There are a lot of reasons, i think, to prefer Obama over Clinton. And Obama over McCain or Huckabee or Romney. Some are practical, some idealistic, some based on policy, etc. But, at the same time, I think there is a limit to how excited a rational person should get about any of this. No one can save the world. Everyone, even the president, is going to be constricted by a bunch of things. To put any candidate on a pedestal is, I think, very dangerous.
Yet, there is one reason why I really like Obama.
in my experience as a teacher of a rhetoric and a person, I believe that what divides most people most deeply is that they have different experiences of life which lead to different assumptions about life and different deeply held, animating values. When I use the word value, i don't mean Christian values or some set of static value principles -- I mean the verb value. Different types of Americans value different types of core principles. Some believe in some general concept of personal responsibility over all else. Some believe in collective responsibility, working for the least among us. Some value freedom of speech over all else. Some value loyalty to a cause. These are core principles which, in large part, cannot be altered and -- in large part -- have no inherent moral quality. They are all good in their own way. It's just that some of them preclude or take precedence over others. And which one's you value most effect how you feel about specific, seemingly unrelated, policy.
So -- we all don't like to be taxed but we all agree we need to be taxed a little. The argument is over how much is too much and for what purpose is worthwhile. Where most of us come down on that issue isn't a matter of any individual policy. It's a matter of what we value. And, let me reiterate, most of those values aren't inherently good or bad. They are simply particular to the life experience of the value holder. They may sometimes lead to what I consider to be bad results, but they were probably entered in to in good faith.
What does this have to do with Obama? When he talks about bringing people together, I think he's talking about this. I think he understands, and respects, the different basic assumptions that people make about their life, and I think he knows how to speak to those different values in order to rally people around a common good. When people ask how he will bring people together, they seem to want some kind of 10 step plan -- which to me indicates that they don't understand how to bring people together (of course they don't! They would have done it if they did.) Obama responds by talking about the common good, the things that tie us together (and by implication the things that keep us apart). This seems to indicate that he understands the essential point. the only point that can make it all work.
Also, his life experience implies that he knows this lesson intuitively. If you live in enough different worlds, as he has, it would make sense to have developed a flexible sense of empathy for the values of all different kinds of worlds.
Finally, I remember that at some point in 2005 or 2006, Obama went with Republican Senator Brownback to an evangelical megachurch and spoke about abortion. he acknowledged that a good many people in the ground were probably against it while he wasn't. Then he asked them to consider however whether their behavior in regard to their condemnation of abortion was the best way to acheive what they value. i don't remember the exact words but it was something like -- Do you want to condemn everyone for a mistake you think they have made? (I really wish I could remember the exact words instead of simply the way it led to a conclusion in my head.)
Just going to the church was, I think, a daring leader-like move but being willing to talk to people who are probably, in their way, good, nice, positive, want-to-do-right people and address an issue that incites anger in a way that presents world views rather than policy minutae.
This understanding and respect of the different perspectives, assumptions, rationales, world views, that people bring to an issue that seems to be the basic justification for Obama's campaign is complicated to understand but ultimately I think brilliant, appropriate, correct in practice, and what should be fundamental to anyone who wants to be a real leader -- though it rarely is.
So this is why I really really like Obama. I hope he wins. I hope if he wins that he can accomplish something. who knows? But who knows with anyone,so let's pick the one who seems to understand a diverse group of people best. Since ultimately politics is simply the way in which we all work out our interests collectively.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Monday, January 28, 2008
Politics Again
It really is hard to avoid thinking about the political primaries. They are so easy to fill with drama. Characters. Dreams. Aspirations. Entire world views to consider. Subtext. . . And the slow-motion process that allows for fascinating analysis of tactics.
My favorite so far is the tactic of complaining that complaining isn't a tactic. Or, in more concrete terms, why does anyone spend any time debating whether Bill Clinton should or shouldn't be the "attack dog" for the Hillary Clinton campaign? Or whether its fair for anyone to complain about it? First, he did act like the attack dog for a few weeks, right or wrong, and people did feel it was unfair. Do we really have to figure out who is objectively correct? It's a tactic to act the way he did, and it is also a tactic to complain about him doing it. For the rest of us, who aren't campaign strategists, why do we even bother thinking about it?
My most interesting thought so far about tactics is the idea that Obama's "attack" at the South Carolina debate on Monday night was purposeful -- and purposefully didn't have to succeed very well. He'd been taking hits from Bill and HIllary along the side from New Hampshire to Neveda, so he could either keep taking hits along the side while trying to move forward and ignore them and hope that the hits don't slow him down too much. Or, deciding that the hits are doing real damage, he can turn his boat in to the line of fire.
Turning the boat in to the line of fire will of course result in more punishment for him more quickly. Hence the stupid mainstream media saying that Bill had gotten in to his head and that he was now losing by fighting on their ground. But sometimes, when you're in a fight, you actually have to use tactics that result in loses in order to make gains, right? Turn your boat in to the line of fire, you can get off some shots of your own. . . But, even more importantly, since this isn't really a naval battle, in this case, you're demonstrating for the viewers of the battle that you are brave enough to turn your boat in to fire, you can fire off a couple, and you can point out where all the shrapnel is coming from. Plus, you can hope that once you give them a big enough target, they fire all they've got and you're still standing.
Is this a strategy that might not work? Of course. All strategies might not work. You do them because you think they're the best. They always involve lose, and you keep on fighting. I could be wrong but it doesn't appear to me that most of the press seem to see the forest for the trees. They count up what looks good or bad at that particular moment and think it is reality. I suppose I wouldn't mind some "horse race" coverage if it was just good horse race coverage.
The best battles are the ones where both sides use their strengths to the best of their abilities. Someone's going to win anyway and someone's going to lose but it doesn't mean anyone did anything wrong. Obama doesn't want to attack (He mentions Walmart but not whitewater, lewinsky, etc. ,etc.?) so he really shouldn't except when its the only move. Bill Clinton may be the best weapon Hillary has. So it has a downside. And his attacks are annoying to me. It still may be the best way to fight. It is a mistake of the press to think that there is some kind of platonic ideal of a campaign with some kind of tabula rasa candidate that can just do the exact right thing at the right time. And that you can judge who won a battle outside of the context of who won the war.
Also about the press- I realize why the myth of objectivity has reined in journalism for so long. Because most journalist aren't qualified to do anything but report what they actually saw or heard. Once you allow them to give their assessment of what is happening rather than their stenography of what happened, you realize how long contact with something doesn't make you an expert in it. Experts are expert in it. If only they would be more observant.
Just typing.
My favorite so far is the tactic of complaining that complaining isn't a tactic. Or, in more concrete terms, why does anyone spend any time debating whether Bill Clinton should or shouldn't be the "attack dog" for the Hillary Clinton campaign? Or whether its fair for anyone to complain about it? First, he did act like the attack dog for a few weeks, right or wrong, and people did feel it was unfair. Do we really have to figure out who is objectively correct? It's a tactic to act the way he did, and it is also a tactic to complain about him doing it. For the rest of us, who aren't campaign strategists, why do we even bother thinking about it?
My most interesting thought so far about tactics is the idea that Obama's "attack" at the South Carolina debate on Monday night was purposeful -- and purposefully didn't have to succeed very well. He'd been taking hits from Bill and HIllary along the side from New Hampshire to Neveda, so he could either keep taking hits along the side while trying to move forward and ignore them and hope that the hits don't slow him down too much. Or, deciding that the hits are doing real damage, he can turn his boat in to the line of fire.
Turning the boat in to the line of fire will of course result in more punishment for him more quickly. Hence the stupid mainstream media saying that Bill had gotten in to his head and that he was now losing by fighting on their ground. But sometimes, when you're in a fight, you actually have to use tactics that result in loses in order to make gains, right? Turn your boat in to the line of fire, you can get off some shots of your own. . . But, even more importantly, since this isn't really a naval battle, in this case, you're demonstrating for the viewers of the battle that you are brave enough to turn your boat in to fire, you can fire off a couple, and you can point out where all the shrapnel is coming from. Plus, you can hope that once you give them a big enough target, they fire all they've got and you're still standing.
Is this a strategy that might not work? Of course. All strategies might not work. You do them because you think they're the best. They always involve lose, and you keep on fighting. I could be wrong but it doesn't appear to me that most of the press seem to see the forest for the trees. They count up what looks good or bad at that particular moment and think it is reality. I suppose I wouldn't mind some "horse race" coverage if it was just good horse race coverage.
