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Supreme Theatre
I’ve been a bit distracted this week. My day job took over my life. Something I think most of us understand. But there are lessons to be learned about our craft wherever we are. And so I thought I’d share a few thoughts about this week’s Supreme Court arguments about the health care law.
Voice: My seat inside the court was awful. The press is stuck on the other side of large marble columns, red velvet curtains, and bronze gates (with odd symbols like fish and some bird with a hooked beak that looks nothing like an eagle). I could see the attorneys making the arguments, but not the Justices. So you had to rely on their voices to tell who was speaking.
Which is a reminder for playwrights: voice matters. If our audience couldn’t see our characters, would their way of speaking define them in their minds’ eye? I have been working of late to make sure my characters speak like themselves. Some leave out words. Some never finish sentences. Each manner of speaking helps me craft that character.
Humor: Here we were in the midst of one of the most serious policy debates in a decade and yet it was the humorous lines I remember best. Justice Sotomayor suggesting that it would be Justice Alito’s clerks clawing through the 2700 pages of the law to figure out what could stay and what could be discarded. The many lines about brocoli. And even outside the High Court, the protestor I remember best was the guy in the gorilla outfit fondling what was either a large banana or a yellow penis.
As a playwright, even in my most serious plays, I seem to be most protective of my funny lines. All the chicken jokes that permeate my war crimes play A PATCH OF EARTH – like the tapped phone of a journalist who describes it as clicking and clucking as though there were chickens on the line or the protagonist looking for courage as though you could buy it at the chicken kiosk down the road or the annoying rooster that crows three times as he’s suffering from a hangover. If the audience doesn’t laugh at those lines, I feel defeated.
The Supreme Court taught me humor can be a great tool when the stakes are truly high.
Exposition is deadly: especially in the Supreme Court. Several times in oral arguments, the lawyers got out half a dozen words before the Justices jumped in with questions. DIalogue, in other words. Challenges – ie confrontation.
In this case – unlike our plays – everyone knew the back story. They’d read all the prior case law, the legal briefs, etc. Our audience often doesn’t know all the details. But an audience does know the basics of storytelling. They trust us to fill in the details AS NECESSARY along the way. What they want to see is that confrontation, that dialogue live, onstage, between characters. In the courtroom, whenever anyone cited case law, eyes glazed over. When a penetrating question was posed, everyone leaned forward in their seat.
It was a week of Supreme Theatre. And not a bad week to remind myself of the basics of playwriting.
Enough
There were two theatre events tonight here in DC: a discussion of the state of the new play at GWU and a public thrashing of Mike Daisey at Woolly Mammoth. I wanted to attend both and ended up attending neither. And doing my best not to beat myself up.
It’s tough to hold down a day job (or raise small children or take care of a sick parent or…you fill in the blank) and be a writer. And even your role as playwright gets divied between the writing, the pitching, the preparation for the readings, attending friends and other fabulous plays, and the schmoozing. The two theatre events tonight that I skipped fall into the latter category. But frankly, I don’t have the energy. Tough week at work. (okay, I’ll brag: my tough week includes hanging out at the Supreme Court for the health care arguments. But it’s a pain in the butt with dodging protestors, the flood of media, the delay in getting audio from the court, and all the rest, I’m pooped. And I look like it.)
There’s only so many hours in the day. And I know the more rested I am, the more creative I am. Tired often equals depression, wasted hours at the keyboard, and too much chocolate.
So I’ve decided to forgive myself for not schmoozing on a Tuesday night. Instead, it’s fuzzy slippers, a bad movie, and some sewing.
How about you?
The best play I’ve seen in a while
I really like seeing new work. It helps me think about my own work. What works, what doesn’t. Why.
I see a lot of mediocre plays that get productions for all the wrong reasons. One that shall remain nameless was a concept play. Clever title, great design, fun. No script to speak of. No heart. Was it an enjoyable evening of theatre? Yes. Was it a good play? Not on your life, despite what the WashPo said.
A week or so ago, I saw a US premiere – a show with a title I can never remember unless I look it up. “How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found” by the British writer Fin Kennedy. The play won the Arts Council John Whiting Award for New Theater Writing – the first time in a million years the prize was given for an unproduced play. And I can see why.
