Recently I wrote here that I’d noticed that most of my back catalog of plays have become period pieces. (That doesn’t mean they can’t be produced — dear producing gods: That doesn’t mean they can’t be produced! — that just means that some of them need to be set in recently passed time periods in order for what I hope is their trenchant wonderfulness to work.)

I’m also discovering that I’m becoming a period piece.

Last night during the welcoming ceremony for the University of Southern California MPW graduate writing program where I teach, I got a look at the incoming masters candidates. As one line that teachers share goes, “I keep getting older but my students stay the same age.” As a faculty member in our program, I’m rather young; as a member of my theatre company I have definitely become a graybeard. But what really caught me by surprise was a man roughly my age, a professor in the Marshall School of Business at USC, who came up to me and said, “Lee, I don’t know if you remember me, but my wife was in one of your plays 20 years ago.”

It took a few minutes of digging through the dusty filing cabinet of my mind, but I did remember him. And his wife.

He said, “My wife and I still really love that play. We have it on videotape and we watch it once in a while. It’s the play about the wires.”

Videotape! When was the last time I watched something on videotape! When was the last time I listened to something on cassette tape? My wife’s next preferred project for me is to digitize all our CDs and get rid of them — so who will need the CD player, either?

“The play about the wires” is my play “Guest for Dinner,” begun when I was an undergrad circa 1984. Among other things, it’s about a shrewdly intelligent man who is so consumed by his hatred of a Springsteen-like rock star with pretensions to being Joe Average that he lures said rock star to his apartment to humiliate and abuse him. “The wires,” the section that everyone who has seen this play in its various productions seems to recall with the greatest clarity, is a speech by our protagonist, “Rick” (rhymes with prick), who assembles electronic components in his day job and laments the way that the wires on the top keep pressing down on the wires on the bottom. It’s a thin metaphor for social inequality, and is just one of the things in the play that the me of almost 25 years later regrets.

When the play was done in LA, a former writing teacher of mine — ironically, from the very same program I now teach in — came to see it. I asked him what he thought, and he said blandly kind words. I then asked him what he really thought. He proceeded to tell me, taking the play apart bit by bit. (Afterward, his wife said to me, “Well, I liked it.” She was being nice; it didn’t matter.) Even at the time, his arguments were hard to refute, and over the course of 20 years I’ve grown more and more toward his opinion.

But as my dean said last night when I told her that the spouse of someone who had once starred in one of my plays came up to me to say hello, “There really is no hiding.” Certainly true, especially in an internet age (and only one reason among many that I’m sure we and our allies know exactly where Osama bin Laden is).

There’s no hiding, and there’s also no changing who you once were. We should honor the work of our younger writer selves, flaws and all, as individual steps on a long journey. Some of my old plays don’t work the way they would if I were to write them now, but most of those plays wouldn’t be written by the writer I am now. The bad science fiction stories and detective stories I started writing and sending off at age 11 haven’t improved with age either. But every one of those failed attempts carried some lesson for the future.

This week’s New Yorker has an excellent appraisal of Philip K. Dick by Adam Gopnik. You can read it here.

Dick, for those who’ve only recently tuned into this blog, is a writer whose work I’ve been following closely for 30 years. I’ve read almost all of his books (I’m still trying to get through the excruciating mainstream novel “Voices from the Street” — if “trying to get through” means “allowing it to collect dust on my nightstand.”), as well as a few biographies. Gopnik does a good job of looking at Dick’s body of work, correcting some strongly held bad judgments or misperceptions by Dick’s ardent admirers, and placing him where he more aptly belongs. Among other salient points, he:

• locates Dick as a satirist, alongside Swift, identifying “The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch” as a take on middle-class escapism, “Clans of the Alphane Moon” as a take on the Johnson-Nixon years, and “Ubik,” most hilariously, as a perverse cultural wish-fulfillment dream, one where people can actually speak with the dead, “but, when you go to speak with them, there is static and missed connections and interference, and then you argue over your bill.”
• downgrades “The Man in the High Castle” (“the book that made Dick famous”) in favor of “his masterpiece,” “Ubik.” I concur, but would add a masterpiece: “Confessions of a Crap Artist.”
• corrects the notion that Dick was somehow neglected in his lifetime. “You can find unfairly neglected writers in America; Dick, with a steady and attentive transatlantic audience, was never one of them.” Let me just say that, somehow, in a house in the woods of southern New Jersey far from any bookstore and in the early 1970’s before the creation of Amazon.com, that house somehow had dozens of Philip K. Dick books. So he couldn’t have been that obscure.
• and, finally, he concludes that while “all this remains thrilling and funny … the trouble is that, much as one would like to place Dick above or alongside Pynchon and Vonnegut — or, for that matter, Chesterton or Tolkien — as a poet of the fantastic parable he was a pretty bad writer. Though his imagination is at least the equal of theirs, he had, as he ruefully knew, a hack’s habits….” While I disagree that Dick won’t be ranked alongside Vonnegut (he already is), or, for some of us, above Tolkien, I will repeat what I said years ago to a friend: “Nobody reads Philip K. Dick for the writing.”

Perhaps Gopnik’s most salient point, in an essay that is overall very smart about its subject and filled with insight, may be this, from his opening:

“There’s nothing more exciting to an adolescent reader than an unknown genre writer who speaks to your condition and has something great about him. … The combination of evident value and apparent secrecy makes Elmore Leonard fans feel more for their hero than Borges lovers are allowed to feel for theirs. … Eventually, enough of these secret fans grow up and get together, and the writer is designated a Genius, acquiring all the encumbrances of genius: fans, notes, annotated editions, and gently disparaging comprehensive reviews.”

Guilty as charged, your honor. But… what is the downside? All readers hope to find writers who “speak to their condition.” In adolescence it may be Philip K. Dick; in college it may be Chaucer and Beckett. In middle adulthood, heaven help us, we may light a pipe and start reading Updike seriously. If we want writers who don’t speak to us, I’m sure we can find them. Personally, I could start reading Mitch Albom, or all those people who write books about their dog.

Philip K. Dick never believed anything directly in front of him. I don’t know why, but neither have I. I wish the bad writing were better, but I can overlook it because the rest of the view is so eye-opening. I’m glad Gopnik doesn’t hold Dick’s science fiction genre against him. As I remind my students, Samuel Beckett, darling of existentialist artists, was a fan of detective fiction. Just because it’s genre doesn’t mean it isn’t worthy.

If there’s a consistent message I hear from those in the writing profession, it’s that all too often we’re begging for scraps and ought to stand up for ourselves. That’s the message that Gary Garrison puts out from the Dramatists Guild (and, indeed, in his most recent editorial he advised playwrights to “stop kissing ass.”), and that’s what goes on behind the scenes with the writers’ guild, and that was the subject of Frank Miller’s opening comment during the Petco Park screening of “300” during Comicon.

So this piece in Wired magazine caught my attention. It has to do with the WGA strike that informed sources in this town are predicting is coming in the fall. Interestingly, Nancy Miller seems to blame the writers for getting into this situation by being greedy and/or inept in their past negotiations. But most astonishingly, she quotes studio executives and producers (and, therefore, provides their point of view) — but not writers. This, in a piece written by a woman who, based sheerly upon the evidence, is a writer.

I don’t have any personal point of view in this struggle, except to say that the writers are due some participation if the actors and directors and producers are getting participation. That’s a fairness issue.

My primary point of view is that in a piece about writers’ negotiations, writers should be represented. That too is a fairness issue.

My plays fall into three categories:

• Those that are unproduced and better left that way (I have more than a dozen that I don’t like and don’t send out, but for which I still harbor the hope to one day “fix”)
• Those that are unproduced because either they are recent or I wrote them and kind of lost track of them (fewer than 10)
• And those that have been produced.

