Intermission
a creative coffee break from writing the play

Ketti Frings
Columbus, Ohio, U.S.A.
February 28, 1909

I was not too bruised by its lack of success. You can only learn from your mistakes.

Ketti Frings on the
cool reception of her play
Mr. Sycamore, 1942

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.

To conclude…

• Fountain pens mean using inks of all colors and flavors for one pen.
• Piston filler pens mean an easy way to fill pen with ink.
• Bottled inks mean no consuming of little plastic ink cartridges which end up in the landfill. Unless you use plastic bottled ink. Oh dear.
• Vintage fountain pens mean a form of recycling/re-using something that still performs.

A correction to my first post, Nothing But Pens: My pal, MBH, doesn’t throw a box of Bic pens in a drawer for a year. He throws a box of PaperMate pens in a drawer to age them. Some special, skinny kind of PaperMate, as he’s tried to explain to me, but his explanation goes over my head.

The last few weeks have been quite sleepless. Our Dog had nighttime diarrhea, and finally all-time diarrhea. I won’t go on about her flatulence, which was 100 times regular dog flatulence. Our Dog is some 13 years old, which physically compared to human years is like 72. It’s dog years and physical size that determine the comparison human years. The larger the dog, the older she is. Her doc has determined she’s got IBS. She seems to be on the right combo of food and meds for the moment, and she’s finally sleeping through the night.

Last Sunday, a 2-3 hour wind storm took down a ton of trees and power lines. We were without power until Friday. There’s many folks still without power. Not sure in retrospect what exactly caused such sleepless nights during the outage. I only know I didn’t sleep until Friday. Grocery stores and restaurants continued to function, neighbors looked out for each other, and our updated California earthquake kits came in very handy. We are not poor, infirm, or sick, and so the lack of power was not threatening to our lives in any way. You gotta keep at least one eye outside your own life, and see what’s happening around and beyond you.

I can’t write when I’m exhausted. Well, I could. It wouldn’t be any good. During these last few weeks, I’ve mostly made notes about new play ideas which are grabbing hold, reading and researching for some of those potential plays. And obsessively following the U.S. campaign for President. I’m looking forward to the debates beginning, and making our way to November. I’m pulling for an Obama landslide, in case you wanna know.

Today I am feeling replenished. I’ve set myself a modest writing re-entry goal: Five pages on the play I haven’t finished. If they don’t come, I’m putting that play in a drawer and moving on.

One of many examples of trees downed in my neighborhood.

The model for the play workshops I’ve participated in have essentially followed the outline below. Certainly, what follows is not the only model. It’s merely the one I’m familiar with.1

1. The playwright brings ten to twenty pages to Group.
2. Actors read the pages.
3. Playwright hears words out loud.
4. If she has any, the playwright asks the Group specific questions about the work.
5. Regardless of questions, the Group’s feedback on the pages ensues.2
6. Finally, the playwright returns to the pages, to re-write or move on to new ones.
7. The process repeats itself at the next Group meeting with re-written or new pages.3

The limitation of this model is that at some point you need to hear the entire play in one piece. It all depends on what stage you’re at with your play, and your own personal development as a writer. The last group I was a part of would schedule an evening specifically to hear a complete draft whenever a writer was ready. This was a very informal evening, much like the regular “pages” kind of night, except the focus was on one playwright’s complete play. When the writer wanted a more public, more formal reading, we were fortunate to have a relationship with a theatre that allowed us to hold readings in their space.

I’m cutting this installment short. Am off to Chicago to see Superior Donuts.

Why, some of you ask, do I harp on about learning “structure?” My major reasons are

• Structure imposes limitations, and limitations forced us to stretch our creative muscles.
• It teaches you to purposely use all the elements you put into a play, and to discard meaningless indulgences. As Chekhov wrote,

One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it.

• It teaches you the nomenclature of playwriting, like “foreshadow,” “inciting event,” “character arc,” so that you can converse with others.
• Often, the answer to why your play isn’t working is found in understanding the structure of your play, whether you’ve followed tradition or not.

While I believe the following things cannot be taught, I feel, if you have a natural affinity for them, they can be honed:

• Voice
• Imagination
• An ear for dialogue
• A sense of theatre

This cannot be said enough: Theatre is not the same as a novel, television, or a movie. It should not be; although (‘nother sigh) there are those who continue to bring us the movie of the week live at your local playhouse.

IMHO, it is not enough for a story to be on the stage. It must be theatrical by making use of the stage, its limitations, its realizations, and its immediate connection with an audience. On stage, Sweeney Todd’s bloody barberous moments can be depicted quite chillingly with red light, with red ribbons, or (big sigh), if you must go for realism, stage blood. On film, the blood becomes “real” in its depiction, losing its theatrical quality. With enough imagination, everything becomes possible on stage.

