as seating is VERY LIMITED.. Plus, if you email, I'll get you on the mailing list so you can keep abreast of things - there is an open reading and workshop run of the play coming up!
Back to pages!
Back to pages!
Sunday, March 07, 2004
La Vita Nuova
Small details can be important. Example, Vera receives messages that appear in her mouth; someone or something has rewritten her genes and activation sequences. Among the genetic changes, her body is manufacturing messages on rolled up paper, which are brief snatches in Italian from Dante's La Vita Nuova. Net is there to translate these for her (until he's not).
These messages foreshadow the stages in her character's evolution as she changes from human into whatever the changes made to her genes designs. La Vita Nuova.
These messages foreshadow the stages in her character's evolution as she changes from human into whatever the changes made to her genes designs. La Vita Nuova.
Monday, March 01, 2004
Now it's about pages...
There is an open rehearsal scheduled for March 12. I'd like the cast to have at least two days with the script beforehand. Admittedly some things are still going to be rough, but many things will also be exactly the way they'll be in the finished script.
For about two weeks now, I've been focused on only one thing: Turning pages out. This has been a full-time, 3-day a week job (I also work a full-time job in the computer industry, so it's been a balancing act).
There are already 55 pages done, all keyframe scenes are in except the climax. Following please find my writing schedule for the next two weeks. Scene shapes are also done for the scenes that stitch the keyframe scenes together, so now we just have to write those. Page counts are very approximate.
(Hopelessly quotidian! But writing is more than just thinking stuff up. It's bone-crunching work.)
Monday 3/1 - The party - (6 pages) Desperation 1 (4 pages) and Desperation 2 (6 pages) -
Tuesday 3/2 - The Road 1 (5 pages) - Weird creatures
Wednesday 3/3 - The Road 2 (5 pages) - Lotus Eaters
Thursday 3/4 - The Road 2 (5 pages) - Lotus Eaters
Saturday 3/6 - The Road 3 transition (3 pages) and Donna Morgan death scene (9 pages)
Sunday 3/7 - Entering the Safe House (5 pages) meeting Kate (5 pages)
Monday 3/8 - Rewrite climactic scene (8 pages) and complete Scene 1 (4 more pages)
Tuesday 3/9 - Review and tweak Opening and climactic points (2 more pages)
Wednesday 3/10 - Research and weave in poetry quotes, fill in jokes, gaps and expletives, Proofread
and TURN IN DRAFT to CAST and MATT
When I deliver on this schedule we'll have double the number of pages almost - 111 pages - but still be well under the two-hour limit. If I fall slightly short of that, I'm not going to kick myself. Nor will anyone else.
I know, if I'm going to be *this* entertaining, you might as well tune in to "American Idol." Or better yet, go out and see a bunch of other great new plays - too bad Melissa James Gibson's Suitcase just closed, that was a good one.
For about two weeks now, I've been focused on only one thing: Turning pages out. This has been a full-time, 3-day a week job (I also work a full-time job in the computer industry, so it's been a balancing act).
There are already 55 pages done, all keyframe scenes are in except the climax. Following please find my writing schedule for the next two weeks. Scene shapes are also done for the scenes that stitch the keyframe scenes together, so now we just have to write those. Page counts are very approximate.
(Hopelessly quotidian! But writing is more than just thinking stuff up. It's bone-crunching work.)
Monday 3/1 - The party - (6 pages) Desperation 1 (4 pages) and Desperation 2 (6 pages) -
Tuesday 3/2 - The Road 1 (5 pages) - Weird creatures
Wednesday 3/3 - The Road 2 (5 pages) - Lotus Eaters
Thursday 3/4 - The Road 2 (5 pages) - Lotus Eaters
Saturday 3/6 - The Road 3 transition (3 pages) and Donna Morgan death scene (9 pages)
Sunday 3/7 - Entering the Safe House (5 pages) meeting Kate (5 pages)
Monday 3/8 - Rewrite climactic scene (8 pages) and complete Scene 1 (4 more pages)
Tuesday 3/9 - Review and tweak Opening and climactic points (2 more pages)
Wednesday 3/10 - Research and weave in poetry quotes, fill in jokes, gaps and expletives, Proofread
and TURN IN DRAFT to CAST and MATT
When I deliver on this schedule we'll have double the number of pages almost - 111 pages - but still be well under the two-hour limit. If I fall slightly short of that, I'm not going to kick myself. Nor will anyone else.
