25 posts tagged “writing”
I finally saw Julie & Julia, the film made from the book by Julie Powell, which was in turn based on/drawn from her blog about Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child.
I loved it. Thoroughly entertaining, thoroughly delightful, very well done.
I know there has been a certain amount of backlash towards Powell, then and now, about her blog and the film. I have to ask, Why? I do not get it. If anything, I would think Powell would complain about the movie because the writer, Nora Ephron, did not make the Powell half nearly as delightful as the Child half... and then you've got Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci as the Childs, so right there... how can anyone compete?
I am actually very fond of Julie & Julia, the book and the entire story by Powell because it was inspirational to me about blogging, about writing, about finding a project that can, for a little while at least, define one and give a direction to one's life. I have been where Powell was: in a dead-end, depressing, limited job while everyone around you is streaking forward. I have re-made my life by finding a shorrt-term (or long-term) project that gives one purpose and focus, and in the end somehow changes... everything.
It was the book that made me want to start a blog, which I had never thought to do. Blog? Me? Why? I keep and have kept journals, but writing a blog which is like a public journal... not so sure.
Going to Paris on sabbatical gave me a focus for the blog. Not being there has left a space that isn't exactly full yet.
Besides, the reality of Meryl Streep playing Julia Child and Stanley Tucci as her husband, a thoroughly non-traditional couple delighting in their relationship, learning Paris, leaving Paris, their love of food and entertaining and life was glorious. Beautifully done. I am pleased too that Streep and Amy Adams have developed a kind of screen relationship, perhaps a mentoring one. It was the center of Doubt and made it powerful. Although Adams and Streep didn't share screen time (like Julia and Julia not sharing space, either), their individual performances obviously impacted on one another's.
What a great experience! Who wouldn't want to act with Streep and learn from acting with, watching, studying her work? Damn. That would be like winning the Oscar, the Tony, and the Nobel Prize in one.
And of course, watching Streep and Tucci act off each other is a dream, too. So good, so smooth: two master actors who know their craft and their talent, working actors who are both incredibly smart, too... bloody fantastic.
So while I am disappointed that Powell's half got less colorful master treatment from Ephron, overall the movie was fine. And I continue to admire Powell's original journal, and her continuing blog, and her moxie for finding something to change her life.
Pearl
One of my favorite websites is 3191 Miles Apart, a website shared by Steph and Mav, two friends living 3,191 miles apart (see?) who share photo moments online. They don't include comments or comment--much--on their photos, but the photos provide quiet, lovely images or, actually, moment of life.
They have published two books, one of monrings and one of evenings, and a poster set as well.
I find their blog inspirational, both in its object and in the pictures they share. Their photography gives me a ot of pleasure while it challenges me to look differently at my own taking of pictures.
Pearl
Ok, I give up. You asked for it.
1. I am an Aquarius, born in February (the birthday's come and gone, people).
2. When I was younger ('way younger) I had crushes on Keith Partridge, Speed Racer, Ilya Kuryakin (The Man from U.N.C.L.E.'s sidekick), and, according to my mother, Lloyd Bridges.
3. My love of theatre may have been born when I was seven. My dad took my brother and me to the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven for a Saturday matinee of Sleeping Beauty, and when Prince Charming entered through the audience he sat down next to me and sang his charming love song to me.
4. I used to check out stacks of adult fiction from the public library when I was seven, and my mother would have to argue with the librarians every week about her liberal child-rearing policies.
5. My first real job was as a grocery check-out chick. It is the only job I was ever fired from.
6. My favorite childhood book was The Secret Garden.
7. My favorite adult book is either The Great Gatsby or Lord Jim.
8. The books that always make me cry are The Velveteen Rabbit, Of Mice and Men, and Flowers for Algernon. I'm already crying, and I haven't even read them... that's how powerful they are.
