Intermission
a creative coffee break from writing the play

• Tabatha Fortis
• You think I think an artist’s job is to speak the truth. An artist’s job is to captivate you for however long we’ve asked for your attention. If we’ve stumbled into truth we got lucky.
• The West Wing
  The U.S. Poet Laureate, Season 3 Episode 16 (60)
  Airdate Mar 27, 2002
  Teleplay by
  Aaron Sorkin

To me it was irrelevant that his [Cervantes] plays were not successful. One recognizes the passion for theatre that drives those of us who share it. A playwright has no problem identifying the techniques of theatre in the novel Don Quixote. There is the creation of living, breathing characters; the manufacture of a world better than the one we have been born to; the search for concise yet poetic expression of that world; the difficulties of realization which never measure so splendidly as the dimensions in one’s mind. And by all means include the love of applause, not from anonymous readers but from a living, breathing audience in the immediate presence of one’s creation. The affinity I felt with Cervantes is the same affinity common to all writers of theatre. We know each other, in the same moment in which we are ferociously competitive.

Cervantes: Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of America 19.1 (1999): 125-30.

Dale Wasserman. Born Nov 2, 1914. Died Dec 21, 2008.

Note: Click on a photo to “Zoom” in on it.

…one of the most exciting things about being a writer is finding the life in different characters whom you don’t know at all. To a certain extent, you’ve got to let them live their own life. But there’s also a conflict constantly going on between you as the writer and them as the characters. Who’s in charge? There’s no easy answer to that. I suppose, finally, the author is in charge. Because, whether the character likes it or not, all I’ve got to do is take out my pen and do that (a gesture of erasure) and he’s lost a line. It may be one of his favourite lines of dialogue [laughter]. But I’ve got the pen in my hand.

“I’ve Written 29 Damn Plays. Isn’t that Enough?” by Michael Billington, The Guardian, Mar 14, 2006

Harold Printer: Born 10 Oct 1930. Died 24 Dec 2008.

Note: Click on a photo to “Zoom” in on it.

Note: Click on a photo to “Zoom” in on it.

Seems so long ago already, yet last week I was in NY to see relatives, a couple of shows, and eat a doughnut.

Okay, not just any doughnut. It was a Creme Brulee type of doughnut. It was worth the 4 mile walk to find it. It would be worth any walk. I could have forgone the theatre and just had the doughnut. *pulling myself together* The baker touts his natural ingredients, yada yada, all good stuff… The guy’s created an inspired take on Creme Brulee in doughnut form. The Tres Leches doughnut is pretty good, too.

On the way to the Doughnut Plant, we passed by 31 Cornelia Street in the Village. These days that location houses a restaurant, but 50 years ago it held the coffeehouse where the Off-Off-Broadway movement was born. It was at the Caffe Cino where the earliest work of Lanford Wilson, John Guare, Maria Irene Fornes, Tom Eyen — providing here only a few names of many wonderful dramatists — were first performed.

Earlier this year, a plaque commemorating the Caffe’s founder Joe Cino was posted at 31 Cornelia Street. It took us but a moment to find the plaque. It was moving to me, looking at the tiny, tiny space and to know here “artists brought theatre into the modern era.”

…writing when it goes well, is no trouble at all, and hardly deserves the name of work.

William Gibson, A Season in Heaven, 1974

November 13, 1914 – November 25, 2008

A short list. An abridged list.
A list.
In no particular order,
except the first thing.

Sobriety.
People who have traveled before me.
People traveling behind me.
People who travel along beside me.
Deciduous trees.
Frogs.
Water.
Friends, real honest to God friends.
Kind strangers.
Kindness.
People who care about what they do.
People who don’t care what other people think about what they do.
People who stand up.
Show up.
Being teachable.
Justice.
Life.
Music.
A breeze.
The smell of Gardenias.
Storytellers.
Interpreters. All kinds.
Language.
Body language.
Sign language.
Signs.
Clowns.
Performers.
The chipmunk in the backyard.
My cat.
My dog.
Furry things.
Ink.
Paper.
Intuition.
Connection.
Spirit.
Gumby.
The CS Monitor.
Newspapers. Online newspapers.
Books.
Archives.
Archivists. All kinds.
Sand.
Redwood trees.
Family. Whatever sort.
Pondering.
Pillows.
Someone who gets me.
Someone I love.
Her health.
My health.
The roof over our heads.
A comfortable bed.
Blankets, wool or cotton.
Poems.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Begin with morning meditation.
Start up Kristin Chenoweth’s new Christmas album.
Count the morning birds for Project Feederwatch.
Scratch The Cat’s belly.
Give silent thanks to those doing what I cannot.
Imagine the smell of the pumpkin pie I’ll bake tonight.
Read Doonesbury.
Exchange blinks with The Cat.
Pick The Cat up for a little dance to the music.
Decide to play more holiday music.
Post this list without apology.
Pick up the pen and get busy.

Edited 11/27/08 to add:
(Yes, that’s My Cat.)

Something I rarely do I’ve done twice since September: leave a play at the intermission. The first was a play I looked forward to. It was directed by someone of acclaim, and I have enjoyed his interpretations previously. The acting was good, and the production values were lovely. The material left me cold; English class issues with comedic over and undertones galore. I’d certainly seen the same subject matter done over and over again as film. Some of them even great films. What was the point of a play? Just because we can, should we?

Perhaps I was cranky, still recovering from the September power outage that lasted over a week in our neighborhood. The Beloved was unable to hide her glee as I ushered her out at intermission and into the parking lot to escape.

The second play was so awful I could not even listen to the script. The central character in the hands of so bad an actor he responded as though he’d only met each character for the first time on the street despite the dialogue which clearly told us these people had been to hell and back together.

It was the Beloved’s birthday, so I let her make the call to leave.

Both times I sat in the theatre impatiently thinking, “So? Why are we doing this?” There was nothing in either show to suggest why the material at hand required being a play. I wondered why the bother, why all the time, money and expertise had gone into bringing these shows to life. Yeah, well, there’s an audience, yadda yadda yadda, and it’s not me.

I’m bored by narratives well-crafted but not well-written, and so dully un-stage-worthy. Undoubtedly, the reason I enjoy musicals is because there is so much inherent theatricality to them. I am always amused by those who declare, “no one bursts out singing like that.” Well, duh.

I am usually more forgiving about theatre.

I’m restless, and having some trouble focusing.

Pondering the play I have not finished, I feel it has been fun to write, but trivial in scope compared to the new plays nagging at my brain. I want to set it aside and move on from it. I haven’t left a play unfinished… since when? Ten years, perhaps. Is there something to learn in stuffing the unfinished work into a drawer and leaving it there? Or is this a wave of a series of unfinished plays about to take me over? Just because I can finish it, should I?

Yes, overthinking quite a bit. More to be revealed, no doubt.