Thanks for your kind comment, Nancy.

I’m signing off with a very short blog just to that say that when Eve Ensler’s Swimming Upstream hits L.A., I hope that we bloggers can do a meetup and go see it together.

Thank you Nancy, Tiffany, and Robin for your replies about the influence of people with MFA’s on the theatre scene.   It really is difficult to know what the situation is and guess all we can do is to keep on trucking.  Ideally, we could all get a big barn and put up our plays in rep!

I still don’t know what to write next and have to remove a few obstacles that I’ve put in my path; like how to produce something startling, innovative, never seen before, with a new structure, new insights, perhaps a revelation or two.  And some laughs, of course.

Maybe, I’ll take Shakespeare’s approach, just for fun.

It was normal procedure among all the playwrights of his time to start with an old plot.  Shakespeare went further and never used a plot from contemporary life.  Marchette Chute says, “He was no innovator, and to the end of his career, he was willing to take decrepit, old-fashioned stories as the basis for his plays while his colleagues dealt in glossy new inventions of their own.”

One of the accounts of his process that I like the best is that of Romeo and Juliet.  It was already a legend in Verona and an Italian, Luigi da Porto, wrote down the story in the 1520’s.  It was also in a book of stories that an Englishman named William Painter had collected and translated from the Italian.  Then, a poet named Arthur Brooke, who had seen a stage version in London, turned it into a poem in 1562.

Thirty years later, Shakespeare worked from Brooke’s version, sometimes following the characters’ thoughts, thought by thought.

But, Shakespeare’s version is significantly different because he invented and/or drew complex, bold characters, such as the Nurse and Mercutio, he refused to moralize, he gave his characters motivation, and he elevated and transformed the language.

Here is a passage from Brooke’s balcony scene:

JULIET

“What if your deadly foes, my kinsman, saw you here?

Like lions wild, your tender parts asunder would they tear.

In ruth, and in disdain, I, weary of my life

With cruel hand my mourning heart

Would pierce with bloody knife.”

And from Shakespeare’s:

JULIET

How camest thou hither, tell me, and wherefore?

The orchard walls are high and hard to climb

And the place death, considering who thou art

If any of my kinsmen find thee here.

ROMEO

With love’s light wings did I o’er-perch these walls,

For stony limits cannot hold love out,

And what love can do, that dares love attempt.

Therefore thy kinsmen are no stop to me.”

There it is.  Piece of cake.  I’m on it.

I’ve been thinking lately that the business, if not the art of playwriting, has changed and that many playwrights are in a club to which I don’t belong.  The number of people with MFAs, many from prestigious universities like Harvard and Yale, who are produced and talked about and who are literary managers or artistic directors in charge of who gets produced and talked about seems to be proliferating and those without graduate degrees are on the outside looking in.

I have a friend who is going back to graduate school so that she can make it in the theatre.

It seems to me that this situation in turn affects the kind of theatre that’s produced.  People who come from a similar background will naturally choose to produce the kind of plays that reflect their lives and their political views and others will be left out, which makes the theatre world less vigorous and adventurous.

This is a huge generality, I know, and many literary managers will recognize a good play if it’s a good play but I still wonder if the cards are stacked against those not in the circuit.  I’d love to have people weigh in and discuss it.  Do others see the situation differently?

Marchette Chute says that something like that was happening in Shakespeare’s day.  “…university men were turning out popular plays, and although their choice of actual subject matter was not very different from that of their predecessors in the public theater, they brought with them a sensitive ear for words and a well-trained mind and some of them were real poets.”

Furthermore “….they valued their university training as something that set them above the common herd.”

One of the most successful writers from the university crowd, Richard Greene, was appalled that actors made so much more money than playwrights and he disliked one in particular who was intruding on his territory.

“There is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that, with his tiger’s heart wrapped in a player’s hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you; and being an absolute Johannes fac totum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country.”

The upstart crow was William Shakespeare who continued to do quite well in spite of the criticism.

When we ended The Wind in the Willows, the producer told the Moms that their kids would be depressed, restless, and tired after coming off such a high.

I’ve been depressed, restless, and tired!  A Beatles song kept going through my head, “There’s nothing you can say that’s not been said.  There’s nothing you can sing that’s not been sung.”

Today I googled All You Need Is Love and realized that the Beatles were singing “There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done. Nothing you can sing that can’t be sung.”

Duh.

