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.

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...

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 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.

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?

Scene 1 drafted, Scene 2 underway

1. Information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, and wisdom is not foresight. -- Arthur C. Clarke
2. Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? T.S. Eliot

Scene 1 drafted, Scene 2 underway: Am doing at least 2 versions of every scene, playing with various stakes. In one version, her chances at getting the license for a child are good and she approaches the counselor with some contempt; in another her chances are at risk and she's more oily. We aren't going to like her right off, important for education plot.
The outline is a stern taskmaster. A lot more scenes to write. But it's better to have an idea of what they'll be than staring at the blank mind of nothing.

Warren Zevon's cover of Knocking on Heaven's Door a real source of inspiration, if not just a dark, sad, brittle flash of brilliance.

Creating a language for these people; it's modern English (not Nadsat or anything) but there should be a slight linguistic drift. Think of the difference between the way we spoke in 1875 and now, to get an idea the degree of drift.

Immortality at issue

What if the thing at issue, at least in the background of the thriller, were immortality? (Kirstin’s world idea follows along similar lines too… but there are also elements of Gary’s and others’ ideas in the mix here with mine as well).

Imagine the ruling culture has mastered life and death; the human lifespan has been increased to where you can nearly be immortal. Did some reading up. A few weeks back researchers from UCSF published a paper that says disabling the capability of worms to reproduce was the key to increasing their lifespan in the lab. Hmmm…

World - general. So people can live practically forever, just not if they keep their sex drives... if they have sex or keep their sex drive they have a limited lifespan. In our fictional future history, we live forever. Of course we can be killed by accident or malice, but if they get to us in time, EMTs (e.g., paramedics not aliens) can put our minds in black boxes and take us to a corporate hospital where we're grown a new clone of ourselves to hold it. But sexual activity is forbidden... in fact illegal because to have sex is to eventually bring about your death; attemped suicide. People are not sterilized, every morning everyone takes a pill that safely neutralizes their sex hormones and renders them infertile. It can wear off if the drug is not taken every day.

To make more people, which doesn't have to happen anywhere near as much because the world will fill up quickly after forty years of people not dying. But in case more people are needed, companies that handle mixing the genetic material to create new human cocktails. Children when created this way are practically flawless. To make sure nobody breaks the law, everyone has to be tested regularly for sex hormones. If they any are detected, they are arrested and tried - for attempted suicide. There are a few convictions a year. As a replacement for sex, couples take new, physically harmless drugs and sit together. Gradually over the centuries you start to dry out a bit... your mind flattens out, you lose your ability to feel things. Now, there's a growing underground of people that have found a way to keep their sexuality and who have also learned how to get around the test… perhaps through some sort of payoff scheme, or they can fake it.

This has a potentially interesting world for a play. Talking black boxes. A character can die and then walk in again a scene or two later. A sex scene that gives a possible If people couldn’t have children, perhaps - possibly - they wouldn't worry about gender as much - wouldn't the stigma against homosexuality be irrelevant? Would there still be marriage - between homosexual or hetero-sexual couples indiscriminately (you just find the mind you love, and don't worry about their sex)? Would people still have affairs? Would having affairs be an institution (think the French). What about prostitutes? (No, I am *not* obsessed, but I had a few years driving them, never wrote about them yet, and I recall a really interesting assortment of characters!).

World - personal. OK, so what if the heroine were a famous news/human interest reporter, very successful (or a similar career that communicates a certain bland vacuity, while simultaneously placing her at the center of the popular culture). Now, in the past, she wasn’t so superficial… she was a great investigative reporter in her youth… but that was 70-80 years ago. She long ago realized that if she is ever going to get anywhere, she must ruffle fewer feathers, and so now HI is her specialty. At this point, her career has grown to the point where she is about to make the big deal that will make her a household name and wealthy beyond dreams of avarice. The deal involves some kind of sellout.


