The best opening in contemporary drama is this one, from “True West”:

“So, Mom took off for Alaska, huh?”

Look how much it tells us:

1. Because we see two men on stage, and the one refers to “Mom,” they must be brothers.
2. This character who says it, Lee, didn’t know Mom was gone, and now he’s asking about her. So clearly, he’s been away.
3. Not only was he away, he’s been out of touch with Mom. In general, middle-aged women don’t take off for Alaska on a moment’s notice. Lee knew nothing about it, so, unlike many of us, he doesn’t give Mom a courtesy call once a week.
4. He’s also been out of touch with his brother, Austin. Austin knows Mom’s gone, so he probably knew Mom was going, too. Yet Lee didn’t.
5. Because she took off for Alaska, Mom’s probably not coming back soon. It’s far away. (Although she does show up unexpectedly late in the play, we are led to believe that she won’t. This provides backdrop for her sons’ actions throughout the play. If she were coming home any minute, they might behave very differently.)
6. Mom’s gone, and Austin is there in the house. Everything seems in order. This tells us that he probably has a good relationship with Mom. She trusted him.
7. It also tells us that she was probably right to do so. Everything looks to be in order. It seems that Austin is a responsible person, so Mom’s trust is warranted.
8. Lee, on the other hand, seems belligerent, right from this opening line. There’s something snotty about the way the question is framed: Mom didn’t “go” to Alaska, she “took off” – as though someone or something is being left behind. And the “huh?” hardly seems casual.
9. Lee’s resentment is palpable, both at Mom because she’s not there…
10. …And at at Austin because he is. Lee went looking for Mom, and instead found Austin in her place. Or, more appropriately given what we know of sibling rivalry, in Lee’s place.
11. Given his upset at finding Mom missing, Lee probably came seeking Mom or help of some sort. Why is he there? Because he needed something.

Did Sam Shepard know all this before he wrote the line? Probably not. Was this the first line as he wrote it, or did he find it later in the rewriting process? I have no idea. But this one line achieves a near miracle in launching the play. It sets up a stark conflict between two very different men, united by blood but divided by need, still waging their sibling war decades into adulthood against the placid backdrop of Mom’s kitchen and, later, the unseen terra incognita of Dad’s desert wasteland.

I think “True West” is a masterpiece. Not a word I toss around lightly.

That first line tells us a great, great deal, without any resort to exposition. It seems effortless. Moreover, because it’s clearly the response to a previous line – one we don’t get to hear because it happened before we got to enter their universe – we feel that we’re dropped directly into the action of the play. This play doesn’t just start when it starts, it starts a moment before it starts. That would be a problem if our initial reaction were one of confusion – who are these guys? Where are these guys? What’s going on? – but Shepard addresses all that with this very first line.

Unlike “True West,” too many plays start long after they start.

My wife, who originally hooted at my admiration at The Road (and my preference for it over “World War Z”), now says that she keeps thinking about it and “may have to read it again.”

And one of my grad students, Lindsey, took my recommendation to read it and said she thought it was stunning but that it “gave me nightmares.”

I think this book is going to be with us for a long time.

And I don’t mean for you to use in a bar.

No, I mean great opening lines in drama.

Tonight in one of my classes at USC I invested half an hour in discussing what I think is the best opening line in all of contemporary drama, this one from “True West” by Sam Shepard:

“So, Mom took off for Alaska, huh?”

(More about that — and the 13 things it tells you — tomorrow.)

Shepard grabs us and pulls us right into the play. Too many plays – including too many of his own plays – start long after they start. When I’m rereading my plays with an eye toward production, one of the questions I ask is, “Is this really the opening line?” Or, is that opening line buried somewhere on page 3? If it truly is on page 3, your play probably should be two pages shorter.

How do you know if you’ve got the right opening line? Some questions that help:

1. Does it say something about the speaker?
2. Does it say something about the setting?
3. Does it say something about the play, helping us understand why we’re here?
4. Most importantly, does it help start the play by grabbing the audience in some way?

You’ve really got only a few minutes to enlist the aid of your audience. If it’s a comedy, you’ve got less than that – audiences need permission to laugh. (Nobody wants to be the only person laughing – they’re afraid to be wrong and look foolish.)

It’s best to get your play started right away.

Re the Paul McCartney divorce saga:

If you had assets worth $1.5 billion and you wanted to marry a model, couldn’t you find one with two legs? And couldn’t you get her to sign a prenup limiting her to, say, $50 million in benefits for her three years of hard work?

I guess John was “the smart Beatle.”

A couple of weeks ago I went to see “Doubt” at the Ahmanson Theatre with two friends. The play was well-written, funny, surprising — and a bit of a cheat.

I say that because it purports to be a play about… well, doubt… but it never gives you enough information to truly feed doubts or build convictions. The play should be called “Intuition,” because it is largely built around a nun’s intuition that a priest is molesting a young boy. She confronts the priest, who denies it, and that is somewhat the extent of the plot. She confronts, he denies, she makes up a lie, he (and this is just to ruin the play for you if you haven’t seen it) finally sees there’s going to be no end to her accusations and gains a transfer to another church, and now that he’s gained what turns out to be a promotion to another parish and this time in a role that includes heading the school she turns to the audience and says, “I’m filled with such doubts.”