So, although I still think that I have nothing more to say and won’t ever be able to start anything new, I feel a little more optimistic.  I picked up Shakespeare in London – A Unique account of Shakespeare’s life and times, by Marchette Chute, to reread for the third time because it makes you fall in love with theater all over again.

It’s such a rich, vivid book.  Marchette Chute, who was a nationally recognized scholar of English literary history, wrote it in 1950, when you could have bought it for $1.95.  It’s out of print now but can be purchased from Amazon for not much more.

The book doesn’t discuss Shakespeare plays as literature but only as they relate to the working problems of the London stage.  Reading the book, you begin to understand how Shakespeare could have written almost forty plays in twenty years.  He was an actor in a repertory company, who worked full time and got paid for it.  And he wrote for that company.

Here’s just a little bit that could have been written about us all:

“The fact that Shakespeare was an actor gave him one great advantage over the average playwright of the day.  Usually a playwright made a play to order and met the actors in some convenient place where it could be given a reading.  Normally an alehouse served as an impromptu office, since, as one foreigner remarked, there were “partitions between the tables so that one table cannot overlook the next.”  Once the play had been read and approved, the dramatist was paid and his contribution was over.

But Shakespeare was an actor.  He was present during every detail of the production of his own plays and when they were acted he almost touched hands with his audience.  He was in a position to know exactly what could be achieved from the production point of view, and the quality that has kept him a living force on the stage for more than three hundred years was born in part of his close professional knowledge of his audience.”

Where is that repertory company today?  Is there one in Los Angeles?  I’d love to know.

Back to the book.

Some recent events:

Someone in my writers’ group brought in sections of his full-length play over the past few months whose set-up is this: in the future, old people will be eliminated because they are no longer of use to society. It’s satirical, it’s biting, it’s funny. And after a few scenes, it wasn’t my cup of tea. My mom, a widow, has had a rough few years (read between the lines: so have I). I had to move her first into assisted living and then six months later into a nursing home. In Florida. That would be the Florida that’s waaaaay far away from California, where I reside.

Many of the other writers and actors in attendance laughed all the way through but it just was salt in the wound for me. The writer did rewrite it (some of his changes seemed sparked by an observation I made about the passive wife in the piece, “So similarly, perhaps the Nazi wives had some thoughts about what their husbands were doing…”), and that provided better arguments for the other side, for which I give him major credit. But I still passed on going to see the full read-through and sent him an email explaining the situation with my mom.

Then a few weeks ago, another writer in our group brought in a short play set after the Civil War wherein a very graphic rape and murder were described. By the end, I had no idea what I was supposed to take away from the play, or what the characters learned or how they had an arc. In my comments, I gave the writer props for holding my attention the entire time, but I wondered for what purpose.

It’s true we can all write whatever we darn well want. I wouldn’t want anybody, even a fellow writer, telling me what or what not to write. But do we consider how much we might lose the audience with our subject matter or approach? Or do we just say frack the audience, I don’t care what they think or feel, I’m doing this for me.

I tend to come down on the side of WE’RE IN THIS TOGETHER, me and the audience. I have a journey I want them to witness, to understand to some degree.

I think those two guys in my group care about what the audience response is, otherwise they wouldn’t be in a writers group where feedback is a part of the process. But they can’t tailor their work for just me, because my taste isn’t their taste. It’s an interesting line to walk.

And then there was this event:

Some friends and acquaintances went to see the movie The Kids Are All Right. I saw angry email subject lines from some of them and chose not to open those emails so I could see the movie with fresh eyes. But one of my closest friends walked out of the movie. I was stunned. Then I went to see it, and I and the friends who went with me that afternoon, loved it. So I was even more stunned. Yeah, all of the adult characters have major flaws and make bad choices. But they all learn something by the end. That to me makes an interesting journey and good drama. But perhaps my friend reacted for a deep reason I don’t understand (we haven’t talked about the movie yet). Maybe the movie hit her the way the play about snuffing out the elderly hit me.

Here’s to walking the fine line of getting an audience to go with you on the trip and staying true to your vision all at the same time.

I was fortunate enough to have a meeting last Saturday with a director who is interested in a full-length play of mine. We’re not quite sure what we’re going to do with it after a private reading, but high hopes and artistic dreams were in the air as we chatted over iced tea at Aroma in Studio City.

Before the meeting I said to myself something along the lines of “Don’t say anything stupid.” Or words to that effect.

By stupid, I meant I hoped I wouldn’t cross a line that playwrights probably shouldn’t cross. I don’t do it often (I’ve been at this for a looooooong time) but now and then in the fervor of a moment, I’ve said something that I regretted afterwards.