The best battles are the ones where both sides use their strengths to the best of their abilities. Someone's going to win anyway and someone's going to lose but it doesn't mean anyone did anything wrong. Obama doesn't want to attack (He mentions Walmart but not whitewater, lewinsky, etc. ,etc.?) so he really shouldn't except when its the only move. Bill Clinton may be the best weapon Hillary has. So it has a downside. And his attacks are annoying to me. It still may be the best way to fight. It is a mistake of the press to think that there is some kind of platonic ideal of a campaign with some kind of tabula rasa candidate that can just do the exact right thing at the right time. And that you can judge who won a battle outside of the context of who won the war.
Also about the press- I realize why the myth of objectivity has reined in journalism for so long. Because most journalist aren't qualified to do anything but report what they actually saw or heard. Once you allow them to give their assessment of what is happening rather than their stenography of what happened, you realize how long contact with something doesn't make you an expert in it. Experts are expert in it. If only they would be more observant.
Just typing.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
The Chosen People
I got called in -- as an actor! -- to the Guthrie this weekend to participate in a workshop with Tony Kushner. How, do you ask, do I get called in when there are so many people in this town who are such good actors? Good question.
Someone's got to be able to pronounce bene barak, charoset, and rabbi eliezar correctly. Apparently, there ain't too many of the chosen people in the profession in this town. Who knew that hebrew school would confer this type of professional advantage? Unfortunately, the scenes I was asked to read weren't scenes that he wanted to continue to work on. Not being an actor, I don't actually have the instinct to blame myself for that fact. Honestly, they weren't very good scenes, and he wisely choose to shape and craft something else.
Unfortunately, this meant that I didn't get to come back on Sunday and see a real give and take between actors and a pretty famous and successful writer as he works on his scripts. I was looking forward to watching that much more than I was looking forward to demonstrating my mastery of obscure words of the Kaballah. . . Though, in all honesty, I nailed those mutherfuckering words I did! Nailed 'em!
Anyway, I'm writing to report, that from my brief observation of this workshop process -- yup, they're pretty much the same everywhere. The Director's got nothing to do. The actors are waiting for instructions nervously, and the playwright is neurotic, alternating between ready to tear his hair out and irrationally amusement at lines that no one else gets. Seems like every workshop I've been in either as an actor or a playwright.
The only difference here was that his agent sat in the corner. This genuinely amuses me. The New York agent comes to the workshop of plays that even Tony Kushner didn't take too seriously. The one I read actually says in the dialogue that he wrote it on a plane. (OK. That's a difference. A talkey, polemic that Tony Kushner writes in 15 minutes on a plane gets workshopped at the Guthrie.) I don't know why but I'm laughing my head off as I type this. The agent? It just seems so, I don't know, so something. She laughed more vocally and at more things than anyone else. I wonder if that's part of her job description.
But honestly it was a pretty uneventful experience. We read some short plays. It took three hours. He decided which ones he wanted to keep working on. A bunch of us left. . .
O well. . . It was kind of fun to be almost a real actor for a day though, sitting in a rehearsal room at the big G like a real actor anyway. My first financial perk ever from simply being a jew. I've been waiting you know.
Someone's got to be able to pronounce bene barak, charoset, and rabbi eliezar correctly. Apparently, there ain't too many of the chosen people in the profession in this town. Who knew that hebrew school would confer this type of professional advantage? Unfortunately, the scenes I was asked to read weren't scenes that he wanted to continue to work on. Not being an actor, I don't actually have the instinct to blame myself for that fact. Honestly, they weren't very good scenes, and he wisely choose to shape and craft something else.
Unfortunately, this meant that I didn't get to come back on Sunday and see a real give and take between actors and a pretty famous and successful writer as he works on his scripts. I was looking forward to watching that much more than I was looking forward to demonstrating my mastery of obscure words of the Kaballah. . . Though, in all honesty, I nailed those mutherfuckering words I did! Nailed 'em!
Anyway, I'm writing to report, that from my brief observation of this workshop process -- yup, they're pretty much the same everywhere. The Director's got nothing to do. The actors are waiting for instructions nervously, and the playwright is neurotic, alternating between ready to tear his hair out and irrationally amusement at lines that no one else gets. Seems like every workshop I've been in either as an actor or a playwright.
The only difference here was that his agent sat in the corner. This genuinely amuses me. The New York agent comes to the workshop of plays that even Tony Kushner didn't take too seriously. The one I read actually says in the dialogue that he wrote it on a plane. (OK. That's a difference. A talkey, polemic that Tony Kushner writes in 15 minutes on a plane gets workshopped at the Guthrie.) I don't know why but I'm laughing my head off as I type this. The agent? It just seems so, I don't know, so something. She laughed more vocally and at more things than anyone else. I wonder if that's part of her job description.
But honestly it was a pretty uneventful experience. We read some short plays. It took three hours. He decided which ones he wanted to keep working on. A bunch of us left. . .
O well. . . It was kind of fun to be almost a real actor for a day though, sitting in a rehearsal room at the big G like a real actor anyway. My first financial perk ever from simply being a jew. I've been waiting you know.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Someone Should Write This Play
The major political candidates are at a big debate -- the black guy, the woman, the white handsome southerner, the old military hero, the charming preacher/evangelical, the businessman and/or the creepy robotic religious cult member, the old jowly southerner, and the New Yorker. My god! Look at the fucking archetypes! Look at the paradigms! What are missing? I mean - besides proportionate representation? It's the American narrative writ entirely in symbolic faces. The apotheosis of where television has led us. All the candidates aren't "telegenic," they are instead the best that television can produce, with its limited depth, in terms of understanding America.
Anyway, the major politicians are at a big debate. It's like a survivor-type show of course, Road Rules, where some of them have already been sent to the sidelines and are waiting for their chance to come back on the big finale show and say what they really think of each other personally. The remaining candidates eye each other warily. At this point, they're so tired that they can't think of anything to say but the most tired general platitudes. Republicans spit out words that aren't even sentences "Tax and spend!" "Commies!" "Terrorists!" "Traitors!" "The Rights of the Unborn!" Democrats are mostly tired and insincere "We're just taking it one game at a time and the good lord willin', we'll all float in raised boats." "We are family. I've got all my sisters in me." "This campaign is about you."
A chorus, an aria, a real song that mixes baptist gospel with evangelical gospel with christian rock with classical choral music with a little jazz (you know "america's classical music"), about you, the voter, the empowered, the one who this government is by, for and about. "You, you, you" in all the notes and styles on the American topography.
Then the debate keeps getting interrupted by characters from America's past. Famous icons. Unknown laborers. Archetypal images. John Hancock will not stop passing out his autograph. Thomas Jefferson hits on both the woman and the black candidate. Sojourner Truth. Harriet Beecher Stowe. Colonel Chamberlain (that guy from the Civil War; I think his name is Chamberlain?). Franklin Roosevelt. Cary Grant. Emerson. Madison. Edison. Einstein. Everyone. It's a fucking party/orgy/nightmare. We can't tell whether they're real people or just played by actors to appear real to us.
And outside the hall something is killing off the rest of the people in the country. Maybe its a slow plague. Maybe its a big bomb threat. Maybe its starvation. Nothing specific. Whatever it is, its the subject of much hand-wringing and the occasional really good joke. As long as its a good joke. Maybe an actual person wanders through periodically but decides that he'd rather go back outside with the people he knows personally and loves. Even if it means dying, he'd rather be with the real people he experiences everyday. A few of the real people, however, don't make it back out alive. The icons and the politicians rip them apart or eat them or imprison them. Or, some of them, as though bitten by a zombie bug, don suits and turn in to archetypes themselves.
At some point there also has to be a dance number. Probably to Michael jackson's Thriller. led by Michael Jackson himself.
Anyway, the major politicians are at a big debate. It's like a survivor-type show of course, Road Rules, where some of them have already been sent to the sidelines and are waiting for their chance to come back on the big finale show and say what they really think of each other personally. The remaining candidates eye each other warily. At this point, they're so tired that they can't think of anything to say but the most tired general platitudes. Republicans spit out words that aren't even sentences "Tax and spend!" "Commies!" "Terrorists!" "Traitors!" "The Rights of the Unborn!" Democrats are mostly tired and insincere "We're just taking it one game at a time and the good lord willin', we'll all float in raised boats." "We are family. I've got all my sisters in me." "This campaign is about you."
