The other day on my return flight I caught myself looking at my watch and thinking for a moment about the British Empire. (Actually, that was my second thought. My first thought was a variation on “Are we there yet?”)

What got me thinking was how freakin’ huge this watch is. As one online listing says, this “stunning, high quality men’s Fishbone watch is SERIOUSLY CHUNKY!” and has “a mega large round dial (case diamter approx 42mm wide / 12mm thick).”

In August 2005, no doubt dazed by my latest literary allusion, Doug asked me for a list of what he should read. So by God, I gave him one. What writer wouldn’t?

In honor of Doug’s 50th, I’ve decided to share it with you, too. It’s still called “Doug’s Reading List,” even though Doug didn’t draw it up and has proved immune to its wisdom. Don’t let that stop you, though. Sadly lacking in a college degree in literature, but determined to hold your own at fancy-schmanzy wine-and-cheese events? Then this is the list for you!

Click here for the page hosting the list.

Wanna pick a fight on the contents of the list? Please do. Post a comment. I eagerly await it.

Slate’s Bryan Curtis on Christopher Guest’s new movie. He doesn’t like it — or Guest’s methodology.

You may recall that back here I was saying that if there were a prize god, “The Road” would win. Although four — four! — people have since taken my recommendation and read “The Road,” evidently there remains a lack of a prize god, because last I checked the book hadn’t won any prizes. Except with me and others I’ve spoken with who read it.

In today’s LA Times (okay, yesterday’s at this point) Book Review, a judge from this year’s National Book Award discusses the judging process. Click here to read the piece. Having been on both sides of this sort of evaluation — picking writing-contest winners and losers, and being a writing-contest winner or loser — I can agree that it’s hard to make these judgments and that yes, there are backstage maneuverings. I’m glad she made a pitch for “The Road” (which her fellow judges were unmoved by). I’m also glad that all five judges agreed to shortlist Phillip Roth’s “Everyman,” a miraculous little novel I read last spring.

One thing about this contest took me back to my own days reading plays at Moving Arts, where we had an ongoing discussion about our evaluation process. A question that constantly arose was this one: If we didn’t read the entire play, were we being fair? Was it fair to render judgment by, say, page 10? In the case of the National Book Awards, over the course of three-and-a-half months these five judges had to read 258 novels. Each. The same 258. Do the math and it becomes clear that they had to skim many of these books — as she admits.

My other observation is this: If Phillip Roth didn’t finally place (they nobly saved him the embarrassment of being an also-ran, after having won twice), and Cormac McCarthy didn’t even show, then I have to marvel at just how high the bar has been set for the winner, “The Echo Maker” by Richard Powers. I’m going to have to find out personally by reading the book.

For quite some time now, my daughter Emma and I have been writing a song about Abraham Lincoln. Today after a long dry spell, we were able to add a verse. So here’s the current standing of the song. (And no, I can’t convey in words how the tune goes, but melodically it would remind one of a song by They Might Be Giants.)

Abraham Lincoln’s dead.
John Wilkes Booth shot him in the head —
That’s what the newspapers said.

Created Thanksgiving
But didn’t go on living,
Won the Civil War
After year four,
Abraham Lincoln’s dead.

Recently I talked about opening lines here, going on to express my ongoing fascination with the opening of “True West” here. Playwright EM Lewis responded by asking what was my favorite opening line from one of my own plays… and that, ladies and gentlemen, leads us to an example of how a writer spends 90 minutes doing something more “fun” than working on his current project.

Those ninety minutes later, I have to say I don’t have a favorite opening line. In fact, I’m not even sure I can find evidence of one good opening line. (And having the “True West” line as an example doesn’t help.) The ones that immediately stood out in my mind did so because of the spin the actor put on it, and the overall context of what was happening and what was going to follow. Once you’ve seen it produced, it’s hard to extract the experience from the written line. Here’s an example, in the form of the opening of “The Size of Pike”:

(The apartment of a fortyish working man bachelor – the basics, and displayed none too well. A TV, empty beer cans of a notably cheap brew, a pizza box, a recliner. Not a pig sty, but arbitrarily unkempt. There are two doorways, one to the kitchen and one to the bathroom, and a closed door leading outside.