Last weekend I devoted a day to reviewing about 20 of the latter to submit them for further productions. And here’s what I discovered:

Even though they’re only between five and 15 years old, many of them have become period pieces.

There’s the play that references Johnny Carson’s show. OK, a while ago I updated that to reference Jay Leno. Now Leno is leaving in a few years. I could keep updating that one — or allowing directors to do so — but the play also references another show, popular at the time, that is long-gone and largely forgotten. Understanding that reference isn’t key to understanding the play, but it adds a large undertone throughout.

There are all the plays that seem to revolve directly around newspapers. Yes, I am an inveterate newspaper-reader. Or used to be — even I don’t read it every day any more. These plays for sure have to be staged as period pieces, because the newspaper is in some way crucial to the play and it is vanishing from our culture.

There is the play about the rock band, written before, believe it or not, “dude” became the preferred form of address between males of a certain age. The play also revolves around the Chapman stick, a cutting-edge instrument of, oh, the late 1980’s. And when the band has a fight with the bassist and has trouble finding a new one, the drummer says they have to find one because you can’t have a band with just one guitar and drums — something disproved by a little band known as The White Stripes.

There are many, many more such examples; plays that seemed to me so trapped in the moment of their time that I actually wondered if most of my “back catalog” had any further performance value. I started to understand how the Beach Boys must have felt, watching the British Invasion roll in. But here’s something that clearly I never foresaw:

In one of my plays, an unscrupulous vacuum cleaner salesman dupes a television-addled housefrau into buying a vacuum cleaner at a ridiculous price. I thought of this yesterday as I decided to buy a really good vacuum cleaner once and for all and be done with it. The ridiculous price of such a cleaner in my play? $400. The price of a good vacuum cleaner now? $400.

My friend, writer Christopher Meeks, passes along this story about how a play of his has most definitely changed someone’s life (in this case, that of actor Stephen Furst). (And, to answer Chris’s question, no it isn’t coincidence, and yes, it is something else: cause and effect.)

Coincidence—or Something Else?

While casting “Who Lives?”, actor and director Stephen Furst offered donated kidney

When I told my friend and fellow author, David Scott Milton, the following story, he said that writers have an amazing connection to metaphysics. I’ll let you figure out what the following is—coincidence, metaphysics, or something else. This week marks the 10th anniversary of the first production of my play, Who Lives? It also marks the 30th anniversary of the film Animal House. You’d think there’d be no relation, but there is.

In February, I spoke on a radio show called “Kidney Talk” about the publication of Who Lives?, interviewed by two interesting and funny hosts, Lori Hartwell and Stephen Furst. The interview was more like a morning drive-time show, with much energy, questions, and humor. I hadn’t expected humor. Furst, however, had played Flounder in “Animal House” as well as Dr. Alexrod in “St. Elsewhere.” He also had a major role in “Babylon 5” and had become a film director and producer. His own kidneys had gone out due to diabetes complications, and he was now on dialysis himself, volunteering on this radio show.

Furst was so taken with the play, he mentioned to a group of doctors in San Francisco that he’d like to direct it. That mention led to his receiving a call from a large theatre in Cincinatti, the Aronoff Center for the Arts, which was interested in producing the play with him directing for a September production, using a name actor such as John Lithgow. Of course I was elated. Furst flew to Cincinatti in June to do some initial casting. While there, he mentioned to someone that he’d been on dialysis two years already. The person want to know more. Furst explained dialysis made life complex, and he really needed a kidney transplant.

A few days after this offhand mention, Furst received a call. An anonymous donor heard about his plight and wanted to donate a kidney to him if they matched immunilogically. Now Furst was beyond elation. Tests were done. They matched. In fact, Furst should be receiving the kidney as I type this.

In short, because I wrote a play, someone’s life was changed. Of course, we writers hope that we can change lives emotionally, but here’s a case of a physical change. What do we call this? Luck?

Because Furst needs time to recover, the play’s production has now been pushed back. The play will open at the Aronoff Center for the Arts in Cincinatti in January. Those of you in the area, please come. If you want a good read, the book is available at Amazon.com, BN.com, and on the shelf at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena (626-449-5320), among other places.

