Tag: Theatre

The Stage or the Page? Writing the Baby or the Embryo

I was recently asked the question, ‘What do you like writing for more…the stage or the page?’ My answer was simple. I didn’t even have to think about it. It was an emphatic YES!

With a gun to my head, along with the pressure of having only ten seconds to either give one up or die, I would probably use the little time I had left to say goodbye to loved ones. Admittedly, the decision is not Sophie’s Choice or anything as life or death crucial as that…but it feels that epic. It’s a choice I would never want to make.

I always say that writing for the stage is like writing a novel without having the added responsibility of working with all that clunky, incipient prose that shows up between the dialogue. That’s why I love being a playwright. I need only worry about putting words into my characters’ mouths. All the movement and action (business) can be on the director and actors to decide. All the setting can be created by the set designers. The rest of the theatre crew deal with all that prose that doesn’t have to be there on the page. At times, that feels like getting a get-out-of-jail free card. Score! I can have fun just making my characters talk!

And it’s a lot of fun. But…there’s also something missing. I absolutely love building worlds and making sure every little detail is as it should be. The reader will hear the dialogue in a novel. And that dialogue better be authentic. There’s nothing more irritating than dialogue that simply does not sound authentic. But the reader will also see the prose. How they see everything that surrounds the dialogue is up to me. I love getting that right. I would sorely miss that if all I did was write plays. Yes, a playwright works with stage direction…we do use prose outside of dialogue. We have to at least let the rest of the theatre crew know the scaffolding that surrounds the conversation. But we don’t get to visit the minutiae of the scenes we create. I love to write my novels cinematically. I write so that the story rolls out as though it were playing out on the big screen. I like to be in control of all the details. In order to do that, I need to embrace all aspects of story. I need to paint the scenes in full.

On the stage, it’s all there in front of the audience. To an extent, what they see is the playwright’s vision. But in another way, it could be diametrically opposed to the playwright’s original vision. Outside the characters on the stage, and the words they speak, most of what the audience is seeing is director, actor, and set design interpretation. This isn’t a bad thing. Playwright’s understand that they are, in a sense, giving up a lot of control when they write for the stage. That is, in fact, part of the thrill of play-writing for me. I love to see what the other people involved in my plays do with them. I love watching the actors form their characters. Ultimately, I end up loving the characters they create a lot more than the ones I sketched out. And the directors seem to know exactly where to put the business of the play. It’s an art-form to move the actors about the stage and have them perform the best possible movements at the best possible times. That’s why a good playwright will keep the stage direction to a bare minimum. They know that the next stages of the play’s development will be for others to interpret. A theatre company is a cohesive unit. A lot of work, and a lot of trust, go into making a good play.

In the end, the difference between playwriting and novel writing comes down to collaboration. While I’m writing my novel, I want to be the director, the actors, the set designer, everything. I want to have full control. I understand that at some point an editor will come in and make crucial improvements upon my creation, but I don’t take that into consideration while I’m creating. While I’m writing my play, I have forethought. I consider that the director and actors will work with what I give them. I understand that the creation process will still evolve when I am done with the words on the page.

Ultimately, it takes a writer to create a novel and a village to create a play. So don’t ask me what I would rather do. I love the solitary world of novel writing. I love to sit down and write something and present it to the world complete. Voila! But I also love to collaborate with the wonderfully creative and talented world of the theatre. I love being a part of something that is so much bigger than me, but that ultimately starts with me. When you write a novel, you pass your fully formed baby on to the world. When you write a play, you’re passing an embryo on to doctors who will know exactly how to bring it to fruition. I’m okay with both methods. As a writer, I’m blessed to have experienced both. So take that gun away from my head. I have a novel AND a play to write.

You can catch 2 of my plays on TUESDAY AUGUST 1st from 7pm-9pm in PORT PERRY, when they are to be STAGE READ by the folks at Theatre 3×60. Click the image to visit their page and purchase tickets ($10 gets you in to see both plays read — The History of Us AND King of the Crease)

 