It’s not a perfect play. The end of Act One was one of those – is that the end of the play? The end of the act? What just happened? That could be a directing problem. And Act Two couldn’t quite measure up to Act One. But the play got inside my head and has been haunting me since I left the theatre.
It’s a little too close to home: what we all do under stress. Internal monologues about all the angry things we’re thinking and in our fantasies would do to all those damned cherry blossom tourists who jay walk at will (my fantasy, not his). It talks about what the pervasive cellphone culture says about us as a nation. And the scene where the lead character is spinning out of control while pitching to clients reminds me too well of those horrible meet and greets with non-profit folks who hold the purse strings to grants and opportunities.
In other words, it was a play that speaks truth – and a very contemporary truth.
Sometimes I feel as though our work as playwrights is old news, something that happened a while ago as the world passed us by. “How to Disappear” challenges me as a writer to write about what’s troubling me or amusing me or stimulating me RIGHT NOW.
Sailing Women
Almost two years ago, I wrote a blog post for LAFPI about sailing as a metaphor for playwriting.
Metaphor became reality as I found a bunch of women’s sailing organizations and got on boats. So now, I hope unite two of my passions—sailing and playwriting. Yes women playwrights, let’s take to the seas, and. . . .(okay haven’t thought that far ahead yet).
First of all, if you want to learn to sail, I highly recommend the UCLA Marine Aquatic Center. You don’t have to be a UCLA student to take sailing classes there. In fact, the majority of students in my Capri 14 class were adults in their thirties.
My sailing instructor at UCLA told me about the Women’s Sailing Association (or WSA). It’s a sailing club dedicated to women’s sailing (although men can join too). They sponsor day sails and cruises. They can even get you into racing.
Before I knew it, I was going out on day sails, starting regattas, and dancing in a pink wig on the bow of a catamaran in the Christmas parade (theatre on the water). Because of WSA, I’ve met a lot of great sailors who were generous with their time and boats and willing to teach me sailing. Also the stories are awesome.
There’s also Sea Gals down in Long Beach. Sea Gals was created to get more women out sailing. On a Saturday or Sunday, you get to sail a Catalina 37, a large race boat. You go out with an all-women crew. It’s a super supportive environment, and there’s no yelling. The boats stay in Long Beach Harbor, so there are no rolling waves.
So if you’re thinking, gosh, I’ve always wanted to sail, but I don’t know how to go about it. Or if you’ve been sailing and nobody told you how a boat works. Or if you just want to try something different, check out these organizations. Here are their websites:
Women’s Sailing Association – Santa Monica Bay
And that’s the end of my blog week. As always, it’s been a delight.
Oh I Could Never Why The Heck Not
Or the post where I try to be inspirational.
I am trying to eliminate the phrase, Oh I Could Never, from my mental vocabulary. It’s not in my writing process, but I’ve been trying to eliminate it from my life thought process as well.
Oh I Could Never. It’s such a simple thought. It can be used ethically. Oh I could never shoot someone. That’s a good thought to have. Please, my friends, never stop thinking that thought.
But Oh I Could Never could also be used in negative ways to eliminate possibility. Oh I could never go and try that new thing. Oh I could never go two days without a shower.
We all have standards that we hope to live our lives by. But what about the possibility of something new? What if I stepped off the curb of Oh I Could Never into the puddle of possibility?
So whenever I think Oh I Could Never, I add the phrase Why The Heck Not. I prefer heck to hell because in this context, heck reminds me that it’s so simple that I don’t have to swear.
Oh! I almost forgot. I have to plug stuff today.
If you are in Prescott, Arizona in April, my monologue “Cake” is being performed by fellow LAFPI blogger Tiffany Antone as part of an evening called Love Makes The World Go Round. Here’s the website.
I will not be in Arizona in April, but I’m sure it will be a fun night.
Speaking of Tiffany (who is definitely in the WTHN zone), she’s producing another festival of women’s plays. I recently blogged over on her website.
Comment Feedback
We’ve all been there. We’ve all received feedback for a play and gone huh? We writers want to be diplomatic and open, but at the end of the day, some things we hear are just plain stupid.
When we receive those little gems of stupidity, we nod, smile, and say, yeah, I see. Then, we promptly forget it or put the comment on auto repeat as we drink ourselves into a stupor or walk away with our hands on our hips whispering what the f*ck while wondering why we even allowed that person to talk to us in the first place.