A year ago I said a couple of those type of things to a woman who was directing a staged reading of my play in a festival. She was very intelligent, had a lot of experience, had just gotten her Masters from a nice school back East – but she was a good 20 years younger than I am.

And at one point I pulled the age card. I swore I wouldn’t do it, but I got so testy I did. We were discussing stage directions and scenic design, and my script had descriptions she thought weren’t necessary. I said in L.A., with our small theatres on micro budgets, I don’t want them to think they have to re-create the Taj Mahal to do my script. So in this particular script, I had stated that the hospital, E.R., restaurant and car could be all be done with two chairs. The main set of the living room could be more fully-realized. She thought I was telling the director and stage designer what to do.

It’s a fine line. It’s a collaborative art. The stage directions aren’t written in stone. If someone has the money to do more elaborate sets than what I suggest, have at it.

But in the moment I didn’t say those things with the calm and reason that I normally have or I’m exhibiting here in this blog. I got testy and loud and pulled the age card, explaining that she didn’t have the experience that I had with small theatres in L.A. We don’t have the budgets that nice grad schools have.

And then the following week, if that altercation wasn’t fun enough, I really lost it when the producer of the festival thought my show was going to run WAY OVER our time slot allowed. This was because the “run-through” she witnessed was actually a “work through” of Act I, with a million starts and stops. Neither the producer nor the director had any concept of how long my play would run. They even suggested we do only one act for the festival because there wasn’t time for both acts. I explained to them the whole thing would run 90 minutes, without all the starts and stops. But I didn’t explain it in a nice tone of voice. I was a red-faced apoplectic cartoon character with smoke coming out of my ears and fire coming out of my mouth.

I wish I had remained calm. As it turned out, my play ran 90 minutes and I was vindicated, but I still wished I hadn’t lost my temper.

But no one’s perfect. And that’s the moral of today’s blog. The young director wasn’t, the producer wasn’t, and I wasn’t. I’m working on forgiving everyone involved, myself included.

And I’m hoping I will carry these lessons – stay calm, remember no one’s perfect (least of all me) – in my next venture.

A while ago I returned home to the mountains of Arizona for a respite from my own little economic crisis: I was totally, and completely broke, having depleted all my resources in a last ditch effort to stay in LA (after being laid off the year before.)  I was sad, I was tired, and I was totally heartbroken.

So I moved home and stuffed my face with mom’s cooking, did a lot of writing (it’s amazing what can happen when you’re not spending every waking second worrying about scraping together rent money, food money, cell-phone-bill money…) and basically embarked on the road to recovery.

And while a lot has changed in my little home-town, apparently the thing that has changed the most, is me.  You see, last weekend I went to see a production at our local (newly remodled) theater.  It was (I thought) a horrifying production – horrifying in that it hadn’t yet been developed, hadn’t the benefit of a practiced playwright or director at it’s helm, and as such I left quite angry that I had been asked to fork over $17 to sit through something so wildly unprepared for the venue or admission fee it had adopted.

I talked about it with the people I saw it with; we were all disappointed – what a mess!  I thought about it that evening – How frustrating that this great venue had been used for this level of work!  I even ruminated on the value of ruminating on it further, as the thing had already come and gone and I wasn’t going to have anything further to do with it…

But then I blogged about it.

I decided that the observations I’d had were worth further exploration, and that my opinions about the responsibility of a producer/writer/director might be an interesting read.  I put a lot of thought into my critique, and I knew it was stern, but I maintained my opinion that art made purchasable and presented for fee, is art of an elevated responsibility , inviting critique and measurement by those paying to see it.  For it is one thing to present a play (for entertainment or development purposes) free of charge, it is entirely another to present it as a “finished” production for a fee.

In any case, my blog currently has about 14 dedicated readers, and so I thought they might (as many are writers or purveyors of entertainment) raise a discussion point or two, we would enjoy that discussion, but that nothing else would come of my observations.

Then Google found me, directed some locals my way, and all hell is breaking loose on the thing.

Because what I apparently don’t know about my hometown is that it is NOT okay to voice an opinion – that the mantra “If you can’t say something nice…” extends to all facets of expression here, and that, if I’m not careful, apparently I will “never make it in this world” as surely there is no place for a person like myself who spits on the little people and touts myself as so super-important… Yes (apparently) I am, as one comment reads “WORSE THAN MAGGOT POOP.”