9. I never read Dr. Seuss, and I don't get The Cat in the Hat. I find The Cat annoying.
10. I love throwing clay pots.
11. I love the batting cages.
12. I love waking up in the morning when it is still dark outside: cozy.
13. I decided my sister's name should be Sally. It wasn't and isn't--not even close--but I called her Sally for a long time.
14. I learned poker from the encyclopedia when I was 12. Then taught the neighborhood kids.
15. When I was a book publicist in NYC I booked Clive Barker's first New York City/USA tour, and escorted him to all the interviews. It is one of my favorite memories of those nasty years.
16. I was also book publicist--briefly--for Hamilton Jordan, who was much like the Prince Charming of my Long Wharf days. He didn't sing, but he was incredibly delightful (Southern!) and incredibly intelligent. Listening to him chat with the editorial staff of Newsweek was like watching Fred Astaire dance. And he sat next to me while he did it.
17. I had tea with Margaret Truman.
18. I met my favorite New York boyfriend at the Peppermint Lounge. He made a path to the front of the audience for my friend and me--we're both about 5' tall, he's 6'2" or so--so we could see the band. It turned out that we went to the same college, although he was two years ahead of me and we never met. Our first date was brunch at Tavern on the Green, where we sat next to Marvin Hamlisch and his date. It was very Sex and The City.
19. I moved from NYC to Carbondale, IL, to go to grad school.
20. I like bananas but hate banana-flavored things of all kinds.
21. I wrote my first play in 4th grade and my first novel in 6th grade.
22. My favorite place in the world is Florence, but I would rather live in Paris, my close-second favorite place.
23. I hate chick lit and I hate the term "chick lit": although I like books that others describe as chick lit.
24. I might be agoraphobic.
25. According to a man I met at a psychic fair, in a previous life I was a musician, an excellent and gifted professional musician. Which explains why in this life I greatly enjoy music, but don't perform or even play too well. I bet my mother wishes she had known that before the piano, clarinet, and violin lessons...
Pearl
I think I'm going to get back to using Wednesdays to blog about writing and creativity. Keeps my teaching fresh and keeps me inspired.
Preparation.
Or in other words, the work you do before writing to prepare you for the creative act. Most of my students discount this. They embrace the Romantic notion of jumping in, letting inspiration fuel and push you without limits or guidelines or boundaries. Or even a well-thought-out idea.
Jumping in can be very liberating, especially if you feel that as a writer or artist you are in a rut and need to get out. Or if you have a really, really great idea that does give you that igniting spark that makes you write through the night and potentially complete a play, story, novel, or painting in one sitting.
Unfortunately, this kind of spark is rare... and, ironically, truly fueled by the preparation and practice the artist has engaged in over time prior to the sparking.
What are some of the different kinds of preparation I advocate you engage in?
Ritual. Establish some repetitive, inspirational rituals for yourself. For example, at the beginning of every project I begin on a serious basis, once I know this is a play I want to focus on, I spend time finding visual images and music. The visual images get posted over my at-home writing space: I have bulletin boards near by desk at home, but last semester I used the white walls of my Paris studio for my inspiration board. The music gets copied (now) onto my iPod and my hard drive as the soundtrack for this play, titled the same. I add pieces as I think of them, and play it over and over as I write. By the time I am done with the piece, I cannot listen to that music for a while... but like the images the music has inspired my work.
The ritual could also be that, since I write in early morning, I establish a ritual of waking at a certain time. I shower and dress in work clothes, come downstairs, feed the cat, and pour myelf coffee from a coffemaker that was pre-programmed the night before. Then I sit down and write, not getting up except for coffee, for an hour. Then I go a second hour on days I do not have classes.
Usually, I build in a little editing for the beginning of my work session, so that I can warm up my muscles. I edit 5-10 pages, then slide into new ones. Sometimes I set myself a page limit instead of a time limit, again if I have the extra time.
When I was writing my monograph, I had very clear rituals. Certain music from the period I was writing about, a particular type of incense I bought in Paris (never have found it anywhere else) that reminded me of my '99 sabbatical, and always started by editing five pages. I always write in my apartment, not anywhere else, which is something I work against when writing a play.
