It wouldn't let me sleep.
So I did what any writer suffering the birthing pangs of a particularly difficult play would do... Fish the play out of the garbage bin, down a few frappes, pop a few red bulls and camp in front of the comp.
And it worked. I passed out for a few days after... But I think I've made my next breakthrough on the play, and draft four emerges!
The challenge has always been on the second half of the play and for the first time I felt a degree of coherence in the madness. I also realised that I was cramping the play by forcing all the action into three performers. After the reading in Bombay, I felt the need to "open out" the play and let it breathe a bit. Which seems to have payed off. Now enough back-patting... I have some stuff to think about...
One of the things that often frustrates me whenever I watch a play is the appallingly slow pace of most plays. Maybe this is a subjective thing, or maybe it's because as a playwright I find it difficult to watch a play without probing into it's construction as I'm watching it. I often find the best plays immerse me in their world so totally, that I am not allowed the time to pick at the seams. Conversely, other plays plod along and I find my attention wandering to the set, the lights, the time and where we're going for dinner.
The beauty of the theatre is the ability to create stage images. Unlike cinematic images, these images are live, charged and electric! They don't have the precision and range of the cinematic image (ECU, ELS) but what they do posses is live energy. I've seen over 50 plays in the last few months and it's really got me thinking about my own craft.
I think our ability to assimilate information is high. Our brains don't come apart at smash cuts, jump cuts, split screens, quick intercuts etc. We process information, and we process it fast! I find myself throwing out mountains of expositiory material in favour of lean, pointed action. And I think it's gotten to the point where the play moves along at a somewhat blistering pace. And I think one of the things that I have been trying to do is to combine the electricity of the live image, with a certain pace...
(Or maybe this is just my own version of "hearing the notes that aren't played" ...)
Anyway, I'm a firm believer in "leaving out" things. The trick is trying to figure out what to leave out. And the trickiest part is discovering something in the text and then burying it again! The beauty of this is that it still stays with the play... giving it a certain density, a certain crackle... that I really love.
Hmm... talking craft into the echoes of cyber space again.
Anyone out there?