A chorus, an aria, a real song that mixes baptist gospel with evangelical gospel with christian rock with classical choral music with a little jazz (you know "america's classical music"), about you, the voter, the empowered, the one who this government is by, for and about. "You, you, you" in all the notes and styles on the American topography.
Then the debate keeps getting interrupted by characters from America's past. Famous icons. Unknown laborers. Archetypal images. John Hancock will not stop passing out his autograph. Thomas Jefferson hits on both the woman and the black candidate. Sojourner Truth. Harriet Beecher Stowe. Colonel Chamberlain (that guy from the Civil War; I think his name is Chamberlain?). Franklin Roosevelt. Cary Grant. Emerson. Madison. Edison. Einstein. Everyone. It's a fucking party/orgy/nightmare. We can't tell whether they're real people or just played by actors to appear real to us.
And outside the hall something is killing off the rest of the people in the country. Maybe its a slow plague. Maybe its a big bomb threat. Maybe its starvation. Nothing specific. Whatever it is, its the subject of much hand-wringing and the occasional really good joke. As long as its a good joke. Maybe an actual person wanders through periodically but decides that he'd rather go back outside with the people he knows personally and loves. Even if it means dying, he'd rather be with the real people he experiences everyday. A few of the real people, however, don't make it back out alive. The icons and the politicians rip them apart or eat them or imprison them. Or, some of them, as though bitten by a zombie bug, don suits and turn in to archetypes themselves.
At some point there also has to be a dance number. Probably to Michael jackson's Thriller. led by Michael Jackson himself.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Clinton's Win Would be Unconstitutional
I hope i can write this out, then stop thinking about it for awhile. . . Sometimes my brain works that way. Right now, I find myself thinking too much about politics. I've decided that they want me to think about them this much and being a playwright its too hard to resist. All these candidates for president say, "I am what you want me to be. I am your aspirations. I am your character. On a very large, worldwide, stage. How would you like me to move?" And I spend way too much time thinking of the blocking and the good speeches they could say.
It's clearly unhealthy.
So. Here's my confession. I was torn. I was really torn. Edwards came out with specific, progressive domestic programs that I appreciate. I appreciated even more that he was being specific and aggressive with programs. Clinton is Clinton. The Clinton years were good -- much fucking better than the Bush years on either side. You've got to give her some credit. Also, I feel bad that so many people hate her. What the hell did she do? And Obama -- well, I'd hear a lot of great things about Obama in Illinois way before he was running for Senate or before he gave that speech at the Democratic Convention. Making a long story short, people with no real hidden agenda told me he was the guy to go to if you wanted to have a serious discussion with a serious man who could seriously get things done about issues like education, etc. The real stuff. The real deal. A guy who had been working his whole life in exactly this way - doing way he could, being as honest as he could, as smart as he could. The real deal.
Of course, I was leaning toward Obama. That's some serious references -- and remember this was said to me before he was running for senate. . . but I was holding back largely because I don't understand this search for "the real deal" that everyone is so obsessed about. I want politicians to do their job better so that I don't have to think about their job except occasionally while I go about my own business. Like dentist. Sure, I'll carefully chose the right dentist, but after that, I don't want to think about it very much. Like I said, Edwards was putting out policy proposals. Substance. And Clinton had eight years of "better than now" to run on. Real concrete evidence. I like to think I can be swayed most by evidence and substance rather references.
But now I've got to support Obama. While I will say that any of the three will be better than any of the GOP right now, I don't think Edwards would be a successful president, and Clinton is really starting to make me ill. I don't mind the dirty politics stuff. It's a tough world. Whatever. It's the fact that the stupid nature of her attacks and defense make me wonder whether some of the substance of the GOP attacks in the 90s wasn't correct. . . I hate her for making me wonder that. Bill Clinton can't seem to keep the facts straight to save his life. he says he always opposed the Iraq war? What? he says that the Obama campaign has been smearing him like mad with "80" different campaign pieces. Does anyone know what the hell he's talking about? And Hillary says whatever, mischaracterizes whatever. . . It's all so, whatever. Politics is politics. I woudn't mind it so much if it didn't confirm the worst of what was said about the Clintons during the presidency. Argh! I hate them for making me wonder whether the GOP had a point. Because at the time there was all this mud slinging and I blamed the GOP alone. Now there is all this mudslinging and the only common denominator is the Clintons. Is that a tactic? Keep throwing the mud until everyone is dirty and no one can remember or know who threw the first pile? Argh!?
I like Obama's style. (Why does Edwards imply that negotiation with powerful interests is bad? What else were you going to do -- hit them with a baseball bat? I don't think that's a power of the presidency. Aren't we supposed to remember that negotiation isn't a sign of weakness. You can negotiate with anyone, from strength. In fact, if you intend to avoid war (don't the Democrats intend to avoid war?) you have to negotiate with your enemies. You have to. It's actually not just a question of philosophy but a requirement. Negotiation doesn't mean like or agree or cave. It simply means talk about differences instead of kill about differences. You shouldn't get to decide that certain differences are outside the pale of what you'll talk about. Down that road, again, leads war. Real war.)
He's obviously smart, liberal, compassionate. What else can we ask for? I don't expect miracles from the man but he appears to the best we'll get in a long time.
And finally, I don't buy Clinton's argument about experience. Even if she wasn't repulsing me right now. She's 13 years older than Obama, so she's had longer to build up her resume certainly but still -- He left college and worked with real people on the south side of chicago. She left college and went to law school. She joined a high-powered law firm. He went to harvard law, became the first african-american editor of the review, then became a constitutional law teacher and civil rights lawyer. She was first lady of arkansas. Then she was first lady of the u.s. He became a state senator. She became a senator. He become a senator. Where in there does she check off all the required experience for a president and where does he miss it? They both have done stuff. They both have had experience that can easily be seen as preparatory for other jobs in government.
I don't believe that anyone can understand what its like to be president until you are president. Even if you're the wife of the president. So, do I think either of them can handle the office -- I'm as sure as I can be. They're both smart, experienced, curious. Whatever.
However, if I were to accept Hillary's argument that electing her would be a continuation of the earlier Clinton years -- then I have to think that electing her would be unconstitutional. If they weren't able to make lasting change in the eight years that they got, then the constitution says its time to give someone else a try. . . So, I'm saying, even if I were to buy the co-presidency idea, I think I'd prefer to counterargue that, in this country, you're not supposed to get another four or eight years to try harder. Reagan would have been reelected, but he wasn't allowed. Bill Clinton would have been reelected but he wasn't allowed. If the argument is, in part, to bring back the Clinton years, then I'd say -- trivial but economically happy though they were -- it's time to move on. The constitution would actually like us to.
Yup. This rant isn't going to stop me from obsessing over it. O well.
Nice try though.
It's clearly unhealthy.
So. Here's my confession. I was torn. I was really torn. Edwards came out with specific, progressive domestic programs that I appreciate. I appreciated even more that he was being specific and aggressive with programs. Clinton is Clinton. The Clinton years were good -- much fucking better than the Bush years on either side. You've got to give her some credit. Also, I feel bad that so many people hate her. What the hell did she do? And Obama -- well, I'd hear a lot of great things about Obama in Illinois way before he was running for Senate or before he gave that speech at the Democratic Convention. Making a long story short, people with no real hidden agenda told me he was the guy to go to if you wanted to have a serious discussion with a serious man who could seriously get things done about issues like education, etc. The real stuff. The real deal. A guy who had been working his whole life in exactly this way - doing way he could, being as honest as he could, as smart as he could. The real deal.
Of course, I was leaning toward Obama. That's some serious references -- and remember this was said to me before he was running for senate. . . but I was holding back largely because I don't understand this search for "the real deal" that everyone is so obsessed about. I want politicians to do their job better so that I don't have to think about their job except occasionally while I go about my own business. Like dentist. Sure, I'll carefully chose the right dentist, but after that, I don't want to think about it very much. Like I said, Edwards was putting out policy proposals. Substance. And Clinton had eight years of "better than now" to run on. Real concrete evidence. I like to think I can be swayed most by evidence and substance rather references.