Plays are not crafted by the pen, pencil or keyboard alone. Not even by our own sole imaginations. Playwrights know this. Yet how many of us let our work evolve or, worse yet, stagnate without ever hearing it outside of our own heads? How many of us are waiting for the elusive spots at the O’Neill, New Dramatists, or Sundance? How many decent playwrights exist outside of major cities, which may or may not have workshops?

I am not alone in thinking playwrights need to take charge of our own developing work. It’s not a radical idea. It’s an essential part of a playwright’s toolkit. How else do we develop our writer’s ear for what works?

It requires sitting through a ton of readings…

A piece of dialogue, or a line, can feel of such great import as I write it. Then I hear an actor bring my words a different inflection than the one in my head. A different actor brings something else in response to the first. I find what was so important is lost completely, and I go back to the pages, re-write the words or toss them out without mercy. It requires sitting through a ton of readings of your work, and the work of others, to understand the difference between a badly written line and a badly delivered line. Sometimes the two intersect…

Some 15 years ago, four friends, and the one professional actor I knew at the time, read my very first play out loud in my living room. I captured the audio with a microphone plugged into my VCR. I paced in the kitchen until they were done. I hid the tape in a drawer until I could listen to it. The experience was painful, thought provoking, and necessary.

I knew something was wrong with the play. None of the lovely five people who read in my living room could, would, or knew what to tell me. They loved me and thought I was brilliant, brave and talented. Nice thoughts. Just not very helpful. I tried to find, uh, professional help. I called the local theatre association, and was told they had no resources to offer playwrights. I talked with the theatre which had a training program for actors, and got the same response. For a long while, I agonized over going back to school, into more debt, to get an MFA in playwriting. (My M.Ed. did not prepare me for the theatrical arts. For some of us, life is a process, much like playwriting… )

Finally, I found a group of actors and playwrights who met weekly to hear our works in progress. It took another year before I found the man who became my mentor. He taught me the foundations of playwriting, and told me point-blank what was wrong with my play. This was a frickin’ relief, and a major turning point in learning how to craft plays.

Just when I feel I have a handle on the new site design, it all falls apart. Suddenly, all the design ideas, the rules, the declarations, all the CSS/PHP/WordPress/Ajax/JavaScript/JesusHChrist means nothing. I question my sanity, much less my abilities. Who do I think I am trying to write this thing myself?

Time to put the code down, take a walk, get some protein, and focus on something else. Come back later, and  go through everything step by step.

Time to … take a walk, get some protein, and focus on something else.

Playwriting can cause similar head spinning. What seems like a good idea, falls apart, often near the end of the first draft. Sometimes by page 30. Sometimes in the second or third draft. Whenever. I find the play1 always falls apart at some point and necessitates a break. Sometimes a short coffee break will do. Sometimes a break requires a whole summer or two.

A dear friend, a wonderful writer who has been away from playwriting, is trying to pick up where she left off with a play from some eight years back. She kept referring to a pile of notes from a workshop we’d been in together, facilitated by a mutual mentor. She ran in circles, writing scenes from scratch, re-writing work she’d previously written, and worrying about those old notes. “They contained such valuable suggestions,” she kept saying, yet couldn’t bring herself to read them. The notes were keeping her from moving on. She’d let her Editor’s Mind create a great Distraction from writing.

I reminded her of her longevity as a writer in many other forms, her vast knowledge of theatre, and her great dramatic instincts. I suggested she set aside two hours, pick up the pile of notes, read through them, and then put them away. Perhaps keep a notepad nearby to capture good suggestions, or new ideas that came to her while reading. To read only the notes and enough of the script for them to make sense. To not linger over them in order to not treat the notes themselves as genius. When finished reading to put the notes back in a box, a drawer, the trash, or the fireplace. Be done with them. Move on, and return to the present, which happens to be writing now, not eight years ago.

The ensemble play I’ve recently ‘finished’ runs approx. 90 minutes with no intermission. Generally, I like intermissions. A lot. It’s a time to ponder what’s happened on stage, talk about the acting or directing, and how the playwright is gonna pull the story off in the second act. It’s a time for a smoke (if that’s your thing), a drink, or a visit to the facilities.’ For some it’s a time they can sneak out, maybe go home, and just leave the whole damn thing behind. I like act one endings. The goal being, of course, to tantalize the audience to come back after their break to see how the story resolves… or doesn’t resolve. Hopefully the audience comes back with some excitement about the next act; not dread, boredom, or trepidation.

I initially wrote an Act 1 ending, and then removed it. I felt the story moved at a fast enough pace to keep the audience sitting on their butts for the time required to get through the whole play. I removed it because I felt that the Act 1 ending was not a real lead in to an Act 2. It was an important moment. Yet in Act 2, the audience was in for big, unexpected shock, and I felt having an intermission betrayed the story, its movement, and the audience.

