Words
by E.h. Bennett
I love words. I love reading words. Especially when they are able to capture a philosophy beyond pure emotion. I love to hear the pin drop.
But you wouldn’t think so by the number of words I write. My characters speak volumes, just not in quantity.
I’ve been so busy at work it’s been difficult to find to the time to write this post. It’s only 9 PM, and I should be sleeping. But here I am attempting to find the words to illustrate what my subconscious has been stewing over for the last couple of days.
Why don’t my characters speak more words?
Is it something I read from Beckett and/or Edward Albee. Could be. Dunno.
Or it it something personally damaging?
Does speaking aloud = ridicule?
Does daydreaming = a backhand?
Does having an opinion = punishment?
Does editorializing = retaliation?
Forgiving doesn’t mean forgetting. Events shape us. Or maybe it was simply the influence of Beckett and Albee. Could be. Dunno.
And ultimately, does it really matter?
Just keep on writing.
My Unified Theory of Everything
I can pick from so many things to write about and I want to see it all related and tied together like how Einstein tried to formulate the equation that represents the universe. He had this notion of a Unified Field of Theory – aka Theory of Everything (TOE).
A unified field theory would reconcile seemingly incompatible aspects of various field theories to create a single comprehensive set of equations. Such a theory could potentially unlock all the secrets of nature and make a myriad of wonders possible, including such benefits as time travel and an inexhaustible source of clean energy, among many others. According to Michio Katu, a theoretical physicist at City College, City University of New York, those in pursuit of a unified field theory seek “an equation an inch long that would allow us to read the mind of God.”
(Source: http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/unified-field-theory-or-Theory-of-Everything-TOE)
As a writer I need to see the relationships of everything. To me, these relationships give meaning to existence.
I am proposing my Theory of Everything to be a cup.
I was inspired last year to write a poem about a cup. I never wrote the poem, but like one of those inspirations that is shelved and left alone to collect dust – it lingered and fell from out of the blue.
The expression arrived in the form of a sympathy card that I wrote to a friend for the loss of her mother last January. I couldn’t focus on my work until I had found the card, signed it and sent it. It’s funny how a deep inspiration just nags when it’s been put off for so long.
I walked to the coffee shop of an office building. This coffee shop is a gem. It is located at the back of the former Variety building on Wilshire (across from LACMA). What makes it a treasure for me is their espresso machine. There is not one coffee shop within a 10-15 minute walking distance of the office that serves the delights of an espresso machine. They also have a substantial collection of greeting cards and magazines. On days when I want to tune out for a little while I go to the coffee shop and just day dream over a latte with 3 espresso shots.
That day I went to find a sympathy card, but I could not find any. The next best choice was a decorative card without words. The most generic card I chose was a graphic design of 5 cups stacked on top of one another. Back in my office I stared at the blank space and thought of what I wanted to say. I remember writing something to the effect of “… her life was well lived. Her lips kissed pressed upon the rims of cups from which she drunk the rainbow of life’s experiences: beauty, joy, pain and suffering…” I imagined her mother drinking cups of coffee or tea in her different moods, whether alone or with company and in different places.
Think of the times you caressed the surface of your favorite cup as your thoughts drifted and the aroma of your coffee or herbal tea infused your sense of smell. That moment is imprinted in your heart. I know it, because I can remember that feeling, that moment when I inhaled then exhaled. That pause in your day was shared with the cup. That pause happens like the periods in our day when we take a break.
My mug at work has a deep brown stain along the waterline. It is brown from the tannins of the tea and oils from the coffee. I surprise myself at how I don’t bother to rub away the stain with some special cleaner or just elbow grease. Some people would probably shirk away from using my cup. Good. Stay away from it. It’s my cup and it’s my theory of everything.
What I Learned Writing for Toddlers
Tomorrow my first play for Very Young Audiences – A Bucket of Blessings – will close at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta after a one month sold-0ut run. The play is an adaptation of the best selling children’s book written by Surishtha Sehgal and Kabir Sehgal, and as a TVYA play, is meant for an audience of 0-5 year olds. A Bucket of Blessings was directed by the ridiculously brilliant Rosemary Newcott, and I developed it in the rehearsal room with Rosemary, our cast, our choreographer, designers, and of course, our multiple adorable test audiences.
It was a very intensive writing process, perhaps the most intensive theatre project I’ve done so far.
