My Lincoln play, Better Angels, won the 2008 Trustus Playwrights Prize and had its premier production at The Trustus Theatre in Columbia, South Carolina last month. I was there opening night. Trustus is located downtown in a former warehouse beautifully transformed into a theater complex incorporating main and second stages, office and storage space, rehearsal hall and construction workshop. It’s the sole professional theater in the town of 120,000 and a jewel of the South. Did I leave anything out? Below is the facade:
Ah, yes, the justly famed Trustus bar, off the lobby. The popcorn is free:
Jim and Kay Thigpen, co-founders and artistic and managing directors respectively, purchased the property some years ago and oversaw its conversion. Although neither is a southerner, they are, as hosts, as generous, gracious and indefatigable as is may be imagined. Here they are in Kay’s office:
The set, with finishing touches being applied. Note the large screen in the center, to accommodate the slide show the director Larry McMullen inserted. Alas, the projector failed opening night. The cast, however, was excellent:
Dog Ear Robert Fieldsteel drove with Jan Lewis to see the premier. The couple have relocated from L.A. to Macon, Georgia, where Robert writes and teaches and Jan is a Professor of Theater at Wesleyan College. I cannot account for the somewhat bemused expressions on all our pusses:
Below Trustus literary manager Jon Tuttle and his lovely wife, Cherl, stand before the state capitol building. Jon’s support of Better Angels was invaluable. He’s an astute dramaturg and accomplished playwright. His new piece, The Sweet Abyss, will be performed at the Playwrights Festival next year:
Columbia is the capital of the state, the first state to leave the union in the prelude to the Civil War. Until very recently the confederate flag flew atop the capital dome. It still flies in front, in fact, above Jon’s left shoulder. Here is the elegant lobby underneath the dome:
Among natives, neither the Civil War nor Lincoln is much discussed. Sometimes the conflict is referred to as the “recent unpleasantness” or even “the war of northern aggression.” Here, in the capitol lobby, is South Carolina’s declaration of secession:
You may imagine the debates over secession which rang within these walls. Actually, the capitol wasn’t finished until after the war, and the debates occurred in a local church. Sherman’s army attempted to burn the church down when they arrived, but got the wrong one. Much of the Columbia was destroyed in the fire. This is a plaque on the hotel where I stayed:
I believe it was Faulkner who said the past isn’t over; it isn’t even past.
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Faithful readers will notice a new look to this blog. The new look is called Mandingo. This alteration is due to 1) technical difficulties with the old look, which technical difficulties resulted in no blog at all for some weeks, and 2) subtle but profound philosophical changes in the author, of which maybe more later, or maybe not.
Management likes the new look, has learned many new technical things, and reserves the right to change the look of the blog again. On the other hand perhaps it stops here; one can get carried away with these things.
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It’s been too long. I dunno, I just can’t seem to get into this lately. Maybe in August, when I travel to South Carolina for the Better Angels production. But I do have a little something right now. It’s an audio version of one of my ten minute plays, and you can listen to it here. Or download it to your iPod.
The play, Secret Identity, was originally done as a staged reading as part of Chatter, the Dog Ear show at 24th Street Theatre. It’s also been performed in Alaska and Florida. This version, recorded in the Green Room Studio behind my house, features Laurel Moglen and Dawn Worrall as two twelve-year-old girls, effects by Apple Logic, title voiceover by Lynn Odell. I am my own production engineer, and it was more fun than piloting a real cho cho train.
I am trying to interest the other Dog Ears in producing some of their work as radio plays as well. Radio Dog Ear has such a nice ring to it, don’t you think?
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When was the last time you listened to Appalachian Spring? Well, what are you waiting for? It’s perfect for writing overdue thank you notes for your five-year-old’s birthday party right after returning from the Last Frontier Conference in Valdez, Alaska.
Standing in Valdez at midnight, you can see this:
or this:
or this:
or this:
In a word, the conference is summer camp for playwrights, with massive doses of theater and creative energy in a supportive community. It lasts nine days, every region in the country represented. It’s inspiring to meet people from small Alaskan towns totally dedicated to theater. Albee started it but is long gone; I’m told things are more open and democratic now. Dawson Moore, the current conference head, is a sweetheart.
Here’s my Lincoln, the tender and passionate Frank Collison, and his lovely spouse, Laura Gardner:
Here’s some friends I made:
Sweet dream. You know, I actually drank some whiskey.
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The Dog Ear production of Cuts at the Road trundles on. Reviews are in. The upshot is, like all children of Lake Woebegon, I am above average. In point of fact, I am wry, absurdist and thought-provoking. And also, worth watching. These, my adjectives, are pretty much it, but let it be writ down, I am worth watching. I will demonstrate: Above, we see the lovely Ann Noble in a fratracidal moment that is nothing if not thought-provoking.
And here above is Ann with co-conspirator Mark Doerr in a moment that is the very definition of worth watching.
