Thursday, June 7th – Day Four – Part Two

One final (maybe) thought on “Only Children”:

Of the three plays I’ve seen (including the one I saw Thursday but have not shared yet), Only Children was by far the most fully realized. Blocking, singing, relationships, etc were all pretty well done. To have accomplished all of this in three weeks is truly a Herculean accomplishment.

Tidbit: Discussion has the same root word as percussion – not a soft and gentle word. Dialog is.

Tidbit: Process and product are tied together. If you are not satisfied with the product, look at the process to see what isn’t working right.

So far I’ve seen three plays and talked to the playwright of a fourth (out of five). In every case (with the possible exception of The Maestro’s Garden where the playwright had to leave for a family emergency) the playwright has made a conscious decision to turn direction of the play over to the director rather than do it themselves. One playwright told me that while he was fumbling around trying to direct he couldn’t see the big picture: How the play was working. He wanted to be in his role of playwright so he could watch the play, see where the problems were and work on rewrites to solve them.

After all my words last night about directing styles, the director of today’s play “This Bloody Mess” said that she got the actors up the first day to look at some things in the play that may have needed work. Two actors complained about that: having to put the work up for people to see (even if it was just the people from that play) without doing all the table work they were used to which helps them find the character.

This Bloody Mess is an interesting type of play: 5 Acts, probably 50 scenes in 2 1/4 hours. That makes the average scene just a couple of minutes long. Added to that was jumping back and forth in time. All in all the play suffered from the short scenes. We know we lose the audience when there is a scene change and it takes several minutes to get them back into the play when the next scene starts. What happens when the next scene is not long enough to get them back?

My take on this play is that it would make a good screen play.

The story is about a young woman who leaves her home and child to go to an unnamed country to do good work. She goes for a short period of time but stays several years. We watch her but also the effect on her family back home. Like most plays, this one would be considerably better if it were shortened (except for my plays of course).

One closing comment: The ending of the play almost made me cry and I’m not one who cries easily.

Our evening session was made up of the same group we worked with Wednesday night. The goal is to have everyone in our small group do something other than what they normally do. In our case, we were directed by a playwright, Roy Thinnes was the playwright and I was an actor and so on. Our task was to put the play up on it’s feet then answer two questions about the play: What is the “action” of the play and what is the play about. First no one knew what was meant by “action” and we never did figure out what the play was about. Well we couldn’t agree on what the play was about. Each of us had a different idea. Our playwright playing director was not in charge of what happened so we just sat at the table for two nights talking (arguing) about the play. For people who want to try to figure it out, the play is “Woman at at Threshold, Beckoning” by John Guare.

One final comment before I get on with today:

Play writing is a solo sport. Directing is a team sport. Since I’m not a “real” playwright, I can’t talk about playwrights in general. But a successful director needs to be a leader. Don’t tell LCT I said this but he needs to be a benevolent dictator. Someone has to be in charge. It had better be the director if you are to get anything done.

The personalities of the few playwrights I’ve met here do not go to being the leader. If an aspiring director does not have strong leadership qualities, he is not going to be successful. If a playwright does not have strong leadership qualities, he is not going to be a successful director either. I’ll keep watching but that is my first thought on having playwrights direct.

Time to get to work.