But now I've got to support Obama. While I will say that any of the three will be better than any of the GOP right now, I don't think Edwards would be a successful president, and Clinton is really starting to make me ill. I don't mind the dirty politics stuff. It's a tough world. Whatever. It's the fact that the stupid nature of her attacks and defense make me wonder whether some of the substance of the GOP attacks in the 90s wasn't correct. . . I hate her for making me wonder that. Bill Clinton can't seem to keep the facts straight to save his life. he says he always opposed the Iraq war? What? he says that the Obama campaign has been smearing him like mad with "80" different campaign pieces. Does anyone know what the hell he's talking about? And Hillary says whatever, mischaracterizes whatever. . . It's all so, whatever. Politics is politics. I woudn't mind it so much if it didn't confirm the worst of what was said about the Clintons during the presidency. Argh! I hate them for making me wonder whether the GOP had a point. Because at the time there was all this mud slinging and I blamed the GOP alone. Now there is all this mudslinging and the only common denominator is the Clintons. Is that a tactic? Keep throwing the mud until everyone is dirty and no one can remember or know who threw the first pile? Argh!?
I like Obama's style. (Why does Edwards imply that negotiation with powerful interests is bad? What else were you going to do -- hit them with a baseball bat? I don't think that's a power of the presidency. Aren't we supposed to remember that negotiation isn't a sign of weakness. You can negotiate with anyone, from strength. In fact, if you intend to avoid war (don't the Democrats intend to avoid war?) you have to negotiate with your enemies. You have to. It's actually not just a question of philosophy but a requirement. Negotiation doesn't mean like or agree or cave. It simply means talk about differences instead of kill about differences. You shouldn't get to decide that certain differences are outside the pale of what you'll talk about. Down that road, again, leads war. Real war.)
He's obviously smart, liberal, compassionate. What else can we ask for? I don't expect miracles from the man but he appears to the best we'll get in a long time.
And finally, I don't buy Clinton's argument about experience. Even if she wasn't repulsing me right now. She's 13 years older than Obama, so she's had longer to build up her resume certainly but still -- He left college and worked with real people on the south side of chicago. She left college and went to law school. She joined a high-powered law firm. He went to harvard law, became the first african-american editor of the review, then became a constitutional law teacher and civil rights lawyer. She was first lady of arkansas. Then she was first lady of the u.s. He became a state senator. She became a senator. He become a senator. Where in there does she check off all the required experience for a president and where does he miss it? They both have done stuff. They both have had experience that can easily be seen as preparatory for other jobs in government.
I don't believe that anyone can understand what its like to be president until you are president. Even if you're the wife of the president. So, do I think either of them can handle the office -- I'm as sure as I can be. They're both smart, experienced, curious. Whatever.
However, if I were to accept Hillary's argument that electing her would be a continuation of the earlier Clinton years -- then I have to think that electing her would be unconstitutional. If they weren't able to make lasting change in the eight years that they got, then the constitution says its time to give someone else a try. . . So, I'm saying, even if I were to buy the co-presidency idea, I think I'd prefer to counterargue that, in this country, you're not supposed to get another four or eight years to try harder. Reagan would have been reelected, but he wasn't allowed. Bill Clinton would have been reelected but he wasn't allowed. If the argument is, in part, to bring back the Clinton years, then I'd say -- trivial but economically happy though they were -- it's time to move on. The constitution would actually like us to.
Yup. This rant isn't going to stop me from obsessing over it. O well.
Nice try though.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Power and Trust and New Work
Apparently, when I don't concentrate enough while I write, I ramble. Long sentences with lots of clauses that the reader needs to double back to read and understand. . . Honestly, I can't decide whether I'm happy or sad about this. I think Emerson said that people write they way they think and, you know, sometimes, maybe, we should take pride in being complex and difficult with our thought process. It's a complex and difficult place and challenges are fun. I'll write some rambley sentences; you do some work for a change.
In the corner of the world that is the theater community, I often overhear a debate about the role of the director v. the role of the playwright, text-based theater v. physical theater, collaboratively-created work v. playwright-driven work. . . I admit that I'd ignore these arguments if I wasn't a playwright. It's always seemed to me that all good theater is all of these things together and bad theater of a variety of kinds comes from separating words from physicality or collaboration from scripts.
However, I'm a playwright, and I think that the framing of these debates has gotten in to people's heads in a way that is detrimental to what I want to do in theater. Some people think they can't work with a playwright because playwrights don't collaborate in the rehearsal room like other theater people. Some people think that "physical" theater is preferably to working with a playwright -- as though all theater wasn't physical? Some people think the director must have the final say over the words and actions in the play.
I don't just disagree with these arguments -- Most playwrights I know, by the way, are happy to change a line in the script if there is a better line. It's just the height of nonsense to believe that the "impulse" an actor or director has one day is going to be hugely better than the lines a real writer actually crafted over the course of some months. I'm not against the possibility; I just think that most actors and directors have too little understanding of what the music of language can do and too much faith in the idea that because they speak in words, they have as much credibility with words as a person whose practiced in words. I know how to run but I don't say that I'm a runner.
But my point is that the entire argument misses the mark. When we debate about the "type" of theater we should be creating and how, I think we're really debating about who we TRUST to have the POWER in the rehearsal room. Listen -- Everyone contributes in theater. Everyone's contribution is equally important. Do we even have to debate it? However, someone creates the universe in which the play exists and, at some point, the person who creates the universe will need to say a few times -- "No, that doesn't fit." It's essential for success since the universe needs to be consistent to be effective.
Who is the person who gets to decide? A writer, by definition, creates worlds from nothing. You can't really redefine it. You can find excellent writers who will come in and craft what you've done in a rehearsal room or give ideas about how to unify some actions, etc., but then they aren't really writers -- They're dramaturgs or editors. A writer, when he or she is being a writer, creates universes. Period. If you trust the writer, if you like the writer, then there will be moments when you have to subvert your great idea to the writer's vision. And you will spend a lot of time thinking about the writer's vision.
You will have vision of your own (if you're a director, actor, or designer), you will have great idea's of your own, but we will all serve one vision. No that the writer is serving some vision that come to him or her in the middle of the night anyone -- not some ego trip (we hope).
The truth is that we all serve some unifying vision in order to get a play in front of an audience. Whose vision do we trust? Some directors don't really trust most writers. So they want to create work themselves or they want power over changes to the script. But, I just trying to say, the issue isn't about process ("We should create work with this method! No, we should use that method! This will make better work. No, this will make better!"), the issue is about power and trust.
Writers, maybe because they do so much work alone, often are strange creatures to everyone else in theater. So the idea of following their vision -- unless they're dead and highly praised by English teachers -- seems somewhat odd to many theater people. It's like trusting the cousin you never met with your life savings.
It's a fair worry.
Nonetheless, I'm just saying, writers by definition create a vision. You can't really get around it. And, also, theater, by definition, can't be created without trust.
Rather than argue about theater styles, methods, and types - since good theater incorporates so much -- I think. . . well. . . I guess I think. . . We all need group therapy. Trust exercises. O jeez. I've got to come up with something better than that.
At least, we should see what we're really arguing you about. "I don't want to give up my power! I don't trust you! I don't like you!" that kind of stuff.
In the corner of the world that is the theater community, I often overhear a debate about the role of the director v. the role of the playwright, text-based theater v. physical theater, collaboratively-created work v. playwright-driven work. . . I admit that I'd ignore these arguments if I wasn't a playwright. It's always seemed to me that all good theater is all of these things together and bad theater of a variety of kinds comes from separating words from physicality or collaboration from scripts.
However, I'm a playwright, and I think that the framing of these debates has gotten in to people's heads in a way that is detrimental to what I want to do in theater. Some people think they can't work with a playwright because playwrights don't collaborate in the rehearsal room like other theater people. Some people think that "physical" theater is preferably to working with a playwright -- as though all theater wasn't physical? Some people think the director must have the final say over the words and actions in the play.
I don't just disagree with these arguments -- Most playwrights I know, by the way, are happy to change a line in the script if there is a better line. It's just the height of nonsense to believe that the "impulse" an actor or director has one day is going to be hugely better than the lines a real writer actually crafted over the course of some months. I'm not against the possibility; I just think that most actors and directors have too little understanding of what the music of language can do and too much faith in the idea that because they speak in words, they have as much credibility with words as a person whose practiced in words. I know how to run but I don't say that I'm a runner.
But my point is that the entire argument misses the mark. When we debate about the "type" of theater we should be creating and how, I think we're really debating about who we TRUST to have the POWER in the rehearsal room. Listen -- Everyone contributes in theater. Everyone's contribution is equally important. Do we even have to debate it? However, someone creates the universe in which the play exists and, at some point, the person who creates the universe will need to say a few times -- "No, that doesn't fit." It's essential for success since the universe needs to be consistent to be effective.