At rise: JOHN and ROD surrounded by camping and fishing gear: a tent, a sleeping bag, Coleman lantern, fishing rod and tackle box, an ice chest and the like. They each hold a bag stuffed with more stuff. John carefully sets down his bag. Rod lets the one he’s carrying drop with a thud. He wipes the sweat from his forehead with the back of his
arm, then looks at John sorrowfully, shaking his head with disapproval.)

ROD
Izzat it?

(John looks around.)

JOHN
That’s it.

Great opening line? Mmm… probably not. But it sums up a lot of the theme of the play: that Rod views himself as a manly man and John as someone who is too pampered and bringing too much stuff on this fishing trip. Does the opening line signal that the play is also going to be at times comedic? No — but the director and the actors were smart enough to get that, and to get a laugh out of the first line.

What I noticed in dipping into a couple dozen of my plays was that most of them start immediately (whether they’re short plays or not). This habit probably comes from my formative years of reading bad pulp novels, where someone with a gun comes in in the first three pages. An example from my play “Speedy”:

(A woman, MINDY, addresses us.)

MINDY
(To us.)
It started with a vicious argument with my husband Rob. I don’t know how it turned that way – it happened fast – but it was about the Millers coming over.

(Lights come up on a table and Rob seated at it. Mindy seats herself in the other chair.)

MINDY
(To us.)
I didn’t want them to.

(She calmly places her hands around Rob’s throat, then this remembered scene starts and she shifts into violent emotion.)

MINDY
You prick! You fucking asshole! This was supposed to be our night out! Now you’ve got these goddamn assholes coming over and screwing everything up! I hate those fucking Millers! If I hear one more story about Jim Miller!
Who are these people who eat our snacks and drink our wine?

ROB
(Gasping.)
Sandy’s… your best… friend….

MINDY
(To us, hands still around his throat while he freezes.)
It’s true. Since college. Sandy studied biochemical engineering. I studied anthropology. We’re both managers at Barnes & Noble. I like her a lot. But this time I felt differently and said:

(To Rob.)
Best friend? Best friend? It seems to me that Caesar’s best friend was Brutus. Look how that turned out! I would gouge out the eyes of her aged grandmother with a paring knife.

ROB
(Struggling to pry her hands off.)
I think you’re –
(As he frees himself:)
Over-reacting!
(He gasps for air and rubs his neck.)

Great writing? No. Fun on stage? Yes, if done right. It also shows an attempt to stave off my foremost fear: boring the audience.

Although I haven’t come close to having a great opening line, I think this, from “Three People, According to Sociologists,” is probably closest:

Scene One

(A basement band set-up. A huge acoustic drum kit with a massive bass drum, kettles, toms, hi-hats, percussion blocks, everything imaginable but twice over. A stool behind it. To the side, a guitar in a stand, a beat-up old amplifier, another, but in better shape, distanced from it. A battered refrigerator rescued from a junkyard or garage sale. Beside it, a couch with its stuffing showing. Also, a stereo with stacks of records and tapes, all dusty, and a profusion of cables, leads, and wires leading everywhere: to the two microphones in their stands, to the stereo, to a separate small tape deck, to phase shifters and the like for the guitar. In short: a cluttered, mossy, dusty basement music set-up. Down left, a phone atop a small desk with chair. Everywhere: empty beer cans with stamped-out cigarette butts atop them, and stray trash: junk-food bags, greasy pizza boxes, empty cans and bottles.

Hard, punkish rock and roll music rises, then fades, as the lights come up on:

ROOG, thick with muscle, wearing a sweatshirt with the sleeves ripped off, jeans, and sneakers, sits at the desk by the phone, thinking earnestly. A clutter of paper scraps — names and phone numbers written on bar napkins, matchbooks and the like — is scattered atop the desk. SPIKE, anorexic-thin, with black t-shirt, black leather jacket, black sneakers, and ripped jeans, noodles around with another guitar, a cigarette dangling from his lips. He plucks stray notes, tries chord changes, etc., while he talks, his amp off the entire time.)