I won’t go into all stupid comments I have received over the years. I actually have forgotten many of them sometimes without the aid of the drunken stupor. However, there are a few that I just have to share.
Diplomatic Disclaimer: These are comments I have heard repeatedly over the course of almost twenty years, so if you think you may have said something similar to me, I have no memory of you saying it specifically. It’s not you, it’s me. All me.
You are crazy for writing that. Wow Jen, you write crazy. Whoa, crazy stuff.
Sometimes this comment is meant to be a compliment. Still, the implication is that I am out of mind when I work. This is not true. I am focused. I am working with an awareness of both the mental and sensual. I don’t write for therapy either.
I don’t get it. I don’t feel it. I dig it. I love it! IIIIIIIII. . .
The interesting thing about I-comments is that they are about the speaker saying them. They’re not about the work in question. That’s nice that you get it or don’t get it, but if you really want to engage a writer about her work, ask her a question. Questions lead to communication. That’s good. Communication is good.
It’s like Beckett. It’s Beckettesque. Very Beckett.
Beckett didn’t write my stuff. I wrote my stuff. Beckett wrote his own stuff. I respect Beckett. Usually when someone uses a term like Beckettesque (or Pinteresque or Chehovian), she (or he) can’t speak deeper about such a comparison which is not interesting to me anyway.
So what is a poor play viewer to do when she or he encounters me?
If you see me in person and want to tell me that you like my play, simply catch my eye and point to your nose with your right index finger. That’s all you have to do. I’ll know.
And if you want to compliment me, compliment my shoes because deep down, I am a girlie girl.
On Pseudonyms and Pen Names
When the Bronte sisters were first published, they were Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell.
Pride and Prejudice was first written by the author of Sense and Sensibility, and Sense and Sensibility had A lady listed as author.
Nowadays, women can publish under their own names. My favorite author name for a woman is Lionel Shriver—her name is actually Lionel—she named herself because she liked it.
I have a lot of different pseudonyms. I write plays under Jen Huszcza, but I blog under different names. When I work in different forums, the voice comes from a different place and my mind works in a different way.
I’m not going to tell what my pseudonyms are. I’m not that easy.
Are pseudonyms career suicide? Shouldn’t I make ‘a name’ for myself? Shouldn’t I be a ‘brand’? Shouldn’t I let everyone know everything about me? Shouldn’t I be easily found on facebook and twitter and in the blogosphere?
I won’t insult your intelligence by answering my own rhetorical questions, gentle reader. I will say that in this age of instant access to too much information, it’s nice to be a bit elusive. I can slip in and out the backdoor without being noticed. I can steal kisses in the shadows and pick wallets out of pockets. Was I here? Was I there? Where was I?
On Woody Allen
Back when I was a baby writing student of eighteen, there was a cute guy in my craft class who loved Woody Allen, so I watched a bunch of Woody Allen films in rapid succession. Some of them I liked. Some of them I didn’t. There certainly were a lot of them.
Fast forward to now. Woody Allen has just had a hit with Midnight in Paris and was the subject of a PBS documentary. He’s in his seventies, and he just keeps churning out movies. Every year we get a new Woody Allen film. Some are good, and some are yawners. I loved Match Point, but I fell asleep ten minutes into Cassandra’s Dream.
I was thinking about Woody Allen when I got a rejection letter recently. No the letter was not from Woody Allen. It was from a literary manager who said the play wasn’t for her company, but if I had anything else, I should send it on. I thought, heck yeah I have something else, and I sent her another play.
As a playwright, my job is to the write the plays. Some of my plays are not bad. Some of my plays are probably not producible on this planet. I just keep writing them and throwing them at the wall. One of them might stick.
I keep waiting to run out of ideas. Hasn’t happened yet. I’m gonna do this when I’m in my seventies. Oh no.
Every(wo)man and “The Vagina Monologues”
Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues” celebrated its 15th anniversary on Valentine’s Day. I saw it with three women from different generations: a young woman in her early 20’s (a personal trainer/reflexologist); another woman whom I’d guess to be in her mid-30’s (a playwright and actor) and her 82 year old mother.