I know, if I'm going to be *this* entertaining, you might as well tune in to "American Idol." Or better yet, go out and see a bunch of other great new plays - too bad Melissa James Gibson's Suitcase just closed, that was a good one.
Thursday, February 05, 2004
taking shape
Shape is one of the most important things in a play, at least for me. Let's define shape as the overall pattern of motion for the plot and character arcs. There needs to be a unity of shape for a play to contain beauty. By unity of shape, I mean the principal character's arc must be the force that molds the play's shape and the shapes of individual character arcs must reflect the overall shape of the driving plot in the play. And the shape must move in a harmonious fashion. Even ugly beauty involves some form of harmony; even dissonance requires discipline or it's just noise.
Shape in a play is not static, it must move. It is a four-dimensional shape, taking definite boundaries and filling its countours with detail, but also moving in time to gradually transform from one static shape to another.
Successful directors work this way as well; several directing textbooks talk about "picturization" which is seeing a play as a gradual progress through possibly tens or even hundreds of static pictures. These pictures add up to a time-based experience of shapes in motion. When most successful these shapes are evocative and not literal. Most of the time when an actor complains about a scene being too on the nose, they are referring to this dynamic. By the way, audiences rarely say a scene's too on the nose, especially at readings. It's always an actor, director, another playwright, or stage manager, even a designer who will point these things out to us. Or we just notice it ourselves. But audiences always say in talk backs they want everything to be crystal clear. Really they don't want that, they're just telling us they have a hard time reading the music off the page, and that's completely understandable - they haven't made a life of interpreting plays.
Each individual picture should evoke a particular sense of dynamism (potential movement) as well as status (level and forward/backward position control status - downstage and higher up take higher status than upstage and lower down.) This is a gross oversimplification for the purpose of making a point, and I don't mean by this definition to denigrate the importance of voice. But the visual sense dominates our way of perceiving change, and change is what theatre is about, and that's got to count for something.
When determing the shapes of characters in the play, it's important that the shapes of secondary and incenting characters should *not* be identical to that of the play overall. Instead the shapes should either support or contrast to the central shape. Oversimplified, if the principal character is moving in a downward direction in terms of their status, other characters should experience upward motion. For example, as Vera's fate apparently moves downward, that of her husband, who's exploiting her downfall for his own ends, moves upward in inverse proportion. Now, the husband is not a principal character in the play, at least not in terms of overall pages where he appears, however he's important to show the progress of destiny in the play.
Shape in a play is not static, it must move. It is a four-dimensional shape, taking definite boundaries and filling its countours with detail, but also moving in time to gradually transform from one static shape to another.
Successful directors work this way as well; several directing textbooks talk about "picturization" which is seeing a play as a gradual progress through possibly tens or even hundreds of static pictures. These pictures add up to a time-based experience of shapes in motion. When most successful these shapes are evocative and not literal. Most of the time when an actor complains about a scene being too on the nose, they are referring to this dynamic. By the way, audiences rarely say a scene's too on the nose, especially at readings. It's always an actor, director, another playwright, or stage manager, even a designer who will point these things out to us. Or we just notice it ourselves. But audiences always say in talk backs they want everything to be crystal clear. Really they don't want that, they're just telling us they have a hard time reading the music off the page, and that's completely understandable - they haven't made a life of interpreting plays.
Each individual picture should evoke a particular sense of dynamism (potential movement) as well as status (level and forward/backward position control status - downstage and higher up take higher status than upstage and lower down.) This is a gross oversimplification for the purpose of making a point, and I don't mean by this definition to denigrate the importance of voice. But the visual sense dominates our way of perceiving change, and change is what theatre is about, and that's got to count for something.
When determing the shapes of characters in the play, it's important that the shapes of secondary and incenting characters should *not* be identical to that of the play overall. Instead the shapes should either support or contrast to the central shape. Oversimplified, if the principal character is moving in a downward direction in terms of their status, other characters should experience upward motion. For example, as Vera's fate apparently moves downward, that of her husband, who's exploiting her downfall for his own ends, moves upward in inverse proportion. Now, the husband is not a principal character in the play, at least not in terms of overall pages where he appears, however he's important to show the progress of destiny in the play.
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
Size of notes vs. size of scenes
Of the near 50 pages written so far, there are 15 pages of scene drafts and 35 pages of notes. The scenes are more like experiments in actualizing the world of the notes. What are the notes? An amalgam of character analysis, plot points, metaphors, setting ideas, modes of conveyance, hot objects...