Here are the two things I want to take with me from that experience into future plays.
1. Theatre as service.
Theatre for very young audiences is, more than anything else, 100% about the audience and only the audience. There’s no room for the artist’s ego, the artist’s special voice, for flourishes, for statements. The only thing that matters is the audience. For a TVYA writer, this comes from a point of love. How could you not love these little ones? How could you not desperately care for them, and want with all your heart for them to have a safe, enriching, adventurous time in the theatre?
Now let’s take that same sacrifice of ego and unhesitating love for the audience to our work for grown ups as well.
2. Every second counts. Every line matters.
When children are that young, and their attention spans so brief, we are aware that every second we have with them is precious. The work we did in rehearsal was the most precise, exacting writing I have ever done. We worked hard on crafting every single moment to mean something, to engage the audience, and to carry the story forward.
Let’s be as ruthless as that with our writing for adult audiences. Even when we don’t have to be.
We must admit that playwrights are often coddled. What we lack in monetary compensation we make up for in creative control, but sometimes that can get indulgent. So the next time we’re in a room with our collaborators, let’s take our play to task, moment by moment. Is every single line crafted in the exact way required to communicate the story to the audience? Is every pause earned? Every word vitally necessary?
Seriously, what if our audience had the attention span of a toddler? Would our play still work? Have we built something captivating enough, engaging enough, to truly serve the audience that’s spending their precious time with us?
We should be doing these things anyway, but nothing brings it into perspective like trying to keep a room full of 2 year olds inside the world of your story.
—
Have you seen or worked on a play for very young audiences? What did you take away from the experience?
But do they care?
A lot can happen in ten minutes or less:
A monster attack
A car crash
A terminal diagnosis
The end of the world
The severance (or start) of an intimate relationship
And yet I’ve wondered if I expect too much, as a writer and as an audience member, of the increasingly ubiquitous ten-minute play, because I tend to like it ALL to happen (not necessarily the above, but events with comparable import). In earnest — rather than overt absurdity. In the same play. In ten minutes or less.
Tall order, but why not? What are the obstacles, but clear conflict, oppressive time constraints (or the proverbial ticking time bomb), and the je ne sais quoi required in order to make audiences care about the people and action at work in a compressed and short period of time.
OR is it really je ne sais quoi? Can it be mechanized, the art of making people care?
Well, since the world of politics is top of mind these days and is entirely about mechanics, for ghits and shiggles, I thought I’d compare some strategies for delivering a short stump speech designed to make people care with those that might be used effectively in the construction of an event-packed ten-minute play.
Did a bit of reading, Martha Nussbaum, Chip and Dan Heath, etc., etc. Some tactics that came up recurringly:
- – Highlight current problem(s) with emphasis, clarity and precision: check
- – Provide vivid details whenever possible: makes things seem real, credible; sure
- – Lean more on emotion over facts: in the case of the play, less exposition, more dialogue that reveals character truths; makes characters sympathetic
- – Reference the “challenge plot” when telling a story: make stakes high, obstacles ever daunting, with protagonist overcoming them in the end; eh, sure
- – Reference Associations/Use a celebrity or known figure: using something people already care about; I’ve done this (presented actual public figure as lead character), have seen it done; ultimately, it largely depends on the figure – my references tend to be obscure, but in mainstream cases, some recognition, for better or worse, is likely to produce some “care” results
- – Give audience ownership of what they’re hearing: can be endeavored in many ways, some interactive/immersive; interesting to chew on
- – Use specific names: (“I was talking with Frank Anderson of Davenport, Iowa, recently, who lost his farm . . .” comes to mind); personalizes things, makes whole presentation familiar
Alas, as the adage is “we’re all so different,” and it’s true, I suppose, that many of us are, what makes one person care may differ largely from that which keeps the person in the seat next to her invested.
That said, perhaps we’d be stronger politicians, we ten-minute playwrights, focusing a bit on a few of these as we go about our literary way.
From another point of view…
by Cynthia Wands
I’ve read two books recently that remind me of the days of understudies/rotating casts in a show. Those performances when suddenly someone else is saying those things that belonged to someone else.