After the show we unanimously said, “I want to see that again.” The power of listening to the stories had shed a layer of dead skin to allow for the intake of fresh breath that satisfied a dry soul. The monologues ranged from happy discoveries to sorrowful mourning about femininity and the power of the vagina: its symbolism and its physical attributes.
The monologues is an anthology of interviews of women from different backgrounds. The interviewees were asked such questions like, “What would it wear?” “What would it say?”. These brought about the most passionate and whimsical answers. There is not any whimsy in giving a voice to a part of a woman’s anatomy that houses her wisdom and her power. About a quarter of the audience were men. I think everyone walked away with relief (and not from waiting for the show to finish), but with hearts more open and joyful.
The opening monologue describes how the word vagina in itself sounds unappealing to the ears, like the grating of a fingernail across the chalkboard. “Vagina,” spoken without emotion. “Vagina”, spoken as a question. “Vagina,” spoken with demand. It sounds more like a disease or a medical instrument. “Pass me the vagina.”
Then the story telling began. There was the story of a young woman who was raped by a family friend when she was 10 years old. After many years of being ashamed of her body she was awakened to the beauty of her sexuality by another woman who showed her how to love herself and her body. She was 16 years old when the healing began. Another story was from an elderly woman. She recalled her first date with a boy who was “a real catch”, the term used back in her day. She described his passionate kiss that surprised and shocked her. It caused her body to create a “flood” on the bench seat of his brand new Belair. He said it smelled like sour milk, unlike his changed mood. He drove her home in silence and this silence she carried to heart. She locked up her heart, never to allow for ecstasy to flood her being, except for glimpses of bliss with fantasies of Burt Reynolds. But always, her fantasies ended with Burt leaving her at the table of a fancy restaurant in Atlantic City, because she created a flood embarrassment in front of his peers, Sammy Davis Jr. and the other boys of the brat pack. She accused Eve Ensler, “What’s a woman like you going around interviewing old women about that thing down there?” The down there she also called “the cellar”. She acquiesced with a a confession that she did feel better, as she’d never told anyone about that.
I’ve watched myself change over the years in my acceptance of myself and the world around me. I’m grateful that I can still change. I was raised in a very strict Roman Catholic environment. A school bus picked me up to attend a private all girls Catholic schools where nuns taught and ruled my 6 to 8 hours of tutelage. Another bus took me home, and just before 6pm my mother rounded up the household to recite the Angelus at 6:00 pm on the dot. (I always wanted to know why at 6 pm and not 3 am when we’re all suppose to be in bed fast asleep.) Worse yet, the rosary would ensue, and the drone of the Hail Marys and Our Fathers would put me into a trance that would rock me from my kneeling position to sit on my haunches. That would be offensive to God, I thought, so I’d kneel back up. The only real break from the inane boredom would be the announcement of a new mystery that varied based on the day of the week. I liked Sundays which comprised of the Glorious Mysteries.
All that background told, I guess my figurative rape was that of my mind and soul. There was the systematic indoctrination of the “Roman Empire” mentality (a reference from the book “The Heroine’s Journey” by Murdoch.) The word vagina was dirty in the culture I was brought up in. When I got older after experienced a little more of the outside world and being married I was bold enough to talk about my sexuality with my mother. She would get annoyed with me. She couldn’t control me anymore, but she could still choose to ignore me or shut me down by not responding to my questions or my musings. She’d say things like, “Why do you have to talk about those things?” Well, why not? We’re only talking. What’s the harm of speaking your thoughts? or did the priest tell you it’s a sin to express your feelings or to question authority?
When I got home from the play I met a neighbor while walking the dog. I told her I saw the Vagina Monologues. The reaction was shock that she could barely hide. The word vagina offended her, I think. I know she’s a religious woman. To soften the blow I said, “I know the word Vagina is harsh to some people.” She nodded and seemingly swallowed back something, I don’t know, “an idea” or “an opinion”. “It was really good,” I said and tried to explain what the play was about. But she was not really interested and we moved on to other less intense topics.