The opening sequence is critical, reduced again to outline (dialogue is relentlessly cannibalized) it reflects the structure of the whole play - there are three full-cast scenes planned and this is one of them. There are these 9 terrific actors, and they should all be onstage as much as the story will carry that.
The basic movement of the opening scene is: She's editing a documentary, with the aid of software agents, for presentation to the network for whom the program was commissioned. During the course of the editing, parts of scenes are repeated and augmented; there are no rules of objectivity in 2129 journalism... in fact, a show is a success when its opinions most closely match the prevailing course of opinion - that's 'objective fact' for the time (unlike today's journalism - so dispassionately objective ;-)) Simultaneously she's presenting the final edit to her mentor, who notes what's missing - the very thing that will make the show a coup, an interview with Kate Anthony, head of the RU. A building explodes nearby. A body's carried in...
Sure it sounds like a plot machine... the towering freaking inferno... but just wait...
to be continued...
The opening sequence is critical, reduced again to outline (dialogue is relentlessly cannibalized) it reflects the structure of the whole play - there are three full-cast scenes planned and this is one of them. There are these 9 terrific actors, and they should all be onstage as much as the story will carry that.
The basic movement of the opening scene is: She's editing a documentary, with the aid of software agents, for presentation to the network for whom the program was commissioned. During the course of the editing, parts of scenes are repeated and augmented; there are no rules of objectivity in 2129 journalism... in fact, a show is a success when its opinions most closely match the prevailing course of opinion - that's 'objective fact' for the time (unlike today's journalism - so dispassionately objective ;-)) Simultaneously she's presenting the final edit to her mentor, who notes what's missing - the very thing that will make the show a coup, an interview with Kate Anthony, head of the RU. A building explodes nearby. A body's carried in...
Sure it sounds like a plot machine... the towering freaking inferno... but just wait...
to be continued...
Tuesday, January 20, 2004
Conventions - arriving at them and using them
Can't think of theatre as a limited form. It's got the same possibilities and presence of limitation as any other medium. Comparing theatre to film has resulted in some makers of theatre thinking that theatre can't achieve what film can - can't match its scope, can't be as visual, can't depict the fantastic as well.
The problem to solve is how to create a depiction of the ideas for the future, real in a way, without any of the CGI/SE palette that film has... and without having to EXPLAIN them... those are the limitations, and so within those strictures, i've come up with a whole bunch of strategies, some borrowed from avant/garde, some invented.
In truth, it's film that's limited. The great CGI effect that looks so cool today will be passe in 5 years. Whereas the theatre's use of special effects, lo-tech and relying on the human imagination... why, those will remain cool, possibly forever.
So achieving, for example, a play with scientfic imagery that takes on an almost mystical set of properties can actually be done better in the theatre - where the special effects that lie in the mind can never go out of date.
So for example, rolled up pieces of paper appear in her mouth with messages to her written on them - her genes were reprogrammed to create the paper, ink and actually write the messages (deposit the ink in a predetermined pattern on the paper). Objects and tools are imbued with intelligence, have ideas, opinons and strong feelings about how well we use them.
The problem to solve is how to create a depiction of the ideas for the future, real in a way, without any of the CGI/SE palette that film has... and without having to EXPLAIN them... those are the limitations, and so within those strictures, i've come up with a whole bunch of strategies, some borrowed from avant/garde, some invented.
In truth, it's film that's limited. The great CGI effect that looks so cool today will be passe in 5 years. Whereas the theatre's use of special effects, lo-tech and relying on the human imagination... why, those will remain cool, possibly forever.
So achieving, for example, a play with scientfic imagery that takes on an almost mystical set of properties can actually be done better in the theatre - where the special effects that lie in the mind can never go out of date.
So for example, rolled up pieces of paper appear in her mouth with messages to her written on them - her genes were reprogrammed to create the paper, ink and actually write the messages (deposit the ink in a predetermined pattern on the paper). Objects and tools are imbued with intelligence, have ideas, opinons and strong feelings about how well we use them.
Friday, January 09, 2004
The story trinity
There are three stories woven into this play.
The story of the documentary she is making - the answers to the core questions she's been asking all her life - or perhaps sometimes better questions. Though it's created in multiple installments, it's the core of her being that's explored and revealed; the play's world reflects these values. Specifically the questions are about the nature of the world they occupy, and how they've deluded themselves; she's the artist, a needed tonic for her day. She's not always right - in fact, she's mostly wrong and the truth has to give her a good nip before she can see it. The beliefs she holds at the opening are surely the result of having given up on achieving any of her lifelong goals. But this makes her feel alive; alive for the first time in ages, because she's going to die. Each actor in the company has to have a part in the documentary at the opening; a 5 or 6-stage journey.