The first book is Longbourn; a novel by Jo Baker based on the servants in the book , Pride and Prejudice. It’s very much like a look at the back stage of a fancy costume play: yes there are sparkles from the chandeliers, but it’s a life of hard labor and grubby interiors. I really appreciated this back story of the servants, who appeared only as extras in the Jane Austen story. Although not written in Austen’s style, it’s a great read of “backstage” life.
The second book, THE YEAR OF LEAR by James Shapiro, is a treasure. I’ve spent many hours trying to understand the writer William Shakespeare, (this is how I know a multitude of useless bits about the Elizabethan court, and Queen Elizabeth’s favorite Shakespeare play (The Merry Wives of Windsor;), and court gossip about witchcraft and illegitimate children hiding in royal family trees). The Year of Lear reveals the time during King James when Shakespeare was writing King Lear, Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra.
Shakespeare was writing under the rule of a king who was obsessed with witchcraft; King James had even published his own book on witches, Daemonologie, (a wide-ranging discussion of witchcraft, necromancy, possession, demons, were-wolves, fairies and ghosts, in the form of a Socratic dialogue). (Now there’s a play!) I vaguely knew of some of the historical events, (the Gunpowder Plot, the ongoing issues with Catholics and Parliament); but I didn’t really know of Shakespeare’s world when he was writing some of his best work.
The book is very densely written; I had to come up for air many times while reading it. But I came away with a different view of someone’s life that I thought I knew. And that is quite a gift. And it reminds me of the power of theater, when we can illuminate all the characters on stage, not just the leading players.
The New York Times review of THE YEAR OF LEAR by James Shapiro
A Staged Reading
In December of this past year, I was given the chance to hear my script, THE LOST YEARS, in a staged reading at the Contra Costa Civic Theatre up in the Bay Area. The finished script had never been heard, although there had been three readings of the piece in development. And let’s just say that it had been a long time since I had heard the voices of these characters, and I was excited and anxious to be able to hear them again. Marilyn Langbehn, who directed the reading, is the Artistic Director at the Contra Costa Civic Theatre, and also works with the California Shakespeare Theater. I’ve known Marilyn for many years – and was very happy to have her helm the reading.
I was anxious because I was going to hear the script read out loud by actors I didn’t know (up until this point I’d been involved in the casting/rehearsal/sounds of every actor who had read the script); I was nervous because friends/actresses/kindred spirits were driving over to listen to the reading; I was also fraught that although my loving brother and his wife were coming, my partner, Eric couldn’t be there, (and he has had to live through the development of this script for some time now) and I was blue about that. I was also back in the land of Berkeley, where I no longer live, although I had fallen in love there and performed there, it isn’t my home base any longer, and that was rather disorienting. And I wasn’t sure what I would get out of a one night reading: what if I hated it, or discovered that I needed to rewrite it entirely from another point of view, or – what if. And then fortune and fate interceded, and my twin sister flew in from New York to come to the reading. She found us a wonderful place to stay, took me out to dinner with dear friends, and jollied me along. And, when I came down with a migraine the day before the reading, she tended to me so I could rally and manage it. So I will say that I was given incredible support to experience the reading, and it went by in an instant.
One moment I was sitting by my friend Ellen at the theatre listening to the script being read out loud by six actors, and then we were out having a beer with some of the friends and family afterwards, and it was done. That astonished me: that disconnect with time and place had sometimes happened to me in and after performances on stage – I didn’t know it could happen to playwrights.
It was magical to hear the laughter, and the knowing nods from the audience during the reading, and I struggled with some of the – missing bits – that some of the exchanges in the script needed. But the play itself held up well, and I was so happy to hear those voices again. I was really heartened by some of the characters revelations that I hadn’t seen before, and was able to witness in a reading by the generosity of those that put the reading together.
So, yes. It was absolutely worth the nerves, and the apprehension and the helplessness I felt in watching those words come to life. In the mean time, I’ve been able to fine tune the parts of the last scene, and make some minor edits along the way. It was a wonderful night that gave me a lot of impetus to go another step.
What happens when an audience member shouts “Kill the playwright” during a show….
This story brought back memories of doing live theatre.
