The value of (a theatre) family
I’ve written plenty of plays, but at least so far I’ve never written a novel. Tonight may have helped me understand why. Novelists work in solitude. Playwrights work with actors and directors. To me, that feels better.
I know a number of novelists, and I have enormous respect for what they do. But it doesn’t relate all that closely to what I do.
What I do is write a play, or agree to direct a play, and then get together with some actors, and proceed from there.
That process is collaborative. Obviously. It’s also generative. Other people bring other things — like ideas, and excitement. And, sometimes, bad ideas, and baggage. But when you’ve got a group of people you trust, talented people you have developed a relationship with and who have developed relationships with each other, that provides a foundation. Novelists tell me they start all over again every time. Theatre people start with the foundation of other people.
So tonight we had readings of two plays in progress from my private workshop. The plays, by Ross Tedford Kendall and Stephanie Walker, were strong and funny and felt lived (as opposed to written). Admittedly I may be biased, but I think these plays should be produced. Ross has put his play through several complete redrafts — and I commended him for both his patience and his tenacity — and has now arrived at what I’ll call a point of departure. It should depart from the development process and into the production process. Stephanie’s play features beautiful writing and subtle character work. Both readings benefited from the interplay you find in a place where people with similar ethics are committed to achieving the same goal. Not all of these actors may have worked together before, but there were so many interwoven relationships in this theatre tonight that it really felt like a family celebration.
All of us grew up with a family, whether that family was large, or just one person. I’m not so naive as to think that family is always a good thing; there are bad families. But when we think of what we want from a family, I certainly felt that tonight at the theatre I work in and from the people I work with, and that is something I doubt a novelist ever gets.
February 29th, 2008 at 10:52 am
I enjoyed reading that. In the case of one of my favorite authors, it went the other way. Robertson Davies was a playwright first. He didn’t deal well with the need re-write to the specifications of others, or of compromising to accomodate the vision of the director. In time he switched to producing novels, which he did for many years. He reduced the problem of having to ‘start all over again every time’ by linking his books into trilogies.
In the end I imagine it’s just whatever suits a particular writer best.
March 7th, 2008 at 6:47 am
Lee –
Novel, of course, means new. When novels were first appearing, they were a radical new form—the individual, not a king even, was the center of attention. The feudal system was breaking down, the bourgeois or capitalist system (if you want to call it a system) was coming to prevail. It was every man or woman for his or herself. Goodbye to the common lands & old certainties. Hello to owning the means of production many used, or being one of those many, & finding your needs in conflict with your employers’ desire for profit. Hello, having to figure everything out for yourself—the thrill & anxiety of that. Starting over. Don Quixote & Tom Jones, for instance.
Now, tho, the novel meets national & international publishing. Is the author alone? No—tho his coworkers aren’t in the room with him, when he or she decides what to work on, or begins to work on it. But he or she certainly must think about the reception of what is to be created by agent, editor, publisher, publicist, radio host, librarians, etc.—or about the implications of producing without considering, or modifying his or her ideas to suit those constituencies.
I believe Ibsen wrote for theater the way novelists wrote before they either became part of a publishing team, or risked not becoming part of a pubishing team. I’m pretty ignorant about theater—but it does seem that Ibsen made a radical shift, re-inventing the form in some senses, placing obscure people at the center of attention, & treating them with total seriousness, not to speak of fabulous understanding. As I said, I’m ignorant as to which authors since have managed, to a similar degree, to shake loose of the traditions of theater into which they inserted themselves, & of the assumptions & inertia of those with whom they worked. In films, some, such as Bergman & Fellini, managed to present extremely original viewpoints, clearly & compellingly.
Anyway, what I’m saying is that, in theater, novels, any art form, & politics, we all start in the middle of a historical situation, in which it is everyone for him or herself: & whatever course we take, we are either joining a team, whether we are in the room with that team, or not, or we are refusing to join a team, because we can find no team that does not require of us that we modify precisely what we absolutely won’t modify, the very reason we take up the work in the first place, & the very reason we are able to start, & able to continue.
People like to remind me to “Leave your ego at the door.” The novel, early on, & still occasionally now, & Ibsen’s theater, & occasionally someone’s play, film, or political speech or action—but very rarely—is the positive use of ego, rather than either the negative use of ego (egotism), or its surrender in order to get along. (An ego is a tool, like a screw-driver—you can build something good with it, well; or build something not good, or not build well.)
We can’t get away from the politics or art of the past—we live in those politics & art, as we live in the bubble of air with the other species. But we can, to some extent, shake off the modes of acting in politics, art, & otherwise, that are far more polluting & unjust & delusional, in favor of what is not or only slightly polluting relative to what is created, not unjust & even maybe tending toward more justice, relatively sane, clear, truly helpful.
To which extent, what we do will be novel & good. At this point, it’s a miracle to find such cre-activity, whether in the realm of the novel, the theater, politics—or in any realm. If a miracle is something good & so unexpected that almost everyone will fail to notice that it has happened, or will assume that it’s supernatural, or that it always existed, or just happened by itself, then, just as Cervantes & Fielding once created novels more unlike what was otherwise being created than like—& Ibsen did the same with plays, it’s not Novels I’d create or invest my time examining, it’s—not in the fundamentalists’ sense—miracles.
I take it that all art is within a spectrum between Miracle & decoration (or board-game). Likewise politics exists within a spectrum between Miracle & deception-&-coercion.
A Miracle can be a bad miracle, or course. But so can that which is not a Miracle be bad. We need to break with the currently killing past (while carrying what’s valuable of it with us into the emerging future).
Even if it’s above average, but more of the same, it conduces to sleep-walking. Like, as you note, Hillary (or Bill) Clinton’s politics, we’d be better off without it. George W. Bush’s politics is much worse—but within that same spectrum of conducing to sleep-walking, fatally polluting our world, living a delusion, coercing & being coerced.
Excuse me for not being willing to invest the time to elimate 10 or 20% of the words & phrases above.
I appreciate your writing—so honest, sincere, clear, helpful.
I has spoken.