Having an intermission is a rule that allows the audience to get up and pee. Hey, my attention span isn’t very good when I gotta pee! It’s about keeping the audience’s attention. It’s not a rule to be broken lightly. Some of us do it too often, and the rest of us get fidgety and resentful. Then again, some playwrights might be going for resentful, fidgety audiences. ‘Tis a mystery, isn’t it? There are times when the story demands that it remain unbroken, and if the writer and company do so successfully, the play is an fidget-less ride.

The play I’m writing now has an intermission, a standard act one and two. The story’s also a little more linear than I’ve written in some time. You see, the story tells me its requirements, and off we go. I don’t decide the structure, the story decides the structure of the play. There are aspects of the story that are uncomfortable, and not sitting well with me. I’ve learned, though, to not turn away from the discomfort, and to keep writing and see what happens. After all, if the play is no good, no one ever has to see it, and I might learn something in the process.

At the end of April, I completed the draft of my wild and woolly ensemble play. I began this play in May 2006.  Way too long between start and finish.

Yet, there was no straight line from the beginning to the end. That is, as I began that play, I was finishing up the “final” draft of a different full-length play. During that two year period, I wrote two shorter plays, other plays had staged readings, some out-of-state workshop was attended, oh yeah, I moved from San Francisco to Louisville, and started an even newer play. I’m good at setting deadlines. Somethings, though, the glories of Life take precedence, and the play gets finished when it gets finished. MBH has an envious way of writing his first drafts very quickly, and then takes longer for his re-writes. I’m the opposite. I take longer to finish the first draft, and then get through the re-writes faster.

Perhaps that’s all bullsh*t. My process keeps evolving. That’s the one thing I know for sure.

I gave MBH the draft to read. Then he gave me some notes, a couple “this is me writing your play” comments, and mostly what he gave me was great conversation about the play. It was helpful to go through the play with him, and talk about what I had accomplished, and what I hadn’t. One of the ideas I had for he play, I had not yet accomplished and wasn’t sure how to get there. By the end of our conversation I knew exactly what I needed to do. And it wasn’t from anything he told me to do. It was from listening to his experience of two main characters that prompted the light bulbs to go off in my head. That kind of helpful conversation comes when someone knows your work, knows what you’re capable of, and doesn’t have any ego invested in his own opinions about all of that.

It bears repeating that you need those Safe Friends to share your work with.

The last two weeks have been spent re-writing, and I’ve been very excited about the shape the play has taken. The Beloved is out of town this weekend. No distractions for me mean I’m confident this round of re-writes will get finished while she’s gone.

And today from my home state, the Cali Supremes said:

In light of the fundamental nature of the substantive rights embodied in the right to marry — and their central importance to an individual’s opportunity to live a happy, meaningful, and satisfying life as a full member of society — the California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all individuals and couples, without regard to their sexual orientation.

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF CALIFORNIA
In re MARRIAGE CASES (S1479999)

I had no doubt they would rule in this just manner.

I’ve made a final checklist for the large cast play I’ve been writing.

I know, I know, I wrote a few days ago that I hated list keeping. That’s about those freaks who insist you gotta checkoff the 1,000 people/places/things before you die, or keep bird lists, or have a detailed travel itinerary for each moment of your vacation. Some of us are not built for that kind of list-keeping, thank you very much.

There’s a handful of details I want to be sure I haven’t missed. The list contains questions about metaphors, specific character actions, things that need to be repeated, foreshadowing events, dialogue consistencies, whatever the things knocking about in my mind. I want to be sure I’ve dealt with them.

My plan is to be done with the draft by the end of Tuesday. I’m more than ready to let these characters go. The Powerbook has behaved since last Thursday, so no obstacle there. I’ll pass the draft onto my Trusted Friend, and then turn my attention to the joint project with MBH.

It’s Derby week, and we’ll head to the track this week to watch the early morning workouts. My reward for finishing the draft.

The, uh, afore-posted play is an ensemble piece, containing four major characters, three secondary, and four minor ones. Though there are parts for twelve, I’ve set the play up so that only seven actors are required; the four minor characters should be played by the three secondary roles. Yeah, the structure’s a little complicated.

This morning, as I was culling through the draft looking for inconsistencies, I thought it would be helpful to draw up a chart of the main emotional component of each relationship. Yes, another visual to stoke the right side of my brain. Along-side the chart, I kept track of how often each of the characters interacted with each other. I wanted to ensure people were relating as I saw them doing so in my head. I was surprised to discover that the best friend of the play’s couple never directly interacts with one of them. Can I fix that? Sure. Should I? I don’t know yet. I’m still pondering the implications, ramifications, necessitudes of that gap. I was relieved to find the rest of characters relating as I envisioned.

My Character Chart, or C-Chart, uses connectors (as I recall them) from my days charting genograms, in one of my other lives, studying to be a family therapist. BTW. my C-Chart is by no means a genogram, it is a free-flowing, non-linear expression of my play’s initial community profile. I may do a progression chart, showing how the relationships have changed by the end. If I do, I’ll post that chart too.