Poetry & Blindfolds

Last weekend, I was pleased to attend the world premiere of the film “Gless.”  Not only was it wonderful to share a screening room with the cast and crew, but it was interesting to watch the film in its entirety.  “Gless”, shot in grainy black-and-white and containing an arsenal of Final Cut Pro distort effects, is completely committed to its premise of a woman surrounded by a throng of physical and mental ailments.  The director’s choices of rapid-fire edits and distortions (not only of space but of time) are disorienting and seemingly random, yet they completely fit the film. 

The director, a quiet, soft-spoken guy, has a real knack, or unhealthy obsession, for writing for women violently drowning in anguish and pain.  I’m similar in style myself – though I find “my” women in my scripts are overly strong and turn out to be anti-heroes.  The contrast is interesting.

My part in the film, that of the psychiatrist, was small but very exciting to do, due to my scene partner, Angela Jo Strohm, being so natural to play against.  In fact, I remember being quite surprised on how the two of us fell into place when we ran lines off-set before Take 1 of the scene.  Strohm’s a bit of a powerhouse, y’see, and could easily dominate any scene she is in, but I have to credit her with not blowing me out of the water (no hard task to do, considering my lack of acting cred).  Even my wife said I did good in my scenes, which in and of itself is a small miracle.

Lately, my attention has been turning to “The Observatory”, which has found a home in the Charnel House, the same venue I acted in “The Woman in Black” in December 2009.  I like its creepy history (a former funeral home) and unique placement in the middle of Logan Square, my current Chicago neighborhood.  Additionally, I like the owner, a fellow called Billy, who, like me, has produced for years and years, most notably the 1990s mainstay “Cannibal Cheerleaders on Crack.”  So doing another show at his venue feels a little like being home.

“The Observatory” will also be my first show without my favorite usual suspects.  Kyle Ramos has vacated to California to indulge the West Coast with his particular weirdness, and Melissa Malan is about to vacate to California to be an actor.  Those two were highly instrumental in edging me away from sketch comedy and into being a proper playwright.  I’ve still a ways to go, but I couldn’t imagine being this far along if it weren’t for those two.  It’s good to have a group that can disagree whole-heartedly, yet get behind the best decisions, no matter who thought of them.  I will sorely miss their (daily) input.

In 2008, I wrote and produced a play entitled “The Tearful Assassin”, which was, at worst, a passable episode of “Law and Order”, according to one critic, and, at best, a gripping thriller, according to another.  Either way, it was my first piece in which everyone gets to fail miserably.  The parents of a kidnapped girl blot out the pain of their missing child by making her into the subject of a how-to-grieve tome.  The police on the case are pulled off the case by said parents, who do not wish their new vocation interrupted.  The kidnapper dies a gruesome death.  Even the kidnapped girl, who escapes and makes it home, finds her transformation into a career for her parents more foreign than the basement in which she had been confined that she steals a few credit cards to fund the first leg of her new life in some undiscovered country (that’s Shakespearean code for “the future”, of course).

In what seems to me a mysterious burst, I have returned to this story to profile what this undiscovered country looks like to at least three of the characters in the first play.  The set-up, which has been in my head since 2009, has been consistent: the kidnapped girl, Angela, uses her mother’s credit cards until they are suspended and lands in a small hick town, where she assumes a new name and identity.  One of the police officers, John Fowler, has been suspended himself, having fought to stay on the kidnapped girl’s (now closed) case.  Angela’s mother, noting the use of her credit cards for some time before cutting them off, is now wracked with guilt about misdirecting her own energies to build a career on her daughter’s back.  The link: Angela’s guilt-ridden mother now hires the struggling John Fowler to track down the hiding Angela.

In David Mamet’s “Bambi v. Godzilla”, the author chides potential screenwriters and playwrights to eschew the exposition and get right into the action.  Although I consider myself reasonably adept at inserting a good “hook” in the first few minutes of any of my plays, I have always left room for characters to explain who they are and, obliquely, what they want, for the audience’s benefit.  For “The Tearful Assassin II” (which it will never be called), I chose for my opening scene, my opening moment, a backroom in a bar.  John Fowler has his gun on Angela, who has her own gun trained on her husband, whom she holds in a headlock.  The husband, we learn quickly, is unaware of Angela’s past – in fact, he keeps begging “Sandy” to lower her gun, when he’s not wondering aloud where she got one in the first place. 

I find this a delicious concept, with each character working off at least a pair of conflicting emotions, thus empowering them with the ability to double-cross anyone at anytime, potentially making the miserable situation far, far worse.  As exciting as I find the multi-layered concept, I am moderately troubled that I really have no clue on what each character really wants, nor where the play could possibly go.  In freehand, I have written about 20 pages, which would translate as about 40 pages of script, and the tension and one-upmanship is thrilling to write – in fact, the natural flow of games and gunshots are coming in real time, forcing me to employ so many abbreviations that no one could probably read any of it.  I am curious what will become of it.

In other playwrighting news, I have reached out to one of my favorite theaters to mount “The Observatory” in December 2010 (as my application for the Museum of Science and Industry was, sadly, rejected).  If “The Observatory” gets a green light, this will be the first time in a decade I will go into a project without close creative colleagues standing with me (as my closest, Kyle and Melissa, are California-bound and my most consistent partner since 2002, Robert, is busy being happy not doing theater).

I am hosting the readthrough of “The Observatory” tonight and, in preparation, I wanted to jot down a couple of notes with which I could introduce the “mind” of the piece.  These notes conspired to become a full presetnation, which, because I like the thoughts contained, I offer below:

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A strong case and a relatively weak song can be made for the cliché “there’s a thin line between love and hate.”  A stronger case – and yet, due to its complexities, no songs – can be made for the barely discernable line between right and wrong.

I put it to the artists, audience and world that what determines right and wrong is not a manufactured or created morality but rather a clock.  Time will tell an intelligent person when murder is righteous and when it is an abomination.  Time will inform the individual who sleeps with someone other than their spouse whether such an act is a massive error of judgment or a miracle of an awakened and passionate heart.

Time will pass judgment on a nation obsessed with domination, invading countless other, smaller nations, killing millions and rendering the survivors as little more than free and fully expendable labor.  Indeed, time has already told you, personally, whether the nation I just described was Nazi Germany or America.

Thus, it is merely our perception that determines right and wrong.  These determinations become part of our memory, collectively and individually.  Who doesn’t remember the phrase ‘all men are created equal’?  Who remembers with the same gusto that male African Americans were deemed to be 3/5^th of a man (presumably, black women fared worse than this)?  Who doesn’t think of the Pledge of Allegiance with some reverence?  Yet, in that same mental breath, who recalls the Pledge was written by Francis Bellamy, a socialist, for a newspaper designed to sell American flags to schools? 

Half of our history in this nation had slavery.  Three-quarters had active and public discrimination.  Two-thirds were populated by women who could not vote.  Who remembers this as part of their own perception of America?

With ‘The Observatory’, I try and eradicate the tiny line between good and bad and, as a result, go a long way towards erasing the line between the dynamic duo of most plays: the protagonist and antagonist.  Either of the leads in this play could be either, and indeed they are both.  It all depends on how you define right and wrong.  Hopefully, this will at least fit your definition of entertainment.