She's married to another successful man, (maybe a politician - she makes the money). And there’s something interesting and twisty about her – maybe she’s having an affair with a woman (the husband knows and puts up with it as long as the relationship between he and she is still good). To really add extra twists to the story, at two chokepoints both the husband and the lower must become suspects and/or victims later.

Four years ago, she and her husband had a factory-made daughter who was killed by someone in the reproductive underground, and neither she nor her husband could get to her in time to save her mind for reproduction. Or perhaps even more pointedly, she herself made a serious error and caused the daughter's genetic material to be lost, so it was her fault? The couple has, after four years of paperwork, applied for and gotten permits to have a child made to replace their child. But this would require them to go back and do the whole painful process again; since losing her last daughter, she’s been torn and distracted from doing it. The service calls her regularly and nags her to come in and pick out her new child’s characteristics.

Change of fortune. She attends a convention where the political power brokers of the press regularly attend; something of a big bash. It’s here she’s planning to cut the final deals that will make her career dreams finally come to full fruition. She’s sworn to herself that after this she will slow down and order that kid and spend more time with her designated family.

During this party, she is slipped a mickey - a hormonal cocktail designed to reinitiate her reproductive system. She never sees who does it to her. Meanwhile, the deal goes down. She is going to get it all… her dreams are going to come true. She goes to bed and wakes up feeling a bit weird. She ascribes the feeling to the heavy partying the night before, and gets ready for work. We see inklings – subtle ones – of what’s happened to her, but she doesn’t suspect a thing.

Crisis. When she goes into work, her newly activated reproductive system sets off the alarms. She’s sent home and told to go to the doctor. They run tests. She gets the bad news… she’s been found to be a reproductive criminal. What’s more, the way her system was reactivated requires her to find the exact set of hormonal compounds that were used… the compounds have passed out of her body now, and can’t be detected. Whoever did this had access to the best biochemists money could buy. She calls in some favors to powerful and influential people keep the news out of the press. But they can’t do it forever. Within forty-eight hours, the story will break and her career will be over. What’s more, at that point her condition will be irreversible. She’s got no choice. She must find whomever did this to her, and fast.

I am still working on a lot of the details of the interim journey, and perhaps you are also getting ideas on the steps she can take to uncover each of the clues. Suffice it to say that her old talents as an investigative reporter are being revived even as the effects of the dosage she swallowed starts to compromise her. Yes, this is an aspect from a previous idea… that whatever has happened to her is starting to erode her effectiveness at the very sleuthing that made her such a great reporter all those years ago. She’s losing it even as she needs it.

Her journey needs to take her to lots of weird and cool places, these are places in our future, some of which we can only dream today. She needs to meet a really bizarre group of characters… these are people of our future world, with disturbing and/or fascinating similarities to people in today’s world. At some point, she will discover who it is that’s done this to her… members of the reproductive underground. And after spending time with them, she starts to be swayed to join them… and to rebel against the comfortable life she’s built all these years. She changes sides. And then things start to get really interesting…

To be continued…

Just for Fun

Female Driven Thriller - Meeting notes 11/13
written up by Bob Jude Ferrante (playwright on this thing)

We met to really just be together; it's apparent we've made a huge amount of progress in the past few weeks, despite the brief moments of contention... which are probably a normal part of any process where you throw 10 strangers in a room together and tell them to make something happen together.

Larry Rothman, enormously talented actor, improv teacher for the Times Square Group, and all-around great guy, did a 2-hour improv class. We thought (crazy us) that we could get them on their feet, thinking on their feet, and thence make their creative juices flow.

It's my belief - and I can be disabused of that belief given enough sufficiently cruel real-life experience, mind you - that trying to create a peak experience for people can sometimes actually result in people having a peak experience.

Many years back I volunteered as a facilitator for a group called Actualizations in San Francisco. They seemed to have a corner on peak experiences... it seemed that everyone who I saw do their workshop had a peak experience. With very few exceptions. Everyone had to pay full price anyway, whether they wanted to have a peak experience or not. I guess that's critical... given that situation, I'd bet most people would just say, screw it, might as well have the peak experience.