I guess because rather than punish him, God promoted him.

The entirety of the “evidence” against the priest is this: We learn in an early scene that Sister Aloysius saw Father Flynn place a consoling hand atop a boy’s wrist and the boy flinch. (If at age 12 I had felt the church pastor place a hand on my wrist in an open assembly, I would have flinched too. And he never molested me. For the most part, twelve-year-old boys don’t want to be touched by anyone.)

Maybe the play should have been called “Persecution,” because again, barring any scenes with additional fact, what we’ve got is a play in which a one person’s determination that she is right succeeds in driving another person out. In fact, one of my compatriots thought well into the play that that was precisely the theme of the play; he compared it to “The Crucible.”

The playwright, John Patrick Shanley, has a gift for dialogue. After a day of dealing with petty nonsense, it was an absolute treat to hear people discourse on a higher level. The sermons written for the priest are particularly strong, built around delightful metaphors that work as parables. But I don’t think the play is about what it’s advertised as. Of course, my father-in-law brought home a bag of Brach’s chocolate-covered blueberries that says “Harvest Fresh.” I said, “This is a lie. Blueberries in the orchard don’t have chocolate on them. So they can’t be ‘harvest fresh.'”

You always have to ask “Really?” To do otherwise is to believe that blueberries grow with chocolate, that “Doubt” is about doubt, and that Dick Cheney is keeping America safe.

Last week in my Saturday playwriting workshop we were talking about how to identify the protagonist. Ellen immediately piped up: “I usually look at who wants something.”

That’s exactly right.

But I added, “In a good play, everyone wants something.”

The other night my son Lex and I went to see “The Prestige,” which we enjoyed greatly. On the way to the movie, I said to him, “It was written by Christopher Priest, a comic-book writer.” I recounted for him some of Priest’s comic books, most notably Black Panther.

When the credits rolled on the movie, I was surprised to see that Priest had not in fact written the script; rather, the film is based on the novel by Christopher Priest. Hm. I didn’t know that he was a novelist, but he most certainly was a scriptwriter, so why hadn’t he scripted it? And when had he become a novelist?

At home, still puzzling this over, I jumped on the internet and found Priest’s website. The site seems equally devoted to three areas: comic books, beautiful nude black women, and a religion he has joined. I share his interest in two of these things and, because my tastes are catholic I am completely nondenominational. It doesn’t matter if you’re focusing on Marvel or DC, or Asian or caucasian or Latino, etc. They all have their place.

(And I’m sure that right now every friend I have is clicking through to that website.)

In reading Priest’s lengthy bio, which stretches back into the 1970’s at Marvel, I started to feel that something was odd. After all, who was Christopher Priest? In my mind he was a guy who had started writing comics just over 10 years ago — that’s when I first noticed him anyway, and I’ve been reading Marvel comics since Stan Lee was personally writing them. How could he have been writing all these Marvel comics without my having noticed?

Then I come to this paragraph: “It was about this time Jim Owsley became Christopher Priest. He never discusses the true reasons behind his name change, but insists every story you may have heard about it is absolutely true.”

Then, after Googling “Owsley changes name to Priest,” I discovered that there was another Christopher Priest, also a writer, and also a writer in genre (science fiction). I read a bit about the controversy, then found this, from a guest-of-honor speech to WorldCon in August, 2005, written by the “original” Christopher Priest:

A few years ago I discovered that a young comics writer called James Owsley had changed his name to mine. It was a deliberate act, and he knew of my existence. The only reason he’s ever given in public for this irrational act is his belief that the name “Christopher Priest” is cool. In fact, he said “co-o-ol.” At first I thought it was a joke, then I thought it must be an error, and then at last I thought it was time for me to do something. When I contacted his publisher, an Owsley enthusiast called Brian Augustyn, I was told that the decision was made. It wouldn’t now be reversed, and it was “Chris”‘s inalienable right to call himself anything he liked. I should, in fact, praise the Lord for the good fortune of being born with such a co-o-ol name. When I pointed out, with good reason, that the worlds of science fiction and comics are perilously close to each other, and often confused with each other in the minds of certain people, I was told that the sheer excellence of Chris’s writing would permanently set him apart from everyone else. Including, presumably, me.

Since then, “Chris” and I have been regularly and routinely muddled up with each other. Enter my name in Amazon.com and you’ll see what I mean. A search in Google, or any other search engine, produces the same result. I often receive e-mails intended for him — I assume he often receives mine.

So without much effort this impostor has been not only irritating but seriously annoying. For several years I tried to take a tolerant, amused line on the problem, thinking that he’d get tired of the gag after a bit, but he shows no sign of it. Now, twice in the last twelve months, I have heard comments that publishers have had unpleasant experiences working with “Christopher Priest” and don’t want to work with “me” again. So as well as him being irritating and annoying, his professional incompetence is damaging me.

I’m not amused any more. My message is this. If you hear my name mentioned in any context, please remember what I’ve said and ask yourself if you’re sure which one of us it is. Beyond that, if anyone here has the least influence on him, please use it.