Kathleen Warnock’s article from Howlround: Shouting “Kill the Playwright” in a Crowded Theatre
I’ve had to improvise when drunk people walked onstage in an outdoor Shakespeare performance I was in, and I watched a fellow actor collapse onstage (I thought he really died in front of us but he survived), and I witnessed a choreographed duel get out of hand and two actors get slashed up (they got stitches), and then there was a special effects coffin that nearly killed the actor who was playing the unfortunate role of Dracula that night. And I’ve sensed annoyance and disappointment in some of the (hostile? feeble?) applause at the end of some of the shows I’ve seen/performed in. I’ve also heard audiences scream obscenities to opera singers at their curtain calls. (really – opera! boos and yells and slurs like you wouldn’t believe!)
But I realized, I also remember a time when I performed in theatre (and this will date me) before cell phones. Before iPads. Before Apple watches. This was back in a time when the idea that audiences might bring an electronic device to a performance was, well, far-fetched and bizarre, and not real. I remember this as a time that will never happen again: Pandora’s box has been opened and we will never again not know what roaming charges are.
I haven’t read this script,(“The Flick”) nor seen the play, but I did hear from friends who saw the production (which won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and won the 2013 Obie Award for Playwriting and was awarded the 2013 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize ). The only comment I remember about this play is that the running time was over three hours long. (I remember thinking “Three hours? That’s like a Shakespeare? Or a Chekhov? It’s really over three hours long?”)
But I do still wonder about an audience member shouting from the back of the house, (just before intermission): “Kill the playwright!”
“Kill the playwright” ?
It sounds so theatrical, and far-fetched, and bizarre, of course, it had to happen in real life.
More than one person
From a wonderful article on story telling:
“The most important thing that I think fiction does [is that] it lets us look out through other eyes … but it also gives us empathy. The act of looking out through other eyes tells us something huge and important, which is that other people exist.”
“The reason why story is so important to us is because it’s actually this thing that we have been using since the dawn of humanity to become more than just one person… Stories are ways that we communicate important things, but … stories maybe really are genuinely symbiotic organisms that we live with, that allow human beings to advance.”
This article by Neil Gaiman reminds me of a saying I heard my Irish grandfather repeat to me when I was a child:
“Do you want the truth or do you want the story?”
And you know, every time, I would much rather listen to the story.
Stuck in my head
Well yes, I’m always stuck in my own head, that’s how I write. I work it all out in my head before I commit to paper. Not the best way to do it, but I work out the problems I think I’ll have then I write. But the stuck in my head I’m talking about is a song. You know, you’re in a store shopping and on the overhead speaker some song comes on and you start bopping to the tune. Next thing you know you’re walking to your car and now you’re full on singing that same song. I hate that when that happens.
But today, I used this mild annoyance as a writing exercise. It was a song from when I was in high school. After I sang myself horse, I sat down with pen and paper and tried to recall where I was the first time I heard the song and all of the sights and sounds of the day. It was the summer between 10th and 11th grade. It was a Friday night in July. The air was hot and muggy and my friends and I contemplated what to wear to that night’s dance at the community center. Wendy’s parents were gone for the weekend and we had the whole house to ourselves. Shanon was in the kitchen mixing drinks, while I turned on the tv to MuchMusic. I could smell the sweetness of Shanon’s latest concoction as I brought it my lips, she had a thing for blue drinks and this was just the latest in a rainbow cocktails. A warm breeze blew through the screen door. The metal frame tapped as a reminder that we had to go. Outside, the blue sky was fading into burning shades of red and orange as the sun set. A chill filled the air. I could feel the goosebumps popping up on my arm. The mile walk to the dance felt like an eternity, why did I wear heels? After paying our money at the door, we found our way to the dance floor. I took off my heels and felt the cold concrete under my feet. The light from the disco ball caused prisms of color to bounced through the fog. Even though there was a chill in the air outside, the heat from all the bodies inside made the air inside heavy. The DJ called the last song of the night. There is was. The song. My friends has deserted me for dance partners. I sat in the bleachers as he walked over to me. He had finally made it to the dance. He stretched out an arm as an invitation to the dance, a feeble attempt at an apology for being so late. The only saving grace was that it was our song.
That’s what I had written about the song. Memories of a distant past that brought back emotions long forgotten. No recollection of the boy, he’s just a shadow in the memory now, but when it originally happened, my teen heart was in conflict and full of drama. But today as I listen to the song again, I think of the sunset, the sky, the warmth of the air.
This writing exercise made me rethink how I listen to songs and the memories they evoke. So much material to choose from when you consider whose perspective you’re writing about.
Oh, those endless summer nights.