A Playwright’s Dream – Trafalgar 24 by Driftwood Theatre

THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE IS ONE I WROTE FOR THE WCDR WORDWEAVER NEWSLETTER, FOR THEIR MAY/JUNE 2009 ISSUE. It describes my very first foray into play-writing. It’s a little aged today, as I have now had 10 short plays produced…6 of them for Trafalgar24. I just wanted to give a little flavour into the experience from a playwright’s POV. It’s an amazing experience.
The extraordinary Trafalgar Castle in Whitby, Ontario. Currently an all-girls boarding school…
The grand entrance hall leading to the staircase to the 2nd story of the castle…
Standing guard in the main foyer of Trafalgar Castle, Whitby, Ontario…
Here’s the article:
A Playwright’s Dream – Trafalgar 24 by Driftwood Theatre
It’s Friday the 13th and we are in a dark basement corridor of a haunted 19th century castle. Out of the eerie silence come the first ear-shattering shrieks.
          “Margo! Margo!” A girl runs towards us. She is lost, panicked and terrified.
          So begins the unfolding of one of my lifelong dreams. The girl’s shouts are words I penned twenty-four hours earlier when I was locked into that basement and forced to write a 10-minute play.
          Forced is an exaggeration. The fulfillment of my dream actually began a month earlier when I wrote a hesitant e-mail to Ruth Walker. I had received a WCDR e-mail calling for playwrights for Driftwood Theatre’s 6th annual Trafalgar24 event and I ruminated over whether or not I should apply. Actually, I painfully agonized. I asked Ruth if I was completely crazy to even consider contacting Jeremy Smith, Driftwood’s artistic director.
          When I received Ruth’s encouragement (instead of the expected laughter), I sent Jeremy an e-mail. I began with the truth: I am not now, nor have I ever been a playwright. I followed my confession with much pleading and begging. You see, I had always imagined myself as a playwright. Imagination is a wasted gift when not forced into action.
          Much to my surprise—and horror—I received the following reply from Jeremy: I am delighted to inform you that if you still have an interest in staying up all night in a haunted castle between Thursday, March 12, and Friday, March 13, we would love to have you.
          Fast forward a month and here I am in the dark basement corridor, in the back row of a standing-room-only, sardine-packed audience. The young woman is lunging toward us, shrieking out her lost friend’s name. I’d like to say I wrote a dramatic play that would move my audience to tears—I went in there with visions of Blanche Dubois meets Phantom of the Opera—but that would be a lie.
          When we arrived at the castle twenty-four hours earlier, we playwrights were each given a sheet of paper. Mine included three things: headshots of my actors, the room I was assigned to and the play’s theme—Friday the 13th in a haunted castle. I took one look at my actresses and I knew what to write. I sat on the floor of the basement corridor and attempted to bring my newly acquired vision to life.
          Within an hour and a half, I victoriously announced: Done. Comedy. Now I can relax about deadline & edit.
          Throughout the hours of edits that followed, I was comforted by one fact: Lucy Brennan was upstairs. I interrupted her and commiserated with her a few times throughout the night. We even went on a Tim Horton’s run with some of the other playwrights. She was my unwitting rock. She had no idea how much comfort I took in knowing she was a mere staircase away.
          Come morning, the playwrights were allowed to go home. As we drove to our beds, the actors and directors swarmed the castle. They only had a few hours to read and rehearse the ten plays we had left behind. It was all very The Elves and the Shoemakers if you ask me.
          Opening night! The Trafalgar24 play-creation festival is a fundraising event for Driftwood Theatre. What’s special about Driftwood is that they bring professional theatre to Ontario communities for pay-what-you-can admission. Trafalgar24 helps to make this possible. The event had a wonderful silent auction and a dessert table to rival every dessert table ever assembled on this or any other planet. It also had a dizzying array of talented actors and actresses who poured their hearts into roles that did not even exist less than 24 hours earlier.
          I was now an audience member. Each person in attendance viewed six of the 10 plays. I saw some incredibly heart-wrenching performances. I travelled from the library to the cathedral to the piano room and beyond—Lucy Brennan’s was my favourite! I was mesmerized by the beauty of the night—flawlessly orchestrated by all—including the stage director, WCDR’s own Nancy Melcher.
          I made my way to the basement. In the hushed moments prior to my character’s screams, I noticed the evening’s emcee standing to my left. Neil Crone, the man who has given me years of poignant laughter, was about to watch my words brought to life. I was suddenly more terrified than I had been when faced with the impossible demand of writing a play in eight hours. But I had forced my imagination into action. I was now a playwright.
          ‘Lucy‘ made her way onto the set and was startled, poked and prodded by the wickedly playful ‘Margo.’ Neil Crone laughed! I will beg Mr. Smith to allow me to be a part of the next Trafalgar24. If he doesn’t grant me the incredible honour of being playwright, I will be there in the audience watching another year of magic unfold. Only a fool would miss it!
END OF ARTICLE

I am Tartuffe – It’s 1664 and the Curtain Rises. Or, the Evolution of a Writer.