I don’t bear him any ill-will. All I want him to do is change his name back. He’s done it once, so there’s no great difficulty in doing it again. In fact, I suggested this during my conversation with his publisher. I even proposed a new by-line for him. I said, “Why doesn’t he call himself … ‘Harlan Ellison’?”

Mr Augustyn said, “That’s not a co-o-ol name.”

Then I went to bed.

In the morning, wanting to learn a bit more about “The Prestige,” I dropped “Christopher Priest” into Google again and found this site. And as soon as the photo of a blue-eyed white man came up, I finally discovered that “The Prestige” was written not by the comic-book writer but was based upon a novel by the British author — and that said British author is entirely correct: People are going to confuse the two of them. I had — for days.

The photo on the left of the comic-book writer Christopher Priest is the only one I can find on the web. The photo on the right of the rather haunted-looking Christopher Priest is liberally applied — perhaps in an effort to distinguish himself from the other Christopher Priest.

If you were a somewhat unknown writer who had struggled all his life to make a name for himself and had lately seen it coming to fruition, gaining guest of honor status at the world’s foremost science fiction convention, having your novel turned into a film as good as “The Prestige,” how would it feel to find yourself being confused with another genre writer who had taken the same name as you, and seemingly while knowing of your existence?

Years ago I discovered another Lee Wochner on the web. This Lee Wochner was Leland P. Wochner, he lived in Illinois, he was 70 years old — and he was a plumber. Not a writer. I remember the relief in discovering this.

Mark Chaet sent this in. Make me wonder just what he was looking for that led him to this….

It also makes me realize:  these zombies are seeking the essential one thing they don’t have (a fully functioning brain — which doubles as housing of the soul, life force, personality, and so forth). Now, they say they want to eat them — so once they get what they seek, they’re using it for impure purposes. They don’t realize that their expressed desire (to get brains to eat) does not reflect their true desire (to be alive again).

So what is this? Another good example of subtext.

Well, I’ve checked Funky Winkerbean every day since, and there’s been no further mention of “the day I’d never forget” (and no further appearance of that character), so I’m chalking it up to an acid trip by the artist.

In the meantime, I’ve talked myself out on the Funky junk — brought it up in my class at USC on Monday night, brought it up last night in my workshop (and I think I’ll spare my Saturday workshop), and generated alarmed stares from my family, who somehow don’t see the incredible importance of correctly depicting the timeline of comic books as cultural markers.

But it is important. Verisimilitude is part of what lends power to literature. Art doesn’t have to be literal — witness Guernica — but it benefits from being specific. Funky may not be art (clearly), but it even fails as pop art because its interior universe is so wrong that everything is called into question.

It’s better to get it right. Asking the right questions — who, what, when, where, why, how — of the universe you’re creating leads you to new and interesting answers. Not asking the questions leads to cliche, sentimentality, and weakness.

Didn’t realize I had so much in common with Funky Winkerbean. I can relate to this origin story, from the 10/15 Sunday strip: “After (reading that first comic book)… the world was never the same!”

Except certain things about the execution of this strip fill me with doubt. For one thing, the comic he’s rhapsodizing about doesn’t belong with the other comics it’s shown with.

The comic he’ll never forget — Action #242 — debuted in July of 1958 and introduced both Brainiac and the bottle city of Kandor. But shown alongside it is an issue of Archie’s Mad House — and that title didn’t debut until 1959. I know that sometimes comics distribution was spotty and slow, and perhaps the Action #242 hung around unbought, but how to explain the Captain Marvel #1, which debuted in 1968 — a full 10 years later?

You’ll also note that the cover price of Captain Marvel #1 was 12¢. In 1968, comics went to 15¢ (making this one of the last 12¢ issues). When had they last been available for 10¢? Try 1962. The cash register in panel five shows a sale of 10¢, which is correct for Action #242, but again, it’s displayed alongside a comic from 10 years later that would have cost more.

In the background of the same panel, one sees a poster for the community Halloween Party, meaning that this is set in October. The issue of Captain Marvel shown would have been distributed in August — so this particular issue would have been pulled and replaced twice in this timeframe.

So… what year is it supposed to be here? Or are we supposed to think that the drugstore (and its distributor) kept comics lingering on the same spinner rack for Ten Years?

Also, whether it’s the 50’s, or the 60’s, what era is this kid’s weird clothing ensemble from? One could charitably say late 60’s / early 70’s, in vogue with the then-counterculture, except in panel 3 it looks as though his jeans are either cuffed or rolled. (Rather than no cuffs, and flared.)

Along a similar line, note the druggist’s eyeglasses. They don’t look 50’s. Or 60’s. They appear to be from the 1970’s.

Why is any of this important?

Because all of the details are wrong, they make the entire story unbelievable. This mishmash of bad facts leads me to only two possible conclusions: The narrator is either a liar manipulating an unseen audience member, or he’s seriously brain-damaged. Ordinarily, I don’t follow Funky Winkerbean. But now I’m going to, just to see which theory is true.

The third potential scenario would take us outside the strip: that the cartoonist didn’t care enough to get it right.