Who is the person who gets to decide? A writer, by definition, creates worlds from nothing. You can't really redefine it. You can find excellent writers who will come in and craft what you've done in a rehearsal room or give ideas about how to unify some actions, etc., but then they aren't really writers -- They're dramaturgs or editors. A writer, when he or she is being a writer, creates universes. Period. If you trust the writer, if you like the writer, then there will be moments when you have to subvert your great idea to the writer's vision. And you will spend a lot of time thinking about the writer's vision.
You will have vision of your own (if you're a director, actor, or designer), you will have great idea's of your own, but we will all serve one vision. No that the writer is serving some vision that come to him or her in the middle of the night anyone -- not some ego trip (we hope).
The truth is that we all serve some unifying vision in order to get a play in front of an audience. Whose vision do we trust? Some directors don't really trust most writers. So they want to create work themselves or they want power over changes to the script. But, I just trying to say, the issue isn't about process ("We should create work with this method! No, we should use that method! This will make better work. No, this will make better!"), the issue is about power and trust.
Writers, maybe because they do so much work alone, often are strange creatures to everyone else in theater. So the idea of following their vision -- unless they're dead and highly praised by English teachers -- seems somewhat odd to many theater people. It's like trusting the cousin you never met with your life savings.
It's a fair worry.
Nonetheless, I'm just saying, writers by definition create a vision. You can't really get around it. And, also, theater, by definition, can't be created without trust.
Rather than argue about theater styles, methods, and types - since good theater incorporates so much -- I think. . . well. . . I guess I think. . . We all need group therapy. Trust exercises. O jeez. I've got to come up with something better than that.
At least, we should see what we're really arguing you about. "I don't want to give up my power! I don't trust you! I don't like you!" that kind of stuff.
Monday, January 07, 2008
Arguing with Myself
So, the last post, draft 4, states clearly some ideas I was working through in the previous posts, yet clearly also misses something when stated clearly. You can't make creativity into mathematics. I think the effort is worth it, but here is why I really love writing -- because the form you use to outline an idea has to actually much the energy of the idea. So, I've got to take another look at how I think of and see the basics of drama then phrase it with the same bouncy, frenetic, wild, and wonderful energy of the elements in the first place.
But I'm a little tired of this argument at the moment -- and anyway, I haven't used this blog for thoughtful writing yet. Once I've decided to sit down and craft something, I probably won't blog about. I do like the way this has helped me brainstorm. (I'm still kind of fascinated by the way the pseudo-public nature of this typing effects my thinking but again -- nothing to see here . . . yet.) --
Today, I have a little tiny rant. As a playwright, I get frustrated by the professional behavior of other theater people toward playwrights so much. But, the truth is, few things are stated explicitly. it's all a game of who read what and who may have said what they really felt to who and what is anyone thinking and playwrights, who haven't already had a "breakthrough" play, are kind of the last to know. Plus, while I know some people in the professional theater world, I don't know very many so any opinion I have about what theater people do is so obviously limited that I'm afraid I'm not even talking reality when I get so frustrated. Still, I've got to trust me instincts.
There is so much I could point out but let's just start with the most recent frustration. Someone told someone who knows me that they read the play I sent them but "didn't understand it." First -- They didn't tell me anything themselves. Just repeated to someone else. A little rude and disrespectful because its hard not to think that what they really meant by didn't understand it was "didn't think it was any good." If they didn't understand it but were confident in my ability, then wouldn't they have had a conversation with me?
But, second, let's just take that comment at face value. So he didn't understand the play. . . Is that necessarily a problem? I know of course we see it as a problem but let me posit that the problem is really with the reader's expectations. Does the fact that he didn't understand him actually really make him think that it isn't understandable? Like I didn't understand it either? Like I didn't understand Shakespeare when I was younger and read him on my own, before I knew language better and a good teacher explained character to me, and therefore I should conclude that, on first read, the incomprehensibility was Shakespeare's problem, not mine. All good poems I've ever read, T.S. Elliott for example, never make sense on the first, second, or third read. But they're worth reading again.
I'm not suggesting that I'm Shakespeare or T.S. Elliott (though what's wrong with high aspirations?). I actually think my work is less purposefully vague than most poetry. I'm just saying that when you read something on a page that is intended for performance in front of an audience and you don't understand it, read it again. Try to figure it out. You might find it rewarding. . Unless, of course, you do think that the playwright doesn't understand the play either. Or, when you say you didn't understand it, you really mean that you understood that the playwright can't write. If you think the playwright can write, maybe he or she knows what he's doing.
Personally, I keep coming back to my belief that theater is an experience rather than an essay. And so I keep coming back to the parallel between theater and live music. I don't "understand" Beethoven's 5th but I do enjoy it and while I'm experiencing it in performance, it makes a kind of sense to me. The highs and lows follow each other in a way that seems more than appropriate, the climax is compelling, the ride is a real heady and emotional trip. When its done, I still don't "understand'' it in any sensical way but I feel like I really do understand the experience I just had. (Again, not putting myself on an artistic level with Beethoven, just finding appropriate analogies.) If you showed me the score, however, I would find the thing entirely incomprehensible. I wouldn't rely solely on the score to judge the work. And, even if I were a musician, my understanding of the notes would be an appreciation for their internal logic rather than an intellectual understanding of their meaning.
I wonder whether I'm the only one who sees theater more as music than essay. I doubt it. So I wonder whether I'm the only one who reads scripts as though they were music. Who knows? I don't really know what this person meant by his comment because, well, no one actually engages anyone in real forthright criticism out of either a lack of time, a lack of respect, or a lack of backbone. Everything is either good or bad on first glance.
What a pain in my ass.
But I'm a little tired of this argument at the moment -- and anyway, I haven't used this blog for thoughtful writing yet. Once I've decided to sit down and craft something, I probably won't blog about. I do like the way this has helped me brainstorm. (I'm still kind of fascinated by the way the pseudo-public nature of this typing effects my thinking but again -- nothing to see here . . . yet.) --
Today, I have a little tiny rant. As a playwright, I get frustrated by the professional behavior of other theater people toward playwrights so much. But, the truth is, few things are stated explicitly. it's all a game of who read what and who may have said what they really felt to who and what is anyone thinking and playwrights, who haven't already had a "breakthrough" play, are kind of the last to know. Plus, while I know some people in the professional theater world, I don't know very many so any opinion I have about what theater people do is so obviously limited that I'm afraid I'm not even talking reality when I get so frustrated. Still, I've got to trust me instincts.
There is so much I could point out but let's just start with the most recent frustration. Someone told someone who knows me that they read the play I sent them but "didn't understand it." First -- They didn't tell me anything themselves. Just repeated to someone else. A little rude and disrespectful because its hard not to think that what they really meant by didn't understand it was "didn't think it was any good." If they didn't understand it but were confident in my ability, then wouldn't they have had a conversation with me?
But, second, let's just take that comment at face value. So he didn't understand the play. . . Is that necessarily a problem? I know of course we see it as a problem but let me posit that the problem is really with the reader's expectations. Does the fact that he didn't understand him actually really make him think that it isn't understandable? Like I didn't understand it either? Like I didn't understand Shakespeare when I was younger and read him on my own, before I knew language better and a good teacher explained character to me, and therefore I should conclude that, on first read, the incomprehensibility was Shakespeare's problem, not mine. All good poems I've ever read, T.S. Elliott for example, never make sense on the first, second, or third read. But they're worth reading again.
I'm not suggesting that I'm Shakespeare or T.S. Elliott (though what's wrong with high aspirations?). I actually think my work is less purposefully vague than most poetry. I'm just saying that when you read something on a page that is intended for performance in front of an audience and you don't understand it, read it again. Try to figure it out. You might find it rewarding. . Unless, of course, you do think that the playwright doesn't understand the play either. Or, when you say you didn't understand it, you really mean that you understood that the playwright can't write. If you think the playwright can write, maybe he or she knows what he's doing.