I am Green Eggs and Ham. I am Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I am Little Women. I am The Great Gatsby. I am Tartuffe.

I don’t know if all writers are the same or not. But for me, there were always signposts along the way. I know precisely the signposts that gave me direction to the writer I have become.

  1. Green Eggs and Ham
  2. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
  3. Little Women
  4. The Great Gatsby
  5. Tartuffe

These are the stepping stones I climbed to get here. These are the cornerstones that support the burden of my creative existence.

I vividly recall the electricity I felt when, at first, Green Eggs was read to me by my father. I wanted to be this. Whatever this was. I could not yet voice the thing, but I knew. With all my heart, I knew.

I remember first opening Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. His grandparents all in the bed. The family’s squalor and despair. Charlie’s compassion and passion for the world. I wanted to capture that. But I couldn’t yet put into words how I would go about doing that. I just knew that it had something to do with creation.

Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. I was granted a window into their lives. That window allowed for heartache, sorrow, joy, wonder. That I could feel all these emotions simply by reading words on a page. It was alchemy. I wanted to be that kind of a magician. I wanted to control the emotions of others with words.

East Egg. West Egg. Glamour. Lights. One little light, shining beacon-like across the water. Nick Carraway, the gentle observer of decadence. Removed, enticed, sickened. Gatsby became the template from which I have judged all novels since. None stand strong against it, though a great many have come close. You remember your first. That first moment when you know you have met with perfection. Even flawed perfection is made perfect by your own adulation of the thing. No matter the flaws that have been or will be pointed out to me in The Great Gatsby, it will always be that book. I will forever aspire to write THAT book.

With the exploration of words in full throttle, came the search for the perfect play. I had already read A Streetcar Named Desire. I was pretty sure I would not find another. It was my play. Then, somewhere between ninth and tenth grade, maybe. My memory fades. I stumbled upon a book called Tartuffe & Other Plays. Molière. First performed in the Palace of Versailles in 1664. Scorned by the Catholic Church. French. Paris (my lifelong love of the city drew me to anything in its periphery). I quickly discovered that pretty much ANY and ALL creative works frowned upon by the laughably reprehensible Catholic Church ended up being something I admired and liked. The swirling controversy surrounding Tartuffe made it REQUIRED reading for me. I read more about the play before reading the play than I ever read about anything prior to reading the thing for myself. The controversy surrounding Tartuffe when it first came out, culminated in the Archbishop of Paris announcing an edict warning anyone who watched it, read it, or performed in it total excommunication from the church. That’s serious shit. Then I read the play. And I laughed. And I laughed. And I laughed.

These are the books and creative works that formed me as a writer. My signposts, my evolution, my muses of creativity. I mention them today because of a little incident that happened on the way home from work yesterday. Or, perhaps not even an incident…but a happenstance. As I drove by the Scarborough Music Theatre (and I think Community Centre—I never really paid attention to what the building was) at Markham and Kingston Roads, I noticed a sign that has been there forever. On it was flashing the word Tartuffe. It rose above the din and caught my eye as it was meant to do. I got instantly and ridiculously excited. In all the years of re-reading the play, I had never actually seen it performed. It had never once come to life for me outside the page. Long story, short (too late)…I secured tickets for opening night. 353 years after its original opening night, I am attending a performance of TARTUFFE! Writers are such geeks, aren’t we?

I wonder if all writers have their building blocks to how they got there…to writer. Do they remember each stepping stone? Do they honour those stones? Do they revisit them? Do they aspire to them?

I’m going to TARTUFFE! If you’re in the area, it’s not too late to get tickets. I promise, you will laugh at this farce. Yesterday was a good day. I see a lot of names in lights, but seeing Tartuffe rise up out of the din of my advertising-thick commute was a godsend I’ll not soon forget. It’s silly, but to see a production of Tartuffe has been an almost life-long dream. As Julia Roberts (as VIVIAN) said to Richard Gere (as EDWARD) in Pretty Woman BEFORE their evening out, I will NOW say to the performers at SCARBOROUGH THEATRE GUILD.

“In case I forget to tell you later, I had a really good time tonight.”