So it goes
I knew this would happen.
After writing a few pieces, there is at last the drive to do more. Unfortunately, at present time, I have run out of subjects. I even tried to bolster my internal resources by picking up literature about the theatre, something I haven't done in a long time. That doesn't seem to be helping. With a lack of people discussing them in a classroom setting, I find it difficult to gain any true inspiration. As anti-social as I am, comfortable in my little pocket of New York, it just figures that one day I would actually crave that kind of conversation.
I read an old play of mine last night, THE HERRINGBONE MAN. I had recently described it in loving terms to a friend of mine who was interested in reading it, and has recently discovered theatre for herself. After reading it, however, I probably shouldn't have started her out with that one. I found it to be reaching for heights of ridiculousness without actually being able to pull it off with a semblance of a storyline. Not that that's a bad thing, I'm in favor of absurdity and extremity and lack of plot, but wow. I was really pushing hard with this one, possibly in love with the concept more than the story I was trying to tell.
To put it in historical context, I wrote this play in 2000, a year in which I wrote 22 plays. That would be the year I wrote the most plays. The next year I wrote 15. Then I calmed down somewhat, and started turning out maybe between 2 and 5 a year. I think in 2000-01, I snapped something.
Anyway, 2000 was also the year I wrote BOISE, IDAHO, SLAB, FLESK, THE STRAIGHT POOP, and the second EARL THE VAMPIRE play, which has never been performed. I remember liking this play very much after writing it, and liking it several years later, but now... not so much. Too many characters, too many strange plot twists, and the ending even tries to make sense of it all by explaining itself in a broken fourth wall kind of way. There are parts of it that I absolutely am in love with, but as a whole, I seem to have been pushing myself too much. Hence, 22 plays in a year's time.
What to do? Rewrite it with the sensibilities that I have now acquired, which are ever-changing? Or does it fall to the fate of the three SPIRIT BABES plays I wrote, which do not appear on my list, because even though they are finished works, they were in direct opposition with how I began to write in 1998. Besides, the second in this cycle may be lost forever, trapped in a laptop that I can no longer access. In reality, I written 86 plays, I suppose. It's so hard to keep track.
Now, here's the rub. I am notorious for writing a play, then doing some edits if I feel it's necessary, then leaving it alone. Whether or not it is ever performed is of no real concern to me. I'm done with it, it's time to move on to something else. And that may mean that THE HERRINGBONE MAN, despite all of its good points of being both funny and horrific, may just fall by the wayside and become more of a statistic on my resume, than an actual to-be-performed piece.
Maybe I'll just try to write it from scratch, just to see how I would approach it this time. The original impetus was the Jon Benet thing, but maybe I could eek something out from a different perspective.
You see? This is how starved I am to engage in conversation about theatre and work. I'm having a one-way with my blog. If you will excuse me now, I'm going to crawl back into my darkened corner and wait for Netflix to arrive with my Beckett DVD's. Got five plays out of that viewing. It's worth another shot, perhaps.
After writing a few pieces, there is at last the drive to do more. Unfortunately, at present time, I have run out of subjects. I even tried to bolster my internal resources by picking up literature about the theatre, something I haven't done in a long time. That doesn't seem to be helping. With a lack of people discussing them in a classroom setting, I find it difficult to gain any true inspiration. As anti-social as I am, comfortable in my little pocket of New York, it just figures that one day I would actually crave that kind of conversation.
I read an old play of mine last night, THE HERRINGBONE MAN. I had recently described it in loving terms to a friend of mine who was interested in reading it, and has recently discovered theatre for herself. After reading it, however, I probably shouldn't have started her out with that one. I found it to be reaching for heights of ridiculousness without actually being able to pull it off with a semblance of a storyline. Not that that's a bad thing, I'm in favor of absurdity and extremity and lack of plot, but wow. I was really pushing hard with this one, possibly in love with the concept more than the story I was trying to tell.
To put it in historical context, I wrote this play in 2000, a year in which I wrote 22 plays. That would be the year I wrote the most plays. The next year I wrote 15. Then I calmed down somewhat, and started turning out maybe between 2 and 5 a year. I think in 2000-01, I snapped something.
Anyway, 2000 was also the year I wrote BOISE, IDAHO, SLAB, FLESK, THE STRAIGHT POOP, and the second EARL THE VAMPIRE play, which has never been performed. I remember liking this play very much after writing it, and liking it several years later, but now... not so much. Too many characters, too many strange plot twists, and the ending even tries to make sense of it all by explaining itself in a broken fourth wall kind of way. There are parts of it that I absolutely am in love with, but as a whole, I seem to have been pushing myself too much. Hence, 22 plays in a year's time.
What to do? Rewrite it with the sensibilities that I have now acquired, which are ever-changing? Or does it fall to the fate of the three SPIRIT BABES plays I wrote, which do not appear on my list, because even though they are finished works, they were in direct opposition with how I began to write in 1998. Besides, the second in this cycle may be lost forever, trapped in a laptop that I can no longer access. In reality, I written 86 plays, I suppose. It's so hard to keep track.
Now, here's the rub. I am notorious for writing a play, then doing some edits if I feel it's necessary, then leaving it alone. Whether or not it is ever performed is of no real concern to me. I'm done with it, it's time to move on to something else. And that may mean that THE HERRINGBONE MAN, despite all of its good points of being both funny and horrific, may just fall by the wayside and become more of a statistic on my resume, than an actual to-be-performed piece.
Maybe I'll just try to write it from scratch, just to see how I would approach it this time. The original impetus was the Jon Benet thing, but maybe I could eek something out from a different perspective.
You see? This is how starved I am to engage in conversation about theatre and work. I'm having a one-way with my blog. If you will excuse me now, I'm going to crawl back into my darkened corner and wait for Netflix to arrive with my Beckett DVD's. Got five plays out of that viewing. It's worth another shot, perhaps.
1 Comments:
At 5:06 AM ,
Tamara said...
So, is this why you suddenly appeared in my messenger window tonight...hmmm???
Uh-huh. Thought so.
Talk to me, big boy. You know we're always good for that.
Speaking of which...come back to Flinttown so we can eat fries beneath the astonishingly large, red and white checkered, short-panted behind of that porky-faced kid we know and love as the landmark of Grand Blanc: Big Boy. Aka, Bigus Boyus. You know you want to.
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