Personally, I keep coming back to my belief that theater is an experience rather than an essay. And so I keep coming back to the parallel between theater and live music. I don't "understand" Beethoven's 5th but I do enjoy it and while I'm experiencing it in performance, it makes a kind of sense to me. The highs and lows follow each other in a way that seems more than appropriate, the climax is compelling, the ride is a real heady and emotional trip. When its done, I still don't "understand'' it in any sensical way but I feel like I really do understand the experience I just had. (Again, not putting myself on an artistic level with Beethoven, just finding appropriate analogies.) If you showed me the score, however, I would find the thing entirely incomprehensible. I wouldn't rely solely on the score to judge the work. And, even if I were a musician, my understanding of the notes would be an appreciation for their internal logic rather than an intellectual understanding of their meaning.
I wonder whether I'm the only one who sees theater more as music than essay. I doubt it. So I wonder whether I'm the only one who reads scripts as though they were music. Who knows? I don't really know what this person meant by his comment because, well, no one actually engages anyone in real forthright criticism out of either a lack of time, a lack of respect, or a lack of backbone. Everything is either good or bad on first glance.
What a pain in my ass.
Saturday, January 05, 2008
Draft 4
Conflict and action aren't really hard -- at least, I don't think they're hard. 1. Conflict people seem to understand. They may avoid it, even in some theater god love'em, but they know what it is. 2. Action can be almost anything from blowing up a building to lifting a finger.
No play has to do any number of these things to any particular degree. I simply believe they have to be there somewhere, and they are the basic building blocks of all drama.
Character and context are where the current theater falls down or rises up. So many creative artists seem to care more about ideas and arguments then people. Therefore the characters are only developed enough to support the ideas or arguments. They are inflexible and unreal. In fact, context and character must inform each other. While I wrote that character comes first in the last post -- because people and compassion must come first -- but characters are shaped by the context in which they live. So, you can't simply say "Joe wants x and is afraid of y" and believe you've defined your character. Character and context, and action too, keep doubling back on each other to change each other and the story. When you're married to much to an inanimate object (like an idea) then your characters never really live and/or they never feel like they inhabit a real world.
Some plays I see either have the outline of characters in service to an idea or they have hyper-specific characters that don't exist in a living, breathing world that matters to them. They are inviolate people who could be plucked down in 1970s Soviet Russia and have the same domestic drama problems they have in the present time. I don't mean same as in universal -- I mean the same as in exactly the same -- nothing outside the concept of this character has any effect on their personality, behavior, or beliefs. At best, there is an obvious, unrealistic cause and effect relationship like "Because my mother divorced my father, I changed from a sweet little boy to a sarcastic little boy." It's clear, I suppose, but also dead. And false. And therefore dead.
Depending on the story and the effect you want to have on the audience, structure follows from context and character. Simply, if a character is a bit whacked out and you want the audience to experience that perspective, you might structure the play's dialogue or timeframe or whatever a little more whacked out. . . That example is way over simplified but you get the point.
The basics. More to come.
No play has to do any number of these things to any particular degree. I simply believe they have to be there somewhere, and they are the basic building blocks of all drama.
Character and context are where the current theater falls down or rises up. So many creative artists seem to care more about ideas and arguments then people. Therefore the characters are only developed enough to support the ideas or arguments. They are inflexible and unreal. In fact, context and character must inform each other. While I wrote that character comes first in the last post -- because people and compassion must come first -- but characters are shaped by the context in which they live. So, you can't simply say "Joe wants x and is afraid of y" and believe you've defined your character. Character and context, and action too, keep doubling back on each other to change each other and the story. When you're married to much to an inanimate object (like an idea) then your characters never really live and/or they never feel like they inhabit a real world.
Some plays I see either have the outline of characters in service to an idea or they have hyper-specific characters that don't exist in a living, breathing world that matters to them. They are inviolate people who could be plucked down in 1970s Soviet Russia and have the same domestic drama problems they have in the present time. I don't mean same as in universal -- I mean the same as in exactly the same -- nothing outside the concept of this character has any effect on their personality, behavior, or beliefs. At best, there is an obvious, unrealistic cause and effect relationship like "Because my mother divorced my father, I changed from a sweet little boy to a sarcastic little boy." It's clear, I suppose, but also dead. And false. And therefore dead.
Depending on the story and the effect you want to have on the audience, structure follows from context and character. Simply, if a character is a bit whacked out and you want the audience to experience that perspective, you might structure the play's dialogue or timeframe or whatever a little more whacked out. . . That example is way over simplified but you get the point.
The basics. More to come.
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Thinking Out Loud -- 3rd Try
So, when I look at the first post in this series, I realize that everything I said about structure can be construed to justify some of the silly, quirky but heartless plays that do get produced in Downtown, off-off-Broadway New York these days (and of course find their way on to stages around the country because they were produced in New York). I didn't mean to justify that stuff because something does seem to be missing from it. Too much focus on busting up paradigms. Reactionary is always confirmation of the conventional in a way.
Then, when I look at what I posted from William Faulkner, it occurs to me that his words could be used to justify the singularly-focused family drama, the narcissistic focus on the individual's struggle with him or herself. I of course was thinking of the type of story that Faulkner tells and not seeing the words in their most obvious meaning. I mean -- Faulkner does just tell the family story, doesn't he? But he makes it in to the biggest story on earth somehow. And structure is fluid with him.
However, the thought occurs to me that the problem with trying to define what is wrong with theater or what theater needs comes down to a question of the definition of words. I've read and heard relatively successful playwrights urging their fellow playwrights to be more daring, or more brave, or more something. Who doesn't think they're being these things when they are writing? The problem is definition. I remember a condescending playwright acquaintance passing me an old Mac Wellman essay in an obvious attempt to shake me up. I remember reading it and thinking -- "Yeah, of course, I agree, and I'm the playwright who does this stuff. Not you!" We both interpreted the words to justify our own aesthetic. We all think we're worldbeaters and visionaries, don't we? Why bother with such an underpaid, disrespected craft if you don't?
So, why even bother trying to define it when the pitfalls are so huge? I'm either naive, or ignorant, or arrogant, or condescending, or silly, when I get in to this stuff, aren't I?
Yet, I feel like I need to know. I need to know what it is I'm doing that other people can't or won't. I need to be able to articulate some kind of essence so I can walk away with some dignity when I see another play I don't like getting an expensive production somewhere.
When i was teaching, I used to tell my students that all good stories begin with the following elements -- Good stories, by the way, regardless of the medium -- Characters in conflict acting in a certain context. Characters. Conflict. Action. Context.
I taught my playwright students that you could work this stuff in a linear order though, of course, nothing in the creative process is linear. Nonetheless --
I think we have to begin with character because we have to be writing about people. All of the sound and fury, all of the noise, all of the purpose, must be because we care about people. If you're not writing about people, then why write? What else is there? Mathematics? Philosophy? Maybe. Sure. Except the medium wouldn't be art then. Art must be about people because its for people. It's not for the gods. They don't need us. And its not for inanimate objects. And its not for some platonic ideal because, well, I just don't believe in platonic ideals and even if I did, I still think college philosophy or religion courses are a better medium for philosophy and religion.
So -- characters. Even if you're inspired by an idea, if you don't bring it down to the level of character in some fashion then what?
This is what I think is fundamentally wrong with a certain number of otherwise intelligent, well-crafted theater. The creators care more about philosophy or structure or thesis statements or something then they do about people. It's the first, missed step.
The simplest way to define character is by knowing what they want and what they fear. Once you know either of these two things, conflict comes easily. Simply deny them what they want.
Personally, I'm most interested in a story when the simply fact that all characters are acting in good faith to get what they want and avoid what they fear impedes the ability of other characters to get what they want or avoid what they fear. This strikes me as life. We're all going along and the bouncing of all our characters together cause unavoidably and blame-neutral conflict.
Once you have conflict, your characters should do some action in order to accomplish their goals. We enjoy action. It's part of our makeup. I don't know why. As soon as you have these three things, you have something watchable for at least some period of time.
Finally, when you add context, you give the story resonance, significance, meaning. To me this is the second missed step by other otherwise well-crafted plays (often different kinds of plays). They lack a larger context in which their characters are placed.
For example, I want an orange. Juliet wants an orange. We both make a break for the orange. You'll actually watch for a while. Now, add to this little drama that its the last orange on earth because global climate change has killed all the other crops, or whoever gets the orange gets to be king, or some other larger societal context, and you've maybe got yourself a real story.
I'm not saying you should make the story entirely about context. I'm saying the story should be about characters but those people will be acting within a certain civilization and the storyteller should make sure this is a part of the story.
