Write to Play, Play to Write
I don’t view scripts as literary works. I do think they can be read and enjoyed, but the primary function of a script is to suggest a play. A play is living interaction. You have to play to play a play. There I said it. Playfully. I am not a playwright that aspires to having his scripts bound in leather bindings and placed on the shelf. I want them played with.
My long time friend, artist and Napoleonic second in command, Ruben once said,
The age of the script is irrelevant. Who wrote the script is irrelevant. Here and now is relevant. That is what we teach actors about acting. Here and now applies to all functions of productions.
A successful production has given a forum to every one participating. A successful production has created and explored relationships in the universe of the play, the universe of performance and the universe of artists. A successful play gives all the opportunity for hope.
My friend and mentor Joe Rosenberg told me, We go to the theatre for hope.
I have a long list of thoughts about the function of live performance in life, but none are so eloquent, as “hope.”
When I pour my coffee, add the Half-n-Half and raw sugar, roll my chair over to my old computer, jdj1, and start a suggestion for a play, this is what I take with me.
More on the way… jdj
john, I have a feeling there's somethign here that explains to me why I don't do script writing well; why prose fiction is my bag. It's people, and relating to them, I think. Your characters are not fictional people, at all. We all know you write the people you know.
Care to explore the difference between characters built out of real people and fictional characters (not that even the most fictional characters aren't based on, built from, real people)? Hmm.
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Your response triggered the new story. Funny how memories work. Memory is a tool we use. We use our memories and the memories of our audience. More on this later. Characters…
I have been blessed with a laboratory of actors at any given time in my life. They have all been characters. They are all characters. Characters because of the choices they will make and the choices they won’t. Characters because of the choices they might make and the choices they choose not to make, but could. Sometimes creating different worlds that present different choices for these characters is a fun game I play. I am a producing playwright and that dictates the games I choose to play.
If I have five actors, I base the show on those five actors. The characters are derivatives of there actors personalities. The characters are written within the reach of the actor’s development and my ability as a guide to take them on the journey. I never separate my scripts from the people who will bring them to life for the first time.
I don’t write a script that is not being produced. Some scripts have been completed and for various reasons have not been produced. The majority of my scripts have been finished during production.
For me there is no need to write a script if there is no play.
If I have something to say I will write it in a poem or a song or most likely just say out loud very loudly. I don’t write plays for that expression. Not to say that I don’t put what I have to say in the plays, I’ve been told I do.
As my friend Dave Deacon would say, "Know your audience." First I write for me. Second I write for someone specific, (usually only I know who that is.) third for my actors, even if they don’t always end up doing the roles, and lastly for an audience.
Actors are invited on the journey. Audiences may come along. I will never make a dime. (No jinks, kidding!)
I write strange worlds and strange situations in which to put characters. My life is full of characters. It needs more worlds and situations.
I write fictions for characters, not characters for fictions. And plays, well they are real. They happen in the here and now. –jdj-
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