Because at heart I am as vain as every other writer out there, I will sometimes Google my own name to see if any new reviews have popped up. Aside from the new ones about Chicago's EARL, not a lot going on. So, I read some older ones. Interesting what I found...
About seventy-five percent of them are very, very bad. It makes me appear like a second rate hack with no depth and flat comedic lines. I often see that casts do their best with the shallow material I've handed to them.
What to do, what to do.
I pump out lackluster material and people keep doing them. Is it all based on the success of BOISE, IDAHO? Finally, have people figured out that I peaked at that little bit of inspiration?
I know I shouldn't listen to critics, but the thing is, if these words survive on the internet by simply Googling my name, then what does that do to people who are interested in possibly considering my stuff for a future production? Is that why my success has been kept underground for many years? Have I deluded myself into thinking that as long as people keep asking for my stuff, then that somehow justifies my continuance?
How much is too much, I wonder. Is there a breaking point. Is there a moment when a writer says to himself that he has gone as far as he can go, and it's time to stop living like a recluse and get a real life?
I think that I am not really a new millennium playwright. I think I am a nineties playwright. Somehow that timeframe did not ask me to be more definitive in my statements. Now, all I hear is how schizophrenic I am. How I can't make up my mind between dark and light, shallowness and depth, absurdity and drama. My process of just basing one verbal reaction on the previous reaction no matter where it took me has undermined me. My want of just writing a good story has let people think that I have no idea where I am going. That's funny to me, because I thought the point was to get to the end, without any question as to how things ended up the way they did.
POMPEY is soon upon us. I thank God that my hometown will be the first to see it. That's where all this started for me, after all. One theatre critic in Flint. If it were in a major city, I think I would be on the look out for pieces of how I debased Shakespeare or unsuccessfully considered myself Stoppardian. At least I feel as if the hometown crowd is on my side.
I am not trying to take a stab at those whom have supported me in the larger markets. The fact that they saw something in these pieces worth performing is a reward in itself. But, man, if you read the reviews, you'd think that they would have done better with dead air.
Not trying to turn this into a pity-party. But, honestly, there has to be a point where a writer, nearing thirty-six and still acting like a struggling twenty-something in the face of adversity, must come to a decision.
Don't worry. I'll still write. If for my own entertainment and sense of accomplishment when something is finished, I'll still write.
As dear Beckett once said, "I can't go on. I'll go on." I may be a hack, but dammit, I'm still hopeful.