ROOG
(Exasperated.)
I dunno. I’m runnin’ outta guys.
(Pause. No response from Spike. He picks through the scraps, finds another phone number.)
How ’bout Jess Hames?

SPIKE
Thinks a C’s an E. Bad thing in a bass player.

As with “True West,” the audience sees the set, sees the actors, hears the first line — and immediately understands what this play is going to be about. That’s not the only mission of an opening line. But it is, after all, your opening — and so it should open the play.

This is not as bad as some stage directions I’ve seen.

Thanks to Mark Chaet for sending this.

While I’m on the subject of “Godot,” Trey reminded me of this poem, which I wrote in the 90’s. It’s been published a few times — I don’t remember where. It seems especially pertinent at the moment.

Waiting for Godot to Leave

Well, he finally showed up
And of course he brought guests,
Uninvited ones,
And he ate all the h’ors d’ouevres
And he’s finishing off the punch
And he knows everybody who’s anybody
And goes on about them at great length
And he stuck his head up your dress
And he threatened to ruin me
And now he’s in the pool with our daughter
And he’s so fascinating and intimidating
And funny and awful and rude and overpowering
But just such a boor in the end.
No surprise, really.
Nobody ever lives up to their P.R.

At this point, having seen probably 10 productions of “Waiting for Godot,” having read the play several times, thought about it, weighed the various merits of differing performances, and having gone so far as to give my son the middle name Beckett, I think I’m qualified to discourse on the play.

The acclaimed Gate Theatre production currently at UCLA Live! is no good.

I say this with no glee, mirrored only by my absence in glee seeing it.

Although the play is many things, one thing it is not or should not be is ponderous. But that’s what we have here. In fact, here’s how ponderous: It started around 8:10, and wrapped up just shy of 11 p.m., with a 20-minute intermission. Given that Act Two was 55 minutes (I clocked it), that puts Act One at about an hour and a half. Tooooo… slowwww….

My companion, the fiercely smart playwright and performer Trey Nichols, said that it was lacking in existential dread. Absolutely true. It was also lacking in comic rhythm. Beckett modeled the characters of Gogo and Didi after Laurel and Hardy; while I don’t expect Laurel and Hardy, I expect the comic spirit necessary to the parts. I also expect something to be at stake. Several years ago at The Matrix theatre in Hollywood, the late David Dukes, in addition to being a wonderful clown alongside co-star Robin Gammell, closed Act Two with a wrenching depiction of a man desperate to understand his place in the universe. The current Didi, played by Barry McGovern, seemed more like a man learning he might have to wait for the next bus.

Whom do I fault? Oddly enough, the memory of Samuel Beckett. Evidently his determination of how this play must be performed has been cast in stone at the Gate Theatre and with this director and at least two of the actors, all of whom he had personally worked with. This situation sounded hauntingly familiar, so when I got home I dug out my edition of Kenneth Tynan’s Letters , and there it was. (At the time, Tynan was the literary manager of the National Theatre.)

31 March 1964

To George Devine, copies to Laurence Olivier and William Gaskill, The Naitonal Theatre

Dear George:

Forgive me for writing, but I feel I must try to explain more clearly to you and Larry what is worrying me about “Play.” I wouldn’t do so if I didn’t feel that many of my qualms were shared by others.

To recap: before Sam B[eckett] arrived at rehearsals, “Play” was recognizably the work we all liked and were eager to do. The delivery of the lines was (rightly) puppet-like and mechanical, but not wholly dehumanized and stripped of all emphasis and inflections. On the strength of last weekend, it seems that Beckett’s advice on the production has changed all that — the lines are chanted in a breakneck monotone with no inflections, and I’m not alone in fearing that many of them will be simply inaudible. I suspect that Beckett is trying to treat English as if it were French — where that kind of rapid-fire monotony is customary.