Ann and Mark are joined by Mara Marini in a worth watching and thought-provoking way.
Wryly, Mara interacts with Ann.
Here’s Ann’s final moment, in which, absurdly, she shares her love of books with the audience.
There you have it. As I am only barely beginning what I hope will be a productive run with critics, I will say that, in truth, I am grateful for the attention. Call me a dreamer, I did long for just a teensy bit of elaboration, such as perhaps to say that when a young girl’s father disappears from her life, a hole opens in her psyche into which wry, absurdist and thought-provoking things pour in. But no one said that. Well, I have said it. I am my own critic. But you knew that.
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What a relief to get out of the fast lane. Conversation over dinner at Bruin Woods, the UCLA conference center at Lake Arrowhead, CA. They have alumni family weeks over the summer, alumni family holiday weekends in the fall:
What is it you do?
Me: I’m a playwright.
Oh. It’s a good living?
Me: Nobody makes a living writing plays. Maybe five people. Like, can you name five living playwrights?
Arthur Miller!
Me: Rightio.
Tenessee Williams!
Me: Right again.
What’s his name. The funny guy.
Me: Adam Rapp?
Yeah. The Odd Couple, right?
The place is so popular you have to win a lottery to get in. Literally. We took Graham over New Years. The big hit was this one clump of old snow that hadn’t melted–he called it his “mountain.”
The thing is, Lake Arrowhead, Playground to the Stars, is now a city in the sky: not one inch of lakefront undeveloped, as far as I could see, much of the forest that I remember decimated by the bark beetle.
Then:
Now:
It’s a shame, as I was planning to parlay some of my playwriting millions into a cottage on the lake. Now it’s back to square one.
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Rehearsals for the Dog Ear production of Cuts at the Road proceed apace. My modest contribution, a ten minute perversion entitled Biblio, features three superb actors and a very smart director who said, “This play is confused on so many levels — and I really thank the playwright for that.” It is not often one finds a director willing to give credit where credit is due, and so I accept the honor on behalf of all playwrights everywhere. May I just add that confusion is a state of mind which to my mind matters little in the long run anyway? Yes–let me just add that and be done with it. Except to say that if you are reading this before April 21, 2007 you can see the confusion yourself by ordering a ticket here.
God save the Road Theatre.
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I know, I know. It has been too long. I will not bore you with excuses. I merely pick up the thread. My old rule was blog once or twice a month. My new rule is do what you want. A picture is worth … something. Here is one of my mind, a screenshot of a folder on my desktop, the folder called “What’s Up.” There you have it, for better or worse. Now you are up to speed.
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Graham, like many 4-year-olds, is into super heroes, his favorite being neither Superman nor Captain Marvel, but a pale imitation called Kewl Breeze, who peddles “airated” tennis shoes. We have a piece of advertising masquerading as a comic book — in which Kewl Breeze puts on his “airators” and battles the evil Blacktop, a golem made of hot tar who causes Kewl Breeze’s friends to have stinky feet — which if I have read to him once I have read 100 times.
“Wouldn’t you rather I read Hulk or X-Men?”
“No.”
He listens without a word, then when I’m done furrows his eyebrows. Half a minute goes by, then:
“How him alive?”
“Who, Kewl Breeze?”
“No. Blacktop.”
“Well, sometimes you can make a man out of stuff.”
“But how him alive?”
Should I tell him about the Golem of Prague? I elect for the Talmudic story of God breathing life through Adam’s nostrils.
He looks doubtful.
“It’s sort of like a robot. A robot is sort of alive.”
He’s still dubious. What I dread is going too far, which, when I do, always provokes the quick response, “What you talking about?”
“How are you alive?” I finally say.
This stops him. He cogitates a while, looks around the room meaningfully. We rest into the moment.
Then he says, “Tell about lizards.”
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Civilizations rise and fall, their years being numbered around 500. If ours began with Jamestown, then we are at 400, which dovetails nicely with global warming. I am 100 years old. When I was young doctors made house calls and sent their bills in the mail. Made in Japan was a joke about shoddy goods. We had corporal punishment and drop drills at school. The phone number of my father’s store had 6 digits–there were no area codes, no zip codes. And there was only one kind of kryptonite.
Now I read in the paper, or dreamed I read, that women’s voices are deepening. They are sounding more and more like men. Take that, creationists!
Graham, in the next room, is moping because I won’t give him a vitamin pill.
“You’ll choke on it.”
“No I won’t.”
“I even choke on it.”
I crush the pill and feed him some. “Good,” he says, but doesn’t ask for more. He’s on to rolling his ball.
“Why does it roll straight?”
“Newton’s First Law of Motion.”
He repeats the phrase. He is inventing physics. He will certainly win a MacArthur grant, at the very least. He will discover new kinds of kryptonite, new phone numbers with eight, nine, ten dimensions. But it’s all too fast. I am still trying to remember whether women’s voices are really deepening, or if it was just a dream.
And we have only 100 years left.
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