Find the rituals that inspire you. The point is to wake yourself up, to ready your muscles, to establish a boundary between "regular time" and creative time, and to create a familiar and welcoming aura for your creative self to enter.
Research. This means different things on different projects. Perhaps you need to do some historical research because you're writing about a period or a location you don't know a lot about. Perhaps this simply means reading material: you want to write a farce but you're not certain how to do so. Okay: read a lot of farces. You want to write a verse play: read plays in verse.
Sometimes research is just paying attention and observing.
Writing about love? Watch couples in love. Real couples, in supermarkets or movie theatres, on line in banks and to return bad gifts. Research by observing. Read love letters by famous people or unknown people. Look at paintings and movies and snapshots of couples in love. Read biological and psychological analyses of what happens to your body and brain when you fall in love: pheromones and endorphins and enzymes and blood pressure...
Whatever you're going to write about, I guarantee it will be better of you research it. Even if you think you know all about it: find something new, unfamiliar to you, surprising and puzzling to include. If you know it all, how can you surprise yourself or your audience?
Identify. Write down what makes you passionate about this project.
Write down your goals: to write a farce, to write a tragedy, to explore loss through death, to write a play using only female characters, to write a play where every character is cross-gender-cast. Write it down, in your journal or on a 3x5 card... and put it away.
Identify the spine of your piece: what holds it together? "A Jewish family survives the Depression." "A woman relives her seductive, childhood relationship with her uncle." "A couple struggles through their first year of marriage in a cold-water New York City apartment." Find the verbs and state them: survives, relives, struggles.
Usually, things in our projects change... but not the spine, not our goals, and not what made us passionate about them in the beginning.
Sometimes my students say, all this defining limits me. It limits my project because now all the decisions are made and I'm just filling in the blanks. There's no opportunity for imagination any more.
Really? After defining these few things you have nothing else new to add? Wow. Did you want this to be a play longer than two minutes? Because you've not said anything, really, except the heart of it all. There are no events, no actions, and no defined characters yet. Nada. Those things, all the fun of it, are still to come.
Scenarios. I assign my students to write scenarios, which are a kind of outline of their writing project. If you spend a lot of time on your scenario, it is a rough (very rough) first draft. At the least, it is an outline. It is a lot of work, but it forces the writer to make a series of decisions; out of those initial decisions, come changes and the first edited version, which is a first complete draft. Again, rough (all drafts are rough until the fourth or fifth: it's only then you actually know what the story is about and where you are going).
The scenario asks you to spend time fleshing out the characters, the conflict, the action beats, the spine, the setting (time and place), and answer questions like "Why now? Why is this happening today and not yesterday or tomorrow?", a question that is integral to drama.
Typically, a scenario for a one-act play (usually written in 30-60 pages) is 7-15 pages in length. For a full-length (75-100 pages) it should be about 20 pages. Again, it is an outline, but a good scenario will enable the writer to make changes in story, character, and structure before/while writing the complete draft. It will also point out problem areas: a weak middle, lack of real conflict, a protagonist without desire, a mushy end.
The scenario is a flexible document, a blueprint for an organic document, the playscript. Plays will change and morph and shift throughout the writing process: the scenario will help the writer do that with less frustration. It will actually allow you to get to the fun part--writing dialogue, character, and story--more quickly.
Fueling up. This might be part of research but I advocate all artists spend time feeding the brain/eyes/ears/imagination. Museums, movies, books, music, plays, opera, dance, parks, architecture, games, magazines, newspapers, and so on and so on... feeding/fueling your artistic hungers.
And with that, fuel up on what you love, but step outside the box and give yourself something new and different, too. Bollywood. Jazz. Rembrandt. BBC. Historic home tours.
If you do not feed this part of you, you will run out of inspiration and new ideas. Your work will get thin and pale, because you will keep using the same ideas, images, words, actions over and over... nothing new goes in, nothing new can come out.