It's my hope that the two hours of playing we did at Kirsten Mitchell's apartment resulted in some fun. It's amazing how much work you are doing while you are having fun.

Minutes for Female Driven Thriller - 10/30 meeting
written by Kirsten Mitchell, actor (and producer at Praxis)

Today, Journey, the world moves or a person moves.
Are Heists thrillers? Some of the group said yes, some no.
Can thrillers be comedic? ex. Scream, Conspiracy Theory (references to Catcher in the Rye clue us into the type of conspiracy).

What if someone is a freako? What if the leader of a government is crazy or something isn't what it seems, the world is innocent untill... Discovery is made.

Movie 2001, computer Hal isn't what he seems, becomes a thriller half way through.
Movie The Exorcist, little girl is innocent, possessed by devil.

What should Female Driven Thriller be?
Role reversal, women in power over men. The idea of Nuturing in a sinister way. Movie Alien, woman is thrust into the main role without pointing to the fact that she is a woman, at first you thnik its going to be Tom Skerrit, it becomes a female driven thriller because of circumstance, alien kills Tom first.
Character Driven: relationships are more important; woman to woman relationship. Wacky idea: she is hunting down some sort of conspiracy, everyone she goes to is a part of it, she ends up being central to the conpiracy's inception. The characters are part of a call girl ring. Because call girls are outsiders, skilled in manipulation.

Outside group of women in society: Nannies; they could manipulate through nuturing. Perhaps the nannies are raising children to be brainwashed into doing something for them someday. Maybe they are baby switching. Nannies form secret ring in order to manipulate the wealthy.

Nannies example of subculture, denegrated, an underclass that is both inside and outside, as outsiders they are given alot of trust.

A perfect society, innocent. What if its not a black and white story but gray everyone is culpable.

Being put into the outside w/out trying, shunned, but then shunning doesn't work.

For next time, look over all the homework handouts, what people submitted. Group decided they were ready to go from the page to the stage, so to speak. Read and reflect on what you liked that people brought to the homeworks. Come to the next meeting prepared to discuss what you think is good that we have come up with so far, opptional bring in an article that you feel expresses what we've been talking about.

Minutes for Female Driven Thriller - 10/23 meeting
written by Kirsten Mitchell, actor (and producer at Praxis)

Hey all,

Here are the meeting notes from last week:

Characters homework was a way for Bob to learn more about us and for us to stay connected to the project outside of meetings.

Today: Start imposing challenges; questions still unanswered: What is the world of the play? What is the crime?

Types of thrillers: Personal crime(classic), and Political crime(social/topical)
Example of a personal crime thriller, DOA, characters have base motives, the victim solves his own murder and finds out the reason for his death is trivial. Example of a political thriller: The Manchurian Candidate.

Bob's aims: Selfish, to bring the group to the play. Selfless, find out what's going on in people's minds today.

Focus on the future, predict from a pattern. What will life be like 40 years from now? What about the difficulty of being identified, what tactics will be used to be recognized?

Perhaps there will be some sort of international id. Karin brought up her difficulty to open a bank account as a foreigner. Today's ids are becoming inadequate. People are becoming the victims of fraud. What about drug testing and credit checks, results could be manipulated. We're being watched, analyzed and filed. What if a homeless person is actually the victim of descending status brought about by someone else.

What if the solving of the mystery had a time limit like 90min.

World cards:
1) Recreational drugs of the future shut off some of your senses
2) Reflection: a brain mapping lie detector
3) Wrapping: gives you skills instantaneously, mental plastic surgery
4) Closing your halo, hiding your thoughts
5) Halo: software containing everyone's personal info data
6) Bitmass: radio frequency transmitters, sensors
7) The leith pill: used to forget bad memories
8) Virus inhibits one's ability to use systems
9) Information replaces currency
10) Everything must be bought
11) Dating: quick background sessions

Homework: In roughly 200 hundred words construct a world in the future, make it multidimensional, 3-4 dimensions or aspects.