The point is that we are not putting on “Play” to satisfy Beckett alone. It may not matter to him that lines are lost in laughs; or that essential bits of exposition are blurred; but it surely matters to us. As we know, Beckett has never sat through any of his plays in the presence of an audience: but we have to live with that audience night after night!”

Please understand me: I trust the play completely, and I trust your production of it, — up to the advent of the author. What I don’t especially trust is Beckett as co-director. If you could see your way to re-humanizing the text a little, I’ll bet that the actors and the audience will thank you — even if Beckett doesn’t!

Why have I seen “Godot” so many times? Because done well, it is an astonishing experience. The first time I saw it was as an undergrad, in a college production featuring my friend Joe Stafford as an imperious Pozzo. That was 20 years ago, but the performance has stuck with me — Joe embodied the comic boorishness of the role. And at the end, when the moon has risen and Godot has yet again not come, the lights drew down and pinlights of white emerged in the flies, signifying stars, and for a moment I lost my place in the universe. That’s an effect I’ve been swiping ever since, as with “Two Men Losing Their Minds” at Moving Arts in 2000.

Done right, with verve and with stakes, featuring characters who yearn for answers, “Waiting for Godot” is a transformational experience. Performed as a museum piece pregnant with significance, it’s a crashing bore.

Just because playwrights are sometimes asked to participate in “talkback” sessions after a developmental reading doesn’t mean they should heed any of the suggestions.

The other night I went to the staged reading of a friend’s play. Good play, good reading. It’s amazing what you can learn about a play when you see it on its feet, performed in its entirety, and by good actors under the capable guidance of a good director.

In this case, all of the strengths of the play became clear: an arresting subject matter, strong characters, deft transitions, sparkling dialogue. It also became clear to me (as well as to the audience, it later turned out) that we need a little more insight into why one character committed the heinous act that catalyzes the play. I’m confident that that additional bit of clarity will complete the play.

I was impressed by the feedback from this audience; this is a developmental theatre, and most of the people speaking are playwrights with productions under their belt and actors used to working on new plays. By and large, when it comes to what makes a play work or not, they seemed to know what they’re talking about.

This hasn’t always been my experience, either as the playwright or as a member of the audience. I go into these things figuring that if they could have written the play better, they already would have done so. More than 10 years ago I decided that my personal mission in these instances was to be funny and entertaining, so that the theatre was glad it had invited me and so that no matter what anyone thought of the play they would at least see that I could be fun to work with. (Because, by and large, who comes to such readings? Actors, directors, producers, writers — people somehow or other connected with producing plays.)

This particular play deals with a court case — although, as one astute attendant noted, refreshingly, it does not take place in a courtroom and thereby avoids the procedural scenes we’ve seen cooked up on television six nights a week. My least favorite idea from the house the other night was this one: to remove all question of guilt or innocence, begin the play with a declamation of guilt, and work backward to investigate motive, a la “Equus.” An intriguing idea — but not for this play, not at this stage. This play is finished (almost).

When I was a teenager I remember reading a thick collection of Isaac Asimov’s stories, each with an introduction by Asimov (modeled perhaps after the Dangerous Visions series edited and interminably introduced by Harlan Ellison). Asimov said that after he had written a story, while he might do light revisions, that story was done — and to rework it and rework it would be like chewing second-day gum. It was an image that stuck with me.

Rewrites are necessary. Almost always. In every first production I’ve had, I’ve wound up doing at least minor rewrites because in working with good actors and a good director I’ve found new things — things that work, things that don’t, and sometimes opportunities that were missed. Twice, I’ve found new and better endings, but I went into each of those productions knowing that each play needed a new grace note to truly finish it.

To rewrite is good. To get stuck in rewrite and restructuring would mean not only not completing your present project — it also means not working on your next one.

Restructuring an entire play, one that already works? That sounds like chewing second-day gum.