The poisoning plot, which is the cover story for her journey through seven checkpoints - there are seven characters besides Vera and Internet (he's with her almost in every scene until he can't be there any longer).
What's really going on; what grab for power is this and what she's going to do to bring them to justice and not let them win out.
The story of the documentary she is making - the answers to the core questions she's been asking all her life - or perhaps sometimes better questions. Though it's created in multiple installments, it's the core of her being that's explored and revealed; the play's world reflects these values. Specifically the questions are about the nature of the world they occupy, and how they've deluded themselves; she's the artist, a needed tonic for her day. She's not always right - in fact, she's mostly wrong and the truth has to give her a good nip before she can see it. The beliefs she holds at the opening are surely the result of having given up on achieving any of her lifelong goals. But this makes her feel alive; alive for the first time in ages, because she's going to die. Each actor in the company has to have a part in the documentary at the opening; a 5 or 6-stage journey.
The poisoning plot, which is the cover story for her journey through seven checkpoints - there are seven characters besides Vera and Internet (he's with her almost in every scene until he can't be there any longer).
What's really going on; what grab for power is this and what she's going to do to bring them to justice and not let them win out.
Friday, January 02, 2004
1. structure 2. write
Near as soon as the first scenes start coming out, the structure starts to change; this is pretty typical of how it goes for me. Got a skeleton of ~ 24 basic scene actions (each scene actions usually translates to a single scene. The exception would be in a multi-threaded or "epic" story, where a scene will always have more than one scene action - typically a threaded character gets an objective on their journey as well as the protagonist). By the way, this is shaping up to be an Epic style play. For a good definition of what's meant by Epic, see The Power of the Playwright's Vision by Gordon Farrell
Now, as secondary characters become more complete, they start arguing with me that they want to do more, and that means changes to the structure to respond to their lobbying.
NAMES are really important to characters for me... i tend toward a modernized Restoration Comedy naming convention, where a character's name correlates closely to their character. So the lead character's working name for now is Vera, with all those connotations (it will probably change, it's a bit heavy-handed, that the seeker after truth would be named Vera). But there are all these rich tangents; Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn? The secondary characters tend to have less well-defined names at this point; i'm naming them obvious things like caliban, dulcinea and pericles, names too absurd to coexist in a script with a concrete structure. Using ridiculous but evocative names keeps alive both (1) the basic spine of the character (2) the fact that it HAS to be changed before the draft goes to anyone; again, typical of how I work.
DETAILS On a related note, I tend to not work out the detailed things whilst writing initial drafts... I leave spaces in the script-in-progress that says things like, "insert haiku about laundry here" because my head doesn't interrupt well; if it's on a streak of writing plot points it's not going to be too good at writing lyrics or crafting an acerbic comeback. This is a painful thing, I have this creative ADD thing going on, so if I get distracted, I've lost the context - all the little intricate threads I thought I was weaving into permanence become fumetti (little puffs of smoke). Are you like that... is it hard to re-focus on the context once the stack gets popped, (software term) after an interruption?
Now, as secondary characters become more complete, they start arguing with me that they want to do more, and that means changes to the structure to respond to their lobbying.
NAMES are really important to characters for me... i tend toward a modernized Restoration Comedy naming convention, where a character's name correlates closely to their character. So the lead character's working name for now is Vera, with all those connotations (it will probably change, it's a bit heavy-handed, that the seeker after truth would be named Vera). But there are all these rich tangents; Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn? The secondary characters tend to have less well-defined names at this point; i'm naming them obvious things like caliban, dulcinea and pericles, names too absurd to coexist in a script with a concrete structure. Using ridiculous but evocative names keeps alive both (1) the basic spine of the character (2) the fact that it HAS to be changed before the draft goes to anyone; again, typical of how I work.
DETAILS On a related note, I tend to not work out the detailed things whilst writing initial drafts... I leave spaces in the script-in-progress that says things like, "insert haiku about laundry here" because my head doesn't interrupt well; if it's on a streak of writing plot points it's not going to be too good at writing lyrics or crafting an acerbic comeback. This is a painful thing, I have this creative ADD thing going on, so if I get distracted, I've lost the context - all the little intricate threads I thought I was weaving into permanence become fumetti (little puffs of smoke). Are you like that... is it hard to re-focus on the context once the stack gets popped, (software term) after an interruption?
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