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.

“Life is pretty damn good and we should appreciate it more.”

It shouldn’t be surprising that that is the key takeaway from the author of “The Road,” the novel more than any other in the past year (perhaps in the past 10 years) that I’ve been thinking about, talking about, dwelling on, and recommending to friends, in his interview today by Oprah Winfrey. The bleakness of the post-apocalyptic “Road” is a reminder and an inspiration to recognize the value of what’s here now (and, with luck, to preserve that value). I remember in the immediate weeks after reading it thinking throughout every day that nothing I would face that day could be truly troubling by comparison. And isn’t that the strength of literature: to make you feel life anew?

I should also take a moment to profess my abject love of Oprah. This is probably only the third time I’ve watched her show, but every time I’ve been struck by her obvious genuine interest in the interviewee and the subject. (Want to see the exact opposite? Check out a man named David Letterman.) Some years ago I saw her interviewing a man who had written a book called “No Bad Boys,” about helping troubled youth; this author (and psychologist) was saying that he didn’t believe in “bad boys,” but in boys who needed help. As I watched that profile and his work with some of these boys and Oprah’s questioning, at one point I was reduced to tears. Sentimental? Sure. Heartfelt? Absolutely. I don’t believe in bad boys either, and I was glad to know that someone out there was doing something about that.

Maybe part of my love for Oprah, even given my limited exposure, is her determination to fix little corners of the universe. I too think things are fixable, or at least improvable. Oprah has no room for cynicism, and neither do I. She loves books and wants to talk about them with their authors. In a mainstream way, who has done this since Johnny Carson a long, long, long time ago? No one. It’s fashionably cynical to dismiss Oprah as a sentimentalist, but like her or not, she’s creating new readers for writers like Cormac McCarthy.

In this interview, McCarthy responds in style. He’s not a press hound — this is his first television interview ever, and one of very, very few interviews in his career — and that self-protectiveness may have contributed to his simple, matter-of-fact humility and wisdom, present throughout this interview. With regard to his seemingly odd punctuation style, which some have slammed as an affectation, he says, “I believe in periods and capitals and occasional commas. That’s it.” That style, he says, is “to make it easier to read, not harder.” Disagree if you will, but his books are beautifully written and quickly read.

If you missed the interview, it’s online at Oprah’s website. Here’s the link. If you’d like to see a talented contemporary novelist untrammeled by his recent success and wealth, one who acknowledges debts to forebears remembered (Faulkner, Joyce) and forgotten, watch this. To do so you’ll have to join Oprah’s free online book club (which you can later quit if you like), but is that so much to ask? You can always quit later, and all she’s trying to do is share her love for books she admires. Just like the rest of us.

Another reminder to the would-have-been self-centered that there are other people in the world:

Today I was one of what turned out to be quite a large group of playwrights who received an email from the very nice man in England who maintains one of the world’s foremost databases of playwrights, www.doollee.com. Here’s what it said:

I am celebrating – the 20,000th Playwright has just been recorded on www.doollee.com, together with 67,189 of their plays.

Are your plays, bio, picture, agent etc etc, all as you want them?

A template is attached – your individual page should contain the information YOU want for now and posterity!!

Listing your work is a pleasure, thank you.

All good things
Julian

ps Have you entered the new competition? – http://www.doollee.com/Publishers/x-competitions.html

Julian Oddy
48 Dorchester Road
Weymouth
Dorset  DT4 7JZ
UK

[both www.doollee.com and google appreciate reciprocal website links]

www.doollee.com receives over 12,000 individual hits per day (4.5 million/year) – your information is important to many people from all over the world.

I read this email aloud to my wife, never feeling less special in my life now that I know that I’m one of 20,000 produced playwrights listed on this site (and who knows how many more aren’t listed?). Even one of 19,000 would have been better. At least I’ve got about 30 plays that have been staged, far more than the average  (although only three are currently listed on Doollee – I guess in my copious spare time I should ask Julian to update the listing).

This brought to mind something Stephen Dunn said over dinner once when I studied writing with him in the 1980’s. He said, “There are only 40 real poets in the country and we all know each other.” I’ve always kept this in mind because even though I’ve had poetry published I’m quite aware I’m not one of those 40 real poets. In grad school I used to wonder how many real playwrights there are — at the time I estimated 200. Now I know:  20,000. Plus.

Today’s LA Daily News has a nice piece by Evan Henerson (who for years has kept theatre coverage an important part of the paper) profiling David Henry Hwang and his new play, which I keep raving about. You can read the profile here.

And Gregory Rodriguez’ op ed in today’s LA Times remarks upon how the context of the play has changed in the 17 years since the events that shaped it. Well worth reading.

Elie Wiesel regrets his early bad writing.

Don’t we all?

Yesterday in my email newsletter I wrote a piece with advice on how to become a produced playwright, which some people have emailed to thank me for. If you missed it, click here. In a nutshell, here’s the advice:  be diligent and persistent.

Just today, the graduate writing program I teach in at USC uploaded a podcast that advocates the same mindset, but adds the perspective of fiction writers and screenwriters. I find it fascinating watching friends and colleagues share war stories that sound so very, very familiar. (Click here if you’d like to see it.) One of the speakers is novelist and dramatist Chris Meeks. (A good guy and a good writer.) If you’d like to check out his own email newsletter, here’s the archive.

Almost everyone who has met with any success as a writer has pretty much the same story. They tried harder.

The other night I saw what I thought was the most remarkable play I’ve seen in perhaps 10 years. (Since I saw the premiere production of “How I Learned to Drive,” a play I now teach.) It was “Yellow Face,” by David Henry Hwang, now playing at the Mark Taper Forum here in Los Angeles. Even though I had to get up at the inconceivable time of 5 a.m. the next morning for USC commencement, there I was at 11 p.m. on the plaza of the Music Center declaiming the wonders of the play for Dorinne Kondo, the friend/colleague who invited me, and Tim Dang, artistic director of co-producing company East West Players. I’m going to write more about this play when I have more time, but let’s put it this way:  I wondered aloud how long it would be before “Yellow Face” is published, because I’d like to read it and I might put it into the syllabus of one of my classes.

Today I had lunch with another colleague, a playwright whose work I respect. She’s smart and talented. She wanted to know if I’d seen “Fat Pig” at the Geffen. (Answer: Not yet.) I brought up “Yellow Face,” preparing to launch into full shared excitement. Her reaction:  She left at intermission. “I don’t like plays about writers writing about writing,” she said.  That line was especially ironic to me because in 1992 I wrote a play that specifically satirized a form of novels I loathe:  writers writing about writers who write about writers. (The specific novel that first got me on this rant was “The Dean’s December” by Saul Bellow.) To me, “Yellow Face” was about many different wonderful things, interwoven and unified. To her, it was a play about the playwright writing this play (which, granted, it is on the surface). We saw the same play (well, she saw only half) and arrived at completely different conclusions.

I’ve grown used to having disagreements about art. (And even higher forms, like comic books.) But “Yellow Face”  is precisely the sort of play I go to the theatre hoping to come across — surprising, funny, moving, troubling; something that makes me challenge my own notions of what is right behavior and what is wrong behavior. To me it seems so ambitious, and so successful on its own terms, and so important, that it is unequivocally great. But after listening to my friend this afternoon, I suspect that my dread that night — that the critics are going to reject it as either self-serving or badly constructed — is exactly what’s going to happen.

I hope not.

And I’m going to advise everyone I know to see this show.