In the same way, fuel yourself with the best. Sure, read all the horror novels you want to, but read Edgar Allen Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Stephen King and Clive Barker, too. See how these masters structure stories, compel the reader's imagination, use words to paint a picture and evoke an emotion. Reading mysteries? Make certain you read Chandler, Hammett, Christie, and Grafton: they don't sell millions of books and win all the top awards because they're pretty. It is because they can tell a story, compel readers, etc. They know their genre, their tools, and their art: read and learn, young Jedi! Steal (like Shakespeare and Moliere) and become great!
Tools. Get to know your tools like a master craftsman. Whatever they are. Words, pen, paper. Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs. Conflict, structure, climax.
Don't kid yourself: it takes years to master your craft, but mastering your tools is the only direct route.
Preparation makes inspiration sweeter: don't waste your time by jumping over this step. You are not only preparing this single project, but preparing your craft/art for a lifetime of artistic comitment.
Pearl
This week, in my intermediate writing class, the students and I have begun discussing THE CREATIVE HABIT by Twyla Tharp. This is my new favorite book (for about two years now) on creativity and the process of creating.
"In order to be creative you have to know how to prepare to be creative."
Tharp's book is about the process and rituals of doing creative work (I want to focus on creativity as an active event, nto a passive state: creativity is not passive), and since I've been in a creativity slump, I'm getting a double benefit out of the discussion since it is kicking my butt about my own work. I like Tharp's viewpoint that "creativity should be a habit" and that "everything that happens in my day is a transaction between the external world and my internal world... Everything feeds into my creativity."
I've already written here about my feelings on process vs. product, and Tharp confirms my own notions (nice for me!). Her book is not about how to write or paint or dance, but how to create a process, a set of rituals, a "doing" of your chosen art. She sees art as a job and vocation, not a romantic appointment. Her focus is on process, not outcome.
It is clear when watching the dances she has made that Tharp understands her tools: rhythm, lighting, space, and the human body. Here is a very short video clip to give you a taste (how can we talk about dance without seeing it?).
It is also clear that Tharp consistently grows her skills and challenges herself: moving from contemporary to classical music to Sinatra ballads, working in modern dance, ballet companies, and on Broadway, choosing artists like Gregory Hines and Mikhail Barishnikov to partner with, etc.
A funny thing happened in class. We started talking about one of her exercises, "Give me one week without..." Tharp identified mirrors, clocks, newspapers, and speaking as potential clutter and distractions that keep us from doing our work, things that take our time and spend it frivolously--and in a recession we hear about every day! I could make a long list of distractions for myself: this blog, TV, books, cooking, eating, the phone, the cat, shopping, on-line shopping... and lots more.
In our discussion, my students resisted the exercise I proposed: stop one thing for one week. They named Facebook, cellphones, computers, friends, boyfriends, and other things as possible distractions... but refused to choose even one to give up for a week. When I suggested that we set the task as viewing emails only 3 times daily at regular intervals and answering emails at the time one picked them up, they squawked in protest: "What?!?"
Their reaction reinforced for me how many distractions I have between myself and my work. So here I go: for the next week, I'm going to answer my email 3 times daily--only--and answer each one as I get it. Same goes for cellphone and home phone voice mail.
I am also going to reinforce my morning practice of waking up, feeding the cat, showering, and writing for 60-120 minutes... by not answering email until after I complete the task. Let's see how it goes.
Pearl
I realized yesterday that I am lagging behind in my creative work. Since returning to the US, I haven't been inspired to write or paint, and have done too little photography. Although my cooking has improved--I can say I have been inspired in this area.
I regularly visit Creative Every Day and Musings from the Moonroom for inspiration, and they've been great sources of information, as usual.
But...
Day to day, back to work: I'm still adjusting.
Working to someone else's schedule: still adjusting.
Getting my home workspace up and functioning smoothly: in process.
Finding my focus: in process.