Certainly, some exist. I haven’t seen too many characters in wheelchairs on stage, at least not a proportion equal to that in what I see in the wider world. Same with blind people.

But I have to disagree with the people who posted this listing seeking play submissions:

Submission Guidelines

* Only unproduced works will be accepted.
* Plays must have a female or other underrepresented minority as the
protagonist
* Plays that have had staged readings are eligible.
* No adaptations, musicals, or children’s plays.
* Cast size maximum: 5.
* Length: 25 minutes maximum, no minimum.
* Settings should be simple or suggested.
* Playwrights may make multiple submissions.
* Please do not submit works that have been previously submitted.
* Scripts must be postmarked by August 24, 2007.

By “minority,” are they referring to about 52% of the population (i.e., females)?

By “underrepresented,” do they mean people choosing plays, reading plays, writing plays, acting in plays, producing plays, attending plays, etc? Because the majority of them also seem to be female.

Recently I saw a couple of plays that returned me to this train of thought:

While there may never be a definitive answer why bad things happen to good people, I believe there’s a good theory why bad plays are written by good people: They want people to get along in life. And unfortunately, that’s what they have happen in their plays, too.

Think back to the last play you saw written by someone thoroughly nice. Chances are, it was well-meaning and dull. If you’re going to be nice, I’m all for it — just don’t do it in your play. I’d rather see the latest play by an utter bastard, or at least someone who can summon that up. Like Neil LaBute.

That doesn’t mean that the collected poems of Donald Rumsfeld should win the Nobel. Odiousness is allowed, but talent is essential.

It’s a column about the demise of the comma, and whom to blame. (Evidently, the comma is following “whom” right into the dustbin of history. Just like the word “dustbin.”)

The columnist, who looks to be of a certain age, naturally blames technology and those damn kids who use it. (And please note my judicious use of commas to separate an exclusionary clause.) Some others among us might point out that the English language has been on the slide since Chaucer, was rudely fiddled with by Mr. Shakespeare among others, and has never had more vibrancy that it has today. If we need the comma, it will survive. If we don’t, it won’t.

One person the columnist doesn’t blame: Cormac McCarthy, who elides commas the way most of us reject anchovies. But I guess blaming literature isn’t as attractive as blaming kids and the overall culture.

I just got back from another installment of Moving Arts’ “The Car Plays,” at the Steve Allen Theatre. (The show continues the first Sunday of every month through October; tickets go on sale two weeks beforehand and sell out within about 9 seconds, so if you want to attend, keep watching this space.)

On the way over, I found myself wondering if the event was already over. You see this sometimes in the theatre: the sensation that isn’t so sensational any more. We did “The Car Plays” last September, and the clamor for tickets was deafening. Those of us who were lucky enough to be involved (and get tickets) were glad to be there. I wondered if this was going to be a case of been there, done that.

Luckily, I was joined by five guests who are not regular theatregoers. They loved it. Each one of them remarked how different this event was — what a great idea — what an event. That just reminded me — again — of what I love about having expedient access to strange cultural events utterly unavailable where I grew up.