So, why am I sharing this here?  I think it is because I’m absolutely, incontrovertibly, fascinated!  And in spite of the vitriol of these comments, I can’t imagine taking the post down.  I’ve never before been the recipient of this kind of outrage; it’s stunning… it is also helping me understand the danger in playing the role of a… (booming voice)… CRITIC.

A while ago I had a show up that sold great houses, but in the end failed to bring in the kind of critical praise I so hoped for.  Big deal, happens to everyone.  But one critic in particular laid some hefty critique my way, calling my script (paraphrasing) an underdeveloped hunk of junk.  I remember at the time feeling a bit stung, and then feeling angry that people were going to read his review and possibly decide against attending the show.  But I didn’t read it as a personal attack – I knew that this guy possibly hadn’t understood the play, that it was, stylistically and subject-wise, not everyone’s cup of tea, and that this man (as much as I might dislike him at the time) had a right to his opinion.

But I have the ability to process his review with this kind of level-headedness, because this is my profession, and because I’ve cultivated the kind of skin to take it. I don’t have to like it, but I can handle it without loosing my mind, my cool, or my manners.

The one thing I did not consider as I wrote my own sort of “underdeveloped hunk ‘o junk” review, was that this town, and more importantly, these people, might not share my perspective on the roles of an artist, his/her responsibilties to their audience, and (more importantly) they might not have any idea what to do with that kind of criticism.

So I have to say that this experience has taught me what it feels like to be on the receiving end of “Critical loathing” – it has taught me that I might want to think twice before voicing any local opinions, and it has reinforced my opinion that grace and calm in the storm of any criticism is a much more powerful tool than “MAGGOT POOP.”

It’s summer movie time. Ahh summer. I remember hot and sticky summers in New York when I’d escape the heat by going to the movies. In the cool darkness, I could watch the pretty things on the screen float by like colorful snowflakes.

This summer, I have two movies to recommend highly. They’re chick flicks but not in the conventional sense, and I’ll try to give you my impressions of them unconventionally. 

One Sunday, I walked to a cheap movie theatre to catch Winter’s Bone directed by Debra Granik. Yes, I walk in LA. 

Ree, the 17 year old heroine of Winter’s Bone, walks a lot. Her quest to find her father before the family home is taken is not an adventure to distant lands filled with fantastical robots. She walks in a winter Missouri landscape to the houses of her distant cousins. Occasionally, she might get into a truck, but only occasionally. 

Not much is said in Winter’s Bone except the essentials, and Ree is smart enough to not talk too much. Even when she’s showing her younger siblings how to fire a gun, she says only what she needs to. 

The universe of Winter’s Bone is divided by gender. There is a definite man’s world and a definite woman’s world. The men won’t talk to Ree, but the women do. However, the women aren’t the archetypical nurturing home bodies. They are not earth mothers. They have their own problems and issues. 

They can help Ree, but they can also hurt Ree. When Ree goes where she shouldn’t, it is the women who beat her down—not the men. When Uncle Teardrop shows up to rescue her, he faces the men—not the women. 

However, it is the same women who also bring resolution to Ree’s quest and make her take part in a ritual both gruesome and necessary. Through this act, Ree moves from girl to woman in the tribe. Even though Ree and the women will never be on the same side, there is a respect for Ree as a woman and not a girl. 

I like that the film shows us powerful women without getting all you-go-girl Oprah about it. Among the women there is a tribal hierarchy where loyalty is prized along with an ability of knowing when to talk and when not to. The brutality of hierarchies among women is rarely shown. 

The men can have their meth labs and their guns and axes, but the women are the ones who keep the world going and always, eventually, get their way.

 As I walked home from the cheap movie theatre, I wondered if I would see another movie this summer as good as Winter Bone. 

Then Tilda Swinton showed up in Luca Guadagnino’s Lo Sono L’amore (I am Love). Julia Roberts might want to learn Italian, but Tilda Swinton owns Italian. 

Language is important in I am Love. What are the words we use and how do they conflict with the appropriate words to use? How is changing places and languages like putting on a different set of clothes? 

Tilda Swinton’s Emma is a master transformer. She doesn’t just act a part. She becomes what she needs to be. Her first transformation happens before the film begins. She is Russian born, but she becomes Italian when she marries her husband. Her second transformation is complete at the end of the film in a moment that reminds us that great actors and directors can move beyond words. 

Why does one transform? Why does one change? Necessity? Love? How does one escape the beautiful prisons one builds around one’s self? How does one not just love but become love?