Part of this may be a change in schedule (I'm back on the clock at My U, meaning teaching three classes and doing regular admin meetings and advising) while trying to keep balance in my life (not letting it get absorbed by an all-work/no-play philosophy that has taken ove rin the past), and part of it may be suddenly returning to a life full of people: friends, co-workers, students, family, and cat, all in close proximity... rather than email distance across an ocean.
Part of it is simply not getting to it. The reality is that in order to have a creative life, I have to schedule creative time. That time has to be sacred: off-limits to other aspects. I'm not doing that... yet. Then I have to sit down and focus on the goal I set for that specific time, whether it is writing, cooking, or painting a new watercolor (desperately trying to improve my technique!).
Today is Tuesday: my goal for the rest of the week is two-fold. First, spend 90 minutes every day working on making my study a clean, calm, uncluttered place for writing, and, second, spend 90 minutes every day writing. I'll reassess on Sunday, which is my creative day off. Sounds good, right?
Send good thoughts.
Pearl
One of the things that has kept me very busy during the last two weeks or more is reading student-written plays. Although I am on sabbatical, I am still the chair of playwriting in my region for the Kennedy Center-American College Theatre Festival. This great organization offers opportunities and awards to students at colleges and universities of all sizes across the U.S. in acting, directing, dramaturgy, design, stagecraft, stage management, and playwriting--my area. This is the month when student-written plays of all lengths about all kinds of subjects get read by committees and chosen for regional prizes; readings for national awards come next month.
Students who write these plays come from graduate and undergraduate programs, from programs that offers classes in playwriting and those that don't--where the kids write and produce their work anyway.
It is understandable that most programs throw the biggest part of their budgeting behind classic, familiar plays and musicals... because theatre draws a small enough crowd anyway, and unfamiliar plays draw an even smaller portion of that crowd. New plays--those written by students--usually get the smallest portion, and some of the most enthusiastic audiences.
At My U, we have an annual playwriting festival that produces three original full-length plays written by seniors. I can't tell you how many times I have talked to spectators surprised that these students wrote about more than, well, pizza, beer, and party hook-ups.
Indeed.
This last couple of weeks, while I have been reading plays from my region and our exchange region, I have thought about that. It is pretty amazing what these 18 to 22 year-olds think about--and think deeply about. I am no longer surprised when I get plays about a kid who pretends to be a comic book hero to save his mother from an abusive relationship, or a woman dealing with her fears about in-vitro fertilization by having fantasies about the perfect child, or a vet returning from Desert Storm who suffers PTS while trying to reconnect with his family, or two cows making a basement full of chicken milk bombs to protest what happens in a meat-packing plant (I do not kid), or the Biblical story of Doubting Thomas, or the story of the Wright brothers building and flying the first plane, or a woman haunted by the vision of Typhoid Mary as an exploration of insanity and depression. Yeah, shallow stuff like this. Plays about multiple sclerosis and a brother's death and returning as a cockroach and choosing between treatment for cancer or a long-awaited pregnancy... written not as soap operas or melodramas but as genuinely moving dramatic pieces with real characters, strong dialogue, and action that catches the reader's interest.
And by the way, some of the best are about beer, pizza, and hok-ups, sicne those events--and the emotions embedded within them--are so very familiar to these young writers.
Where do our new plays come from? Our future plays and screenplays and TV scripts and, hey, video games?
From these kids. So it is a pleasure to be reading these first scripts.
Pearl
Like many things, my interest in macaroons came about from theatre. Specifically, teaching text analysis to freshmen at My U. The first play we read and analyze is A Doll House by Henrik Ibsen, a revolutionary text for many reasons . I won't go into them here, but it is enough for me to say that Ibsen's writing of A Doll House was one of the four events that completely changed the face of theatre as it existed prior to that event, in Western theatre history.
My students, however, find it hard to think of A Doll House as revolutionary.