It was interesting to see my play “All Undressed with Nowhere to Go” revived — and, again, performed in a car, exactly as it was written to be done — but with a different director and with one new actor. The returning actor was Laura Buckles, whose work I’ve grown to appreciate more and more; I told Laura some time ago that from now on she has to be in all my plays. She was terrific in Nancy Weiner’s “The Invalid James” (in this production, directed by my good friend Trey Nichols), she was great Friday night in a reading from my workshop, and she was great last year (and this year) in this play, in a role I wrote somewhat with her in mind. Last year James Smith played “Jerry”; James has been in my plays “The Size of Pike,” “Happy Fun Family,” “Animals,” “Safehouse,” and probably others that elude me at the moment — to me, he really gets the rhythm of my lines and the subtext of my characters. Either that, or I keep subconsciously writing for him. Or, another choice, he’s just really good in them and elevates the material. Or all of those options. He wasn’t available for this revival, and neither was the original director (Trey), so I recommended Tony, who was in my play “Visiting Ours,” as the seemingly nice young man who reads porn to the old lady in the nursing home. I’ve also worked with Tony on several other plays not my own, and have always admired his odd comic delivery. He can be amazing in a role. The new director, Paul Nicolai Stein, changed the action around a bit for this 9-minute play about adulterers who can’t find a good spot to consummate their deceit high in the parking areas of the San Gabriel mountains. For one thing, the play now started with Jerry off in the “mountains” (the parking lot of the Steve Allen) “urinating” off the edge. For another, the button — the comedic summing-up of the play — that worked so well with James’ interpretation wouldn’t work with Tony’s interpretation. I’ve seen many of my plays remounted and reinterpreted, but never before within such a short period of time and inside a car, so this was oddly illuminating about how interpretative a performance can be. (And I say this after three decades of doing theatre of some sort.) And, as Tony later pointed out, the one I saw was only the first performance:  They still had 14 additional performances that night.

(Yes, each 9-minute “Car Play” is performed 15 times.)

I saw many of the writers and theatre enthusiasts I’ve known over the years from Backstage West, Entertainment Today, ReviewPlays.com, and the LA Times, so I’m sure some ink is going to follow on this. And, as I said, “The Car Plays” will continue into the fall (albeit with a shifting slate of plays). I saw 10 of the 15 plays tonight. As I was saying to the dean of our program at USC, this is a difficult little form to write in — as with haiku (good haiku), the rules are rigid and the form demanding. Each play has to be 9 minutes, each has to have an inciting incident, it must take place inside a car, and it must have a “button” that ends the action.

So much care has gone into writing, directing, acting and producing them, that I believe I can spot a problem looming with this production in nearby Santa Barbara (seemingly inspired by our success last September, which was Pick of the Week in the LA Weekly). “Pick your own” sounds like an owner’s manual for chaos.

Last Thursday night I drove down to bucolic Fullerton, California for the first reading of my new one-act play, “Next Time,” at Hunger Artists Theatre. The play is going to be staged this fall as part of the theatre’s Beyond Convention festival of original one-act plays that, as you can see by the graphic, “break the rules.” I couldn’t be more thrilled, especially given the theatre’s strong artistic reputation.

I’m not always sure what those “rules” are, but my immediate exposure to Hunger Artists showed one rule they’re breaking: the theatre is in an industrial park. You know: those trailer parks for business. I pulled into the industrial park, conveniently near railroad tracks and other trappings of industry, motored past small warehouses, and found Hunger Artists. When I walked in and saw first the literary manager and then the managing director, I said to each, “Cool! You’re in an industrial park!” To which each of them replied, more or less, “oh, ha ha.”

But no, I was serious. It is cool. For years I’ve been saying that theatres should be everywhere (especially neighborhoods). I hadn’t given industrial parks much thought, and now I saw the allure: lots of large flexible space, lots of parking at night because the other tenants tend to be daytime businesses, lots of potential partnership with those other businesses in donorship, sponsorship, attendance, and so forth. For the businesses, theatres like Hunger Artists can be the cool, hip kids on the block — something fun and different they can be part of. For theatres like Hunger Artists, the businesses can provide board members, used equipment, and cold hard cash.

So when I shared this, the managing director, Emily, said, “Oh. You’re serious. We thought you were kidding.”

Clearly, I was not, and repeated that being in the industrial park was very cool and presented enormous opportunities.

“You’re the first person ever to say that,” she said.

Hunger Artists, which dates back 11 years, has been in this space for six years.

Why did Willie Sutton rob banks? “Because that’s where the money is,” he said. Theatres are going to have to go where the people and the money are. We should have theatres in malls and shopping centers, street corners, inside and outside and nearby high schools that are dark at night, next to corner markets, in bars, and yes, in industrial parks.