Of course, if you're writing plays, then the medium requires other considerations. Language. Dialogue. If you're writing, fiction, I don't know but I guess the additional considerations are slightly different. Regardless of the medium, form should follow function. So, once you know these four elements of your story, you should use the medium you write in and its capabilities to find the appropriate structure. (See Faulkner again.)
In theater, there are so many more tools at our disposable than we seem to use. So many things can be done. But they have to all begin with characters in conflict acting within a certain context.
I could go on and on about structure but right now I'm just trying to hit the basics.
Finally, I don't know about other writers but I think a lot about "effect." Effect on the audience. What do I want them to feel, experience, wonder. I rarely want them to think one particular thing in large part because I think its a waste of the medium. if I want them to think one particular thing, then I think its effective to just say the thing instead of writing a play. People do understand clearly stated thesis statements without the drama. Especially if your theme is as concise as so many plays ultimate points seem to be these days.
I want to have an effect on the audience that they feel in their gut, in their heart, and in their head -- but, I'm afraid, if what is in their head is too clear, then they'll ignore their gut and their heart and align everything with the thought in their head. Honestly, I want to confuse in an entertaining way rather than confirm in a comforting, emotional kind of way.
Forgive me. Some subjects, I need to pretend I have an audience in order to think clearly in my own head. Like when I'm trying to teach myself something, I need to pretend that I need to teach it to someone else. . . I'm sure I'll take a fourth crack at these ideas soon anyway.
Then, when I look at what I posted from William Faulkner, it occurs to me that his words could be used to justify the singularly-focused family drama, the narcissistic focus on the individual's struggle with him or herself. I of course was thinking of the type of story that Faulkner tells and not seeing the words in their most obvious meaning. I mean -- Faulkner does just tell the family story, doesn't he? But he makes it in to the biggest story on earth somehow. And structure is fluid with him.
However, the thought occurs to me that the problem with trying to define what is wrong with theater or what theater needs comes down to a question of the definition of words. I've read and heard relatively successful playwrights urging their fellow playwrights to be more daring, or more brave, or more something. Who doesn't think they're being these things when they are writing? The problem is definition. I remember a condescending playwright acquaintance passing me an old Mac Wellman essay in an obvious attempt to shake me up. I remember reading it and thinking -- "Yeah, of course, I agree, and I'm the playwright who does this stuff. Not you!" We both interpreted the words to justify our own aesthetic. We all think we're worldbeaters and visionaries, don't we? Why bother with such an underpaid, disrespected craft if you don't?
So, why even bother trying to define it when the pitfalls are so huge? I'm either naive, or ignorant, or arrogant, or condescending, or silly, when I get in to this stuff, aren't I?
Yet, I feel like I need to know. I need to know what it is I'm doing that other people can't or won't. I need to be able to articulate some kind of essence so I can walk away with some dignity when I see another play I don't like getting an expensive production somewhere.
When i was teaching, I used to tell my students that all good stories begin with the following elements -- Good stories, by the way, regardless of the medium -- Characters in conflict acting in a certain context. Characters. Conflict. Action. Context.
I taught my playwright students that you could work this stuff in a linear order though, of course, nothing in the creative process is linear. Nonetheless --
I think we have to begin with character because we have to be writing about people. All of the sound and fury, all of the noise, all of the purpose, must be because we care about people. If you're not writing about people, then why write? What else is there? Mathematics? Philosophy? Maybe. Sure. Except the medium wouldn't be art then. Art must be about people because its for people. It's not for the gods. They don't need us. And its not for inanimate objects. And its not for some platonic ideal because, well, I just don't believe in platonic ideals and even if I did, I still think college philosophy or religion courses are a better medium for philosophy and religion.
So -- characters. Even if you're inspired by an idea, if you don't bring it down to the level of character in some fashion then what?
This is what I think is fundamentally wrong with a certain number of otherwise intelligent, well-crafted theater. The creators care more about philosophy or structure or thesis statements or something then they do about people. It's the first, missed step.
The simplest way to define character is by knowing what they want and what they fear. Once you know either of these two things, conflict comes easily. Simply deny them what they want.
Personally, I'm most interested in a story when the simply fact that all characters are acting in good faith to get what they want and avoid what they fear impedes the ability of other characters to get what they want or avoid what they fear. This strikes me as life. We're all going along and the bouncing of all our characters together cause unavoidably and blame-neutral conflict.
Once you have conflict, your characters should do some action in order to accomplish their goals. We enjoy action. It's part of our makeup. I don't know why. As soon as you have these three things, you have something watchable for at least some period of time.
Finally, when you add context, you give the story resonance, significance, meaning. To me this is the second missed step by other otherwise well-crafted plays (often different kinds of plays). They lack a larger context in which their characters are placed.
For example, I want an orange. Juliet wants an orange. We both make a break for the orange. You'll actually watch for a while. Now, add to this little drama that its the last orange on earth because global climate change has killed all the other crops, or whoever gets the orange gets to be king, or some other larger societal context, and you've maybe got yourself a real story.
I'm not saying you should make the story entirely about context. I'm saying the story should be about characters but those people will be acting within a certain civilization and the storyteller should make sure this is a part of the story.
Of course, if you're writing plays, then the medium requires other considerations. Language. Dialogue. If you're writing, fiction, I don't know but I guess the additional considerations are slightly different. Regardless of the medium, form should follow function. So, once you know these four elements of your story, you should use the medium you write in and its capabilities to find the appropriate structure. (See Faulkner again.)
In theater, there are so many more tools at our disposable than we seem to use. So many things can be done. But they have to all begin with characters in conflict acting within a certain context.
I could go on and on about structure but right now I'm just trying to hit the basics.
Finally, I don't know about other writers but I think a lot about "effect." Effect on the audience. What do I want them to feel, experience, wonder. I rarely want them to think one particular thing in large part because I think its a waste of the medium. if I want them to think one particular thing, then I think its effective to just say the thing instead of writing a play. People do understand clearly stated thesis statements without the drama. Especially if your theme is as concise as so many plays ultimate points seem to be these days.
I want to have an effect on the audience that they feel in their gut, in their heart, and in their head -- but, I'm afraid, if what is in their head is too clear, then they'll ignore their gut and their heart and align everything with the thought in their head. Honestly, I want to confuse in an entertaining way rather than confirm in a comforting, emotional kind of way.
Forgive me. Some subjects, I need to pretend I have an audience in order to think clearly in my own head. Like when I'm trying to teach myself something, I need to pretend that I need to teach it to someone else. . . I'm sure I'll take a fourth crack at these ideas soon anyway.
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
On second thought
OK.
I just reread my last rant and realized that it isn't as unique as I thought it was while writing it. The other voices in my hand, the balance voices, the schizophrenic me, realizes that there are many new plays that play with structure and paradigm.
Yet, they still seem somehow constricted (and often just seem to result in clever whimsiness). The key point, the only key point, may be the one about "relevance" and our fucked definition of it in theater.
If we expand our definition of what kind of life can be represented on stage, then form will follow function appropriately. And actually, William Faulkner explained the problem with content better than I ranted about it.
From his Nobel speech -- and this is great and this would have an immediate real effect on structural paradigms if taken seriously --
"Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.
He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed - love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands.
Until he relearns these things, he will write as though he stood among and watched the end of man. I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last dingdong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail."
I just reread my last rant and realized that it isn't as unique as I thought it was while writing it. The other voices in my hand, the balance voices, the schizophrenic me, realizes that there are many new plays that play with structure and paradigm.
Yet, they still seem somehow constricted (and often just seem to result in clever whimsiness). The key point, the only key point, may be the one about "relevance" and our fucked definition of it in theater.
If we expand our definition of what kind of life can be represented on stage, then form will follow function appropriately. And actually, William Faulkner explained the problem with content better than I ranted about it.
From his Nobel speech -- and this is great and this would have an immediate real effect on structural paradigms if taken seriously --
"Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.
He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed - love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands.
Until he relearns these things, he will write as though he stood among and watched the end of man. I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last dingdong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail."
More Thoughts on Theater
Wanted to write something concrete this morning as though it would somehow cut through the slight hangover. It's a clarifying hangover, a hangover that makes life a little simpler, a hangover more from excitement than actual booze. It's a new year and life can be fun and the year is new and what the fuck -- I'm of a certain age at this point and who the hell cares anymore whose right or wrong. I'm really starting to enjoy the genuine whateverness of a blog. I could be completely misinformed but I can say it like I'm the smartest man alive. It's for other people to see but the odds of anyone seeing it are minimal, so you can be both arrogant and yet humbly cautious at once.