Not too far along the block I met another two neighbors. (I know a lot of people on my block because of my dog. They often ask about her.) They’re a couple of lesbians. I said, ‘Hey, I saw the Vagina Monologues tonight. It was really good.” I expected they would be more tolerant or excited to know more about it. But no. They either didn’t hear me or chose to ignore what I said. One of them said, “I can’t do anything for the next couple of weeks.” She said she has laryngitis. Her partner blurted out, “She’s going for an operation to get her gall bladder yanked out.” Ms. Laryngitis exclaimed in a normal tone, “I would’ve told her if I wanted her to know.” “Well she’s getting her gall bladder out,” the other said. Wow, I thought… Not even a reaction to the Vagina Monologues. Oh well, I’m probably zoned in on a thought while others are in their own worlds. Perfectly normal. This is life.
What I’ve learned from that exchange is that I had made a very embarrassing assumption that I was unaware I had been holding within. What I’m about to expose is a shocking revelation to me. I was nonchalantly thinking that lesbians are feminists. Conversely I ask myself consciously do I believe that feminists are lesbians? This is not logical. Men can be feminists too. In “The Heroine’s Journey”, Murdoch explains that the words feminine and masculine are not gender specific. They are qualities innate in both genders. I knew that but I was not conscious of it.
“The only way a woman can heal this imbalance within herself is to bring the light of consciousness into the darkness. She must be willing to face and name her shadow tyrant and let it go. This requires a conscious sacrifice of mindless attachments to ego power, financial gain and hypnotic, passive living. It takes courage, compassion, humility and time. The challenge of the heroine is not one of conquest but one of acceptance, of accepting her nameless, unloved parts that have become tyrannical because she has left them unchecked. We can’t go through life blindly. We have to examine all of the conflicting part of ourselves… The challenge according to Edward Whitmont, requires “the strength to sustain awareness and teh suffering of conflict and to be able to surrender oneself to it.” It is the job of the heroine to enlighten the world by loving it – starting with herself.” – Excerpt from “The Heroine’s Journey” by Maureen Murdoch.
I seriously laugh at myself for my square thinking, sometimes. (I mean I hope my square mentality is a rare occurrence, and I welcome any opportunity to blast it away.) I am shedding old skin that is being singed as its exposed to white heat. Some of that “Roman Empire” mentality had absorbed through a layer of skin and I wore it, like a floating film on the surface of a water that made my view of the world murky.
After the show I asked one of the actors how being part of the Vagina Monologues had affected her. I said, “It is more than just acting a part in a play. It’s participating in a movement.” She paused and her face lit up, “yeah, it’s really surprised me how it’s transformed me as an artist.” She explained that she is more active in promoting awareness of the violence against women on her Facebook account.
I was drawn to Eve Ensler’s work ever since I was exposed to the healing work she began and continues to grow in the DRC. She started the “City of Joy” in Bocavu, DRC. It is a shelter for the women victimized by rape and violence.
This is from the website of VDAY.
V-Day is a global movement to end violence against women and girls that raises funds and awareness through benefit productions of Playwright/Founder Eve Ensler’s award winning play The Vagina Monologues. In 2007, more than 3000 V-Day events took place in the U.S. and around the world. To date, the V-Day movement has raised over $80 million and educated millions about the issue of violence against women and the efforts to end it, crafted international educational, media and PSA campaigns, launched the Karama program in the Middle East, reopened shelters, and funded over 5000 community-based anti-violence programs and safe houses in Kenya, South Dakota, Egypt and Iraq. The ‘V’ in V-Day stands for Victory, Valentine and Vagina. http://www.vday.org
I felt wounded when I watched monologue about a woman who was the vessel of the “dirty semen” of the rapists while her husband and children were forced to watch. She said, “kill me first”, rather than forcing THAT upon us. I can’t help but participate in some small way to the cause of helping to restore self-esteem and dignity for the women of the DRC by sharing what’s going on there through this blog. It really is a natural outflow of reading “The Heroine’s Journey”. It is not a coincidence that I happen to meet someone who told me about “The Vagina Monologues” playing at a theater in LA. I purposely went and invited other friends to join me.
The closing of the monologues goes something like this: The vagina is like the heart. It can heal. It can accept. It can endure. It can open and it can close. It is like the earth that gives birth, nourishment and it recycles through death and life.
Thank you for reading.
Analyn Revilla
(The Vagina Monologues will be playing another show on Saturday, March 24th, 2012 at the Lyric Hyperion Theater & Cafe. 8pm showing.)
