Intermission
a creative coffee break from writing the play

Okay, I’m going to quote Albee again. Well, paraphrase, anyway.

He has said playwrights must be very careful who we show our work to when we are developing it. First drafts are so easily crushed by the well-intentioned critic.

Many years ago, I found my first ‘master’ teacher. He was the first person I found, who would tell me clearly, unsentimentally, and directly what worked and what did not work in the plays I was writing. He was an aloof, almost cold guy. He was a brilliant teacher. If I’d met him ten years earlier, I would have been crushed by his clarity. Perhaps would not have written another word. Ever. As it was, I met him at the right time in my life, where I was open and ready and craving his kind of truth telling. He taught me everything he knew about playwriting. I found out, later, it was as much as anyone really knows, and those teachings, sometimes disgarded, sometimes employed, have served me well.

In my adventures in theatre, the people I found I could trust to tell me the truth have been few. Mind you, there are always people available who will step up to tell you what’s wrong with your work, and what they would have done instead. Or people who will complain about you. People who will rip you apart behind your back. People who say things to you and now matter how many words they use, or how many questions you ask, you stand there wondering, “What the fuck was that?” because they’ve said nothing in their attempt to be unoffensive.

Cheerleeders, too, are nice. Cheerleaders make you feel good about yourself. They lift your spirits. They get you over a slump. Cheerleaders do not help you write great plays.

It’s the true friends who will tell you, without relish, what works and what doesn’t who are to be cherished. One in particular, MBH, I met through the first master teacher. MBH has read every first draft of mine, stage or film script, for several years now. He is the one who will tell me that a line, an exchange, a scene, an act, a script, “is not up to your usual.” Of course, too, MBH cheers me when he thinks I’ve been particularly brilliant. We have watched each other grow as playwrights. We’ve read each other through our attempts at (oh how my Group, which MBH does not belong to, shudders at this) screenwriting. He will be a great screenwriter. On his way, I’ve no doubt. He is a beautiful playwright. A masterful re-writer. Totally different from me in style and focus. We have pledged to always challenge each other to be better than we are. So far we have kept that pledge.

There is an art to feedback. Real, constructive feedback. And it’s not me telling you how I would write your play.

Once MBH and I were part of a theatre group, founded by a handful of playwrights. I will never forget the day, we all answered the question, “What happens when you don’t write?” MBH said something like, “If I don’t write, I’m not happy. I become impossible to live with.” Writing akin to breathing. A brother afflicted, just like me. The other writers could write or not; no skin off their noses, as the saying goes. Writers who don’t care if they write? Are they aliens? There was at least one or two certainly with more innate talent than we; just without apparent ambition.

MBH and I are the only ones from that group still writing.

Just interesting to note. I try to note without judgment. Still it seeps through.

I’m appreciating MBH tonight. Every writer should have an MBH in her life.

It’s the third anniversary of another friend’s death. Another artist, a songwriter, performer, and eyeglass collector. One of those “Connectors” Malcom Gladwell writes about in The Tipping Point. He was the only person I knew who understood what I meant, when I said, “Sometimes I’m afraid of my own power as an artist.”
Kevin McQuarrie,
Love you, guy.
Miss you.

P.S. Not afraid anymore.