Poetry & Blindfolds

The evolution of “The Observatory”, years in the making (or lack thereof), has been remarkably swift, due primarily to the wisest people I know, Lisa and Jennifer, the latter of which I have been fortunate enough to marry.  I know it’s pretty much ready due to the questions Jennifer has asked me.  For Draft 1, my answers were mumbles and excuses.  For Draft 4, my answers were answers. 

What was Draft 1 at the beginning of last week catapulted forward into Draft 4 by week’s end, at which time I decided, somewhat arbitrarily, to stop work on it and dumped it into lulu.com.  The form of the piece, with its act-sized first scene (25 pages) followed by fragmented scenes racing months in both directions, now seems in harmony with the story itself, as I’ve added a great section in which one of the main characters questions his sanity. 

It is no secret that my favorite composer is Mozart, though it is not necessarily for his tunes themselves, which often strike me as a bit “pop” for the 1700s.  Rather, I like Mozart because each of his compositions contains such melodies, counter-melodies, hidden melodies and other, for lack of a better word, “stuff” that I can listen to any of them in any number of ways.  Some days, I will audibly latch onto an oboe and follow it through its course; other days, the second piano.  I try to do the same with my writing, which may be why it’s been two years since my last personally successful play.  I’m pleased to say that “The Observatory” now has that Mozartian influence it was missing before, in that an audience member or reader can pick a character and basically follow their “tune”, which is independent yet harmonizes with the others.

Writing “madness”, or the fear of madness, is very difficult for me, so I admit I raced through what became Draft 3 very quickly.  To write a character truthfully, I often have to put myself in that character’s shoes, which in the case of madness, is a hard thing to do – or perhaps it’s just hard to pull myself out at the end of a writing session.

As unbelievable as it might have appeared to me in the past, I am finding that gardening is a great muse in and of itself.  While thinking about a play or a sketch, I don’t often like to talk to people.  I’m not that good at multi-tasking, and I find when I try, I feel I come across like a complete mindless idiot.  Sitting on my own certainly has yielded some good material in the past, but I find that unleashing my Inner Redneck by tilling soil and removing weed trees to be more rewarding.  And I’m pretty much left on my own when I’m doing it: if you see somebody hard at work in a yard, you generally don’t approach them, possibly for fear they will ask you to join in.

My friend-in-law Bijal has introduced me to a sketch-writing friend of hers, with whom I’ve written a couple of times.  The friend is looking for a bit of advice and has been very generous in sending me a sketch of hers.  The sketch reminds me somewhat of the sketches that my partner Robert Felker would bring into Suspicious Clowns.  Robert and I have very different approaches to comedy: I’m a strong student of the Rule of Threes in comedy; Robert tends to like the Rule of a Thousand.  I haven’t written the friend back yet regarding her sketch as I don’t want to sound professorial as much as I want to offer some bit of wisdom.  She’s invited me to a show in which she was one of the writers, but I’ve silently declined, as those kinds of situations don’t leave much room for constructive conversation.  Still, I return to the sketch in my mind at least once a day, even if my wisdom eludes me.

I find that I am struggling a bit with what to do next, and although sketch would be the easiest, I cannot see myself taking the stage doing it again.  Yet I feel I am a bit too young to just direct and/or produce, and the horror of a sketch show turning into “Suspicious Clowns: The Next Generation” keeps me from considering it too much.  “The Observatory” seems a likely contender, if it survives a public readthrough with some of my actor friends (a necessary, if pride-swallowing, exercise that has effectively killed at least two plays I have written). 

When writing a play, I often have to trick myself repeatedly. For instance, if I don’t have a good title and at least the main conflict/resolution worked out in my head, I cannot sit down and write anything. Of course, this is ridiculous – none of my produced plays have retained either the good title or the main conflict/resolution as originally conceived. “And Scene!” became “Ensemble.” “Imitating Life” became “Remote.” “Angela” became “The Tearful Assassin.” The pieces that retained either the good title or the main conflict/resolution have yet to be produced anywhere.

This makes me have concerns – no doubt unwarranted – about “The Observatory”, an idea I had years ago but only finally wrote in 2010. It’s a good title. And the main conflict/resolution, though certainly tweaked, is basically the same as I conceived it years ago. Despite these middling concerns, it is still a piece that is unlike anything I’ve written before, so it feels worthy. I could never be a Sam Shepard kind of playwright; the sawdust on his dialogue feels interchangeable from play to play. I don’t mean to slag off old Sam, as his stuff is quite brilliant, but I cannot help but thinking as I re-read his work – “Curse of the Starving Class” being the latest – that he’s trying to write The Perfect Play, and his pile of work are rough drafts.

I am not that ambitious as to want to write The Perfect Play, nor do I want to compile a series of “rehearsals” for said Perfect Play. This is probably a dire mistake on my part; I know several colleagues who have eked out a respectable living out of re-doing material that was cutting-edge for us in 1995. However, I seem to be unable to tap the vein of work long gone (“The Observatory”, despite being old, hasn’t been mentioned to anyone, so I dub it “new” – no doubt there’s some irony to be found in this) and when I try, I fail miserably. Following “Remote”, I started “Remote II.” Different situation, different arc – but the same material. Likewise, “The Tearful Assassin” inspired a darker sequel, but I found I was arguing the same points I had done in the original. Both of these were scrapped. To rid myself of sequel-itis, I embarked on a parody of the porn industry entitled “Chinese Algebra”, after the Tom Waits lyric of observing a stripper and becoming “harder than Chinese algebra”, but, although I completed a first draft, it felt funny in a way that was more suited to Vince Vaughan than Vincent Truman. Too easy, too crass, ever so slightly lovable. I may not have written anything like it, mind you, but many others had. So that, too, went in the “to be discovered at a later date” pile.

So now, having completed the first draft of “The Observatory”, I have to endure a creative post-partem depression. My arguments and “thesis” are on the page; now I have to go through the thing like an angry surgeon and make sure all the bits are connected to the other bits. I cannot be selfish enough to put out the work in its current raw state (and this may be another dire mistake); I want the piece to speak to the audiences that may see it someday. This involves a certain cartoonery on my part; exaggerating some areas, simplifying others. Like advice, I’m much better at this with others’ work than my own, but I have to give it a go. And from there, it becomes pretty much like all other aspects of life: who knows what’s gonna happen?