Here's where we come to the macaroons: in the first act, Nora sneaks a bag of them into the house and lies about both eating and having them to her husband Torvald. This is the first moment of the play that actively shows us the discrepancy between "saying" and "doing" that is not only the heart of conflict in drama but the heart of the conflict in this "doll house."
But my students always picture the kind of coconut macaroons Girl Scouts sell.
Not so. The macaroons Nora eats are considered confectionery, not cookies really.
This is what ed. people call "a teachable moment." Meaning that it opens the opportunity to get students out of their limited perception of the world and into a broader view that somehow connects with and embraces 1879 Norway via sweets.
Nora's macaroons look like this:
or this:
The second photo is mine, taken last Saturday in the window of Ladurée on the Champs Elysées.
They are a combination of 2 crispy cookies packed around a creamy filling. They are not bake-at-home treats but a delight from patisseries and confectioners. Traditional flavors include chocolate, vanilla, coffee, strawberry, lemon, and pistachio. Nowadays in Paris, one can get macaroons from Ladurée or Pierre Herme or Fauchon flavored with violet, rose, tequila and lime, passion fruit, orange chocolate, chestnut, green tea, wasabi and grapefruit--an entire wild range of flavors. Although Ladurée was where I ate my first macaroon, Pierre Herme is my current favorite outlet because of the incredible flavorings and crisp, crisp cookies. I do not recommend Fauchon, where I found the macaroons to be, well, damp.
Ladurée, founded in 1862, is an institution in Paris. I recommend that if your mother, aunt, grandmother, niece, or BFF visits Paris you take her there, either the store on Champs Elysées or (better) the original on Rue Royale for macaroons and tea. It is a treat. I recommend this just like I recommend taking the same group of people to Angelina's on Rue de Rivoli for their hot chocolate (do it!). Both offer the kind of elegant site and mid-afternoon sit-down that will impress these folks, and the food and drink are delicious.
If you simply want to have some good macaroons (and possibly not share) go to Pierre Herme and fill a box. And walk on the wild side: try the crazy flavors, too.
Back to macaroons and Ibsen. As I said in my post on the difference between action and activity, props are almost always mishandled by young and contemporary playwrights. Read Ibsen to find out how it is done: Ibsen takes a simple bag of macaroons and makes it the site of action. First, there must be a bag of eatable confectionery in Nora's pocket because she eats several while ontage: we see her. Sure, she could mime eating them... but why? The point is that Nora has a sweet tooth, indulges that sweet tooth, and then lies about it to her husband. Which tells me, the spectator, that she is a liar and a child... confirmed by Torvald's assessment of her as a child and someone prone to fibbing. I see her eat a macaroon out of a bag of macaroons, I see her conceal the macaroons in her pocket, I hear her husband ask her if she had had a macaroon and hear her deny it--four times!--and I see her offer a macaroon to Dr. Rank when he appears. Huh. The real macaroons show me that Nora is a/ a liar, b/ not to be trusted, c/ a child indulging in sweets although she knows it is not good for her... wait a minute. I just bought into the entire-view-of-the-world-as-presented-by-Torvald-Helmer... and perfect! Ibsen has done a whole conjuring trick and it will take me the rest of the play to wake up to the reality of what I just saw and re-think who these people are. And until I do, I am stuck in the doll house with Nora and Torvald, within a limited perception of the world.
All because of macaroons. But, as a spectator, actor, or director, I have to know exactly what macaroons really are, not just what I think they are or what they are to me. More improtant: what are (or were) they to Ibsen? It's a great moment because the students have to learn (see) something new and once they do, those macaroons are forever present in their thinking about how this play is not a reading text (like a novel) but an action text on a stage: those macaroons are a reality that must be accounted for. They are real to three of the characters onstage, and demonstrate the relationships among them. Nora hides the macaroons from Torvald; she offers to share them with Rank. The complexities of the trio's relationships--which is explict later in the script--are revealed here to me (spectator) before I am ready to process it... but later this moment will echo in my head and ground Ibsen's character actions for each of the three in a rock-solid foundation of seen reality (as I refer to it in my post on character).