Is theater art or entertainment? If its only entertainment than it almost, almost, makes sense that most theater is focused on "relevance" so much as in, how is this play relevant to what is published on the front page of the newspaper ever day. Of course, the problem with that thinking is that most people do not spend all or even some of their time thinking exclusively about what is in the newspaper and thinking that it is relevant to their life. (Should they? Another blog.) So how mainstream, institutional people at the institutions and mainstream theaters define "relevance" is actually pretty fucking flawed. . . But o well, they have to have some operating theory so I guess they go under the one that theater should confront that which everyone is talking about and we can only guess what everyone is talking about by what they put into newspapers. . . Wow, maybe theater is dying not on its own merits but for the same reasons that newspapers are dying?. . . neither here nor there. . .
Also, in addition to a ridiculous focus on "relevance" and a bad definition of it, theater follows a story telling structure more like television and movies than it needs to be. The concept of the hero and the journey and the transformation, change, and Aristotelian definitions of thematic unity and purpose. (Why has nothing more than critic, a critic who has been proven wrong in the other areas of the world -- science especially -- that he wrote about, seem to have had such a disproportionate influence on western drama? I haven't read him in a while but don't most plays still in some way follow his precepts? At least most critics do? And while he was close on physics, he was proven to be pretty fucking wrong, wasn't he? Maybe he's close but pretty fucking wrong on theater too?) Anyway, the best playwrights -- Shakespeare and Chekhov most obviously -- don't give a rat's ass to these concepts of unity and singular hero, etc. Sure, you can do productions of their plays in that fashion but you always have to cut out a bunch of stuff to make it work -- and then act as though that was the playwright's real intention he just wasn't good enough to see it. Shakespeare and Chekhov when done in total really don't follow at all the structure of most american theatre today. And, to be perfectly honest, I'm not really convinced that the audience prefers what we do today to what they wrote in the past. In fact, I think the evidence might suggest otherwise. I'm saying that maybe there wasn't a shift in the audience away from a complete different structure of theater -- the shift was in the theatermakers and then justified after the fact that it was a cultural shift. And now no one can see the forest or the trees.
Probably movies and television, or movies at least, work so well with a more focused, hero-y structure that we got confused and thought that the audience wasn't capable of different kinds of storytelling styles in different formats. Something like that though I'm only guessing.
So I'm saying, with probably more words than I need, that theater makers should bust up the structure of their work in such a way that they reincorporate all the glorious possibilities we see utilized in Shakespeare and Chekhov. So the actor is incomprehensibly aware of the audience? So the time and place jump around like the characters are swept up in a tornado? So there are six different stories that really don't cohere no matter how hard the critics try to find a thematic connection? they're connected because the playwright was interested. So there are an assortment of important characters and no heros? Plus, more options now too. People can break into song with the play being a musical. Damn dancers are good. Not the stupid imitation in a shakespeare play of the jig we for odd reasons think they were always doing, but really dancers dancing in a play. Why the hell not? use the amazing possibilities for set and light and sound design in the storytelling of the play. Unify everything in a vision of the world (like S and C) did rather than a laser-like and ultimately dull focus on thematic unity.
(Really? In a play, we can only say one thing? Really? Who came up with that fucking idea?)
Which leads me my next point: Write not about what is relevant to newspapers but what is relevant to life. Go to an art museum and see how the considerations can be political but also about the body and our relationship to the earth and animals and a striving for meaning and the soul and generalized fear and specific fear and beauty and mortality and comedy and, I mean, jesus, it's art -- it's everything and it can address everything! Why shouldn't it address everything!?! OK. Maybe not everything at once but certainly more than theater has been addressing if you take every play produced in a 50 mile area in the last year.
Look. I'm not advocating performance art. If we're any good, we should be able to do all this while still telling an entertaining story. If we can't, they we really stink. But if we can, then we should be able to pound home our desired effect better because we do it with story AND panache.
Seriously. Tell me how I'm wrong. What am I missing? Why not? Is there really anything to lose by busting up a paradigm that doesn't work particularly well anyone? BUst up the paradigm! I want that on a t-shirt. . . It's a good thing I'm already married because I'd never get laid again with that t-shirt.
Is theater art or entertainment? If its only entertainment than it almost, almost, makes sense that most theater is focused on "relevance" so much as in, how is this play relevant to what is published on the front page of the newspaper ever day. Of course, the problem with that thinking is that most people do not spend all or even some of their time thinking exclusively about what is in the newspaper and thinking that it is relevant to their life. (Should they? Another blog.) So how mainstream, institutional people at the institutions and mainstream theaters define "relevance" is actually pretty fucking flawed. . . But o well, they have to have some operating theory so I guess they go under the one that theater should confront that which everyone is talking about and we can only guess what everyone is talking about by what they put into newspapers. . . Wow, maybe theater is dying not on its own merits but for the same reasons that newspapers are dying?. . . neither here nor there. . .
Also, in addition to a ridiculous focus on "relevance" and a bad definition of it, theater follows a story telling structure more like television and movies than it needs to be. The concept of the hero and the journey and the transformation, change, and Aristotelian definitions of thematic unity and purpose. (Why has nothing more than critic, a critic who has been proven wrong in the other areas of the world -- science especially -- that he wrote about, seem to have had such a disproportionate influence on western drama? I haven't read him in a while but don't most plays still in some way follow his precepts? At least most critics do? And while he was close on physics, he was proven to be pretty fucking wrong, wasn't he? Maybe he's close but pretty fucking wrong on theater too?) Anyway, the best playwrights -- Shakespeare and Chekhov most obviously -- don't give a rat's ass to these concepts of unity and singular hero, etc. Sure, you can do productions of their plays in that fashion but you always have to cut out a bunch of stuff to make it work -- and then act as though that was the playwright's real intention he just wasn't good enough to see it. Shakespeare and Chekhov when done in total really don't follow at all the structure of most american theatre today. And, to be perfectly honest, I'm not really convinced that the audience prefers what we do today to what they wrote in the past. In fact, I think the evidence might suggest otherwise. I'm saying that maybe there wasn't a shift in the audience away from a complete different structure of theater -- the shift was in the theatermakers and then justified after the fact that it was a cultural shift. And now no one can see the forest or the trees.
Probably movies and television, or movies at least, work so well with a more focused, hero-y structure that we got confused and thought that the audience wasn't capable of different kinds of storytelling styles in different formats. Something like that though I'm only guessing.
So I'm saying, with probably more words than I need, that theater makers should bust up the structure of their work in such a way that they reincorporate all the glorious possibilities we see utilized in Shakespeare and Chekhov. So the actor is incomprehensibly aware of the audience? So the time and place jump around like the characters are swept up in a tornado? So there are six different stories that really don't cohere no matter how hard the critics try to find a thematic connection? they're connected because the playwright was interested. So there are an assortment of important characters and no heros? Plus, more options now too. People can break into song with the play being a musical. Damn dancers are good. Not the stupid imitation in a shakespeare play of the jig we for odd reasons think they were always doing, but really dancers dancing in a play. Why the hell not? use the amazing possibilities for set and light and sound design in the storytelling of the play. Unify everything in a vision of the world (like S and C) did rather than a laser-like and ultimately dull focus on thematic unity.
(Really? In a play, we can only say one thing? Really? Who came up with that fucking idea?)
Which leads me my next point: Write not about what is relevant to newspapers but what is relevant to life. Go to an art museum and see how the considerations can be political but also about the body and our relationship to the earth and animals and a striving for meaning and the soul and generalized fear and specific fear and beauty and mortality and comedy and, I mean, jesus, it's art -- it's everything and it can address everything! Why shouldn't it address everything!?! OK. Maybe not everything at once but certainly more than theater has been addressing if you take every play produced in a 50 mile area in the last year.
Look. I'm not advocating performance art. If we're any good, we should be able to do all this while still telling an entertaining story. If we can't, they we really stink. But if we can, then we should be able to pound home our desired effect better because we do it with story AND panache.
Seriously. Tell me how I'm wrong. What am I missing? Why not? Is there really anything to lose by busting up a paradigm that doesn't work particularly well anyone? BUst up the paradigm! I want that on a t-shirt. . . It's a good thing I'm already married because I'd never get laid again with that t-shirt.
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