The bag of macaroons is real. The perceptions and emotions projected onto that bag by each of these three characters are also real--as the actors must demonstrate them to the spectator. As Ibsen wrote them.
So: every time I eat a macaroon, I think of Ibsen and his characters. Every time I teach this moment, I think of Paris. It's all connected.
Pearl
Right now in my own new play, I am working on making the setting matter.
I pinned this picture at the center of my inspiration board:
Besides that picture--which struck me the minute I saw it--I'm using this one:
The view of a city's rooftops.
In writing plays, the setting is your final character. It is the "where" and "when" of the story, and in production, will be the most valuable visual assets besides the actors themselves. It is the environment in which your story can happen--it enables your story. All plays happen in the "here and now"--and your setting is that, the here and now.
Your story couldn't happen anywhere else.
Your story couldn't happen any other time.
It starts today, in this place you show the audience on the stage.
In Our Town, the "here and now" is the theatre itself and the time of performance; the audience travels from there to Grover's Corners, but everything happens in the theatre during these two hours... Wilder reminds you of that again and again. The action of Hamlet happens in Elsinore, in and around the palace, in public and private spaces connected to the characters. True West happens in the house of Austin and Lee's mother, while she is away and her sons are forced to spend time alone there... relating.
It is tempting to make the setting "anywhere" and the time "anytime": that leaves you free to make anything happen, right? You won't be stuck with boring kitchen-sink realism or familiar living room couches... instead you can make your imagination run riot, baby!
First, some kitchen sink/living room couch plays that are far from boring or familiar:
- True West by Sam Shepard
- Crimes of the Heart by Beth Henley
- Sticks and Bones by David Rabe (one of my personal favorites)
- A Doll House by Henrik Ibsen
- Look Back in Anger by John Osborne
- Topdog/Underdog by Suzan Lori Parks
- Noises Off by Michael Frayn
- Trifles by Susan Glaspell
- Long Day's Journey Into Night by Eugene O'Neill
- Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
- The Odd Couple by Neil Simon
- Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee
- Fefu & Her Friends by Maria Irene Fornes
That should keep you busy. I could add more, but these are excellent examples of how a dramatist uses a specific "here and now" to spark and drive the action of his or her narrative.
If the action can only happen here, if it can only happen now, the writer has to know why. This means--unlike leaving it completely open--that you as a writer have to actively decide the conditions of the action. For example: my play takes place in an artist's studio, in a loft building, where she can actively see out these windows to the city beyond, at a slight distance. She is attached by an invisible umbilical chord to that city, but she has to be at a distance from it, to watch it but not be in it, at sidewalk level. The windows are between here and the city. It is in her studio because that is the place she controls, which is necessary for her. She works here, she lives here, the people she has in her life come here to her. They live there (the city) but they come here (to the studio) to connect with her. Either by phone or email or in person. It is a play that is contempoary, first because it is an urban play, which sets it in the last 400 years or so, and 150 in America, which is where she is. Second because she is a successful woman artist, living by her work: last... century maybe? Third, because it is a loft building reconditioned for artists... last 50 years? Fourth, because she can bring the entire world into her studio via email and phone delivery: last decade.
See? Couldn't happen in 1715. 1825. 1900. 1973. 1990.
Playwrights are, more and more, turning to a kind of film sampling of settings as well, which in turn means short, clipped scenes that feel more like edited films than live plays. More or less gone are the kinds of 60-minute acts in a single setting/"real time" structure used by O'Neill, Ibsen, and Chekhov. Spectators just aren't so used to them any more (no such thing in TV, film, or video games) and maybe don't have the attention span for it (thanks to music videos, Tivo, and the pause button).
Seriously: when is the last time you were at a movie that someone didn't get up in the middle of the action and go out... for popcorn, the bathroom, or whatever. In a 90-minute movie. Our cultural attention span is now at the 12-minute interval between commercials, or less, given (again) the pause button.
Scenes flip by with little relevance to the specifics beyond public or private, indoor or outdoor. Maybe that is just a testament to how generic our homes and public spaces have become, thanks to global chains like McDonalds, Ikea, and Border's. Maybe they're trying to suggest how generic our cultural lives have become... No.
Making your play "any time" or "any place" and thinking that the environment doesn't matter is either lazy or ignorant.
Questions to ask yourself:
- Control: who controls or owns this space? Who owns it nominally (like by deed or lease) and who owns it by action? How does this character demonstrate his/her ownership of the space?
- Public, private, or both: What can happen in your setting? Who can walk in freely... or not? Who can walk out? Is it as private as a bedroom, or as public as a front yard? What are the expectations of privacy built into this space, and how to the characters respect or disrupt that?
- Contents: what is in this space? Nothing? a working kitchen? 15 pieces of furniture? A porch swing? A see-saw? A circle of chairs facing in? facing out? A hanging curtain than reaches all the way to the floor and is completely opaque?
- Texture, color, and light: black and white? warm colors? cool colors? all Pepto-Bismol pink? all slick, shiny black leather? all soft and white? dirt and gravel strewn across the floor? fuzzy cordoroy beanbag shapes? a pool of water?
- Open or closed: Walls? Doors? Windows? Shutters, screen, curtains?
- Style: realistic? abstract? backdrop-painted? oversized, undersized, monochromatic?
Why do these questions matter? Let's see, what could happen in a space in the house of your favorite crazy aunt, her fancy drawing room, which is decorated in full Louis XV antiques and thick carpets... all of which comes in fully touchable black leather, black brocade, and black velvet, including the big curtain that hangs over a huge gilt-framed mirror, and where there are four elegant doors, each with a chain lock, deadbolt, and lock-and-big gold key? And she lives in Berlin in 1937...
Or: a summer's evening in 1968, on a Midwestern civic playground, and the only thing present onstage this evening is a see-saw, painted a nice cheerful primary red originally but now, used by kids for many years, nicked and dented with rust, dirt, and age. Slight squeak with use. In a open park where all the other playground equipment is some space away... about 9 pm at night, dusk, in late August.
Or: an empty space, now, lit by hanging industrial fluorescent lights. With a straight line on the floor painted bright yellow stretching from one wingspace to the other. That is marked every 10 feet by a matching yellow arrow head pointed stage left. And a solid-frame door on either end of the line, in front of each wing space, closed.
What could happen in any of these spaces? What could NOT happen?
Like imagining characters the more details you allow about your setting, subject always to later change, the better and tighter the action will be. The action MUST happen here and MUST happen now. Not yesterday, somewhere else. Not tomorrow, down the street or in Tokyo.
Setting is the neglected character in most plays, but it can be one of the biggest assets you bring to your plot.
Pearl
With all the celebrating and time in the archives and a crisis back at My U, I've been surprisingly silent.
Here in Paris, no one seems to realize the earth rocked (once) on its axis and we're back. But then... maybe the world doesn't revolve around us. Interesting notion.
For those of you looking for something to do, you might take a listen to the free podcasts by Dr. Eric Maisel that can be downloaded at Purpose Centered Life. This series of podcasts focuses on Maisel's background as a creativity coach; it also deals with the depression felt by creative people. The 10-15 minute talks are casual and interesting. If you don't like Maisel's p.o.v. there are numerous other podcasters and coaches at this site that you can draw from.
This has been a surprisingly fruitful week, however, for my new play. I have been taking regular breaks from translating newspaper articles in 19th-century French for the actress project in order to focus on the developing shape of the plot and voices of the characters, again using the inspiration board I created back in September. Finally, a hidden part of the protagonist's central conflict with one of the characters is coming to light... or my brain is waking up to it, or whatever.
It's a good feeling, even if it only results in a page or two of dialogue per day.
Pearl
