A New Awareness

This past semester, my second-to-last in my undergraduate career, I took several classes on writing for television. I examined writing for sketch and late night shows, sitcoms, and hour-long dramas, which is practically the whole gambit if you exclude reality shows, which I do for numerous reasons.

Anyways, I was immersed in television writing, and I found that I really liked it. It's not just the steady paycheck, the camaraderie, the almost reasonable hours that my

teachers described. It's the idea that your characters live for months or years. We all know about Oedipus or Hamlet, but they have confined stories. We watch them for two hours, but that's the extent of their existence. And sure, Luke Skywalker or Marty McFly have maybe eight hours of existence, but that's as much as any feature character gets! But how long has Michael Scott been around? I've personally watched him for five and a half years.

So if I am blessed with the opportunity to write for television, I could really get to know these people, watch them deal with the hard times and celebrate the good times.

TV is often scoffed at. I've heard rocks stars, teachers, even my friends talk about how we shouldn't watch TV. "It rots your brain," I've heard. Yet movies are two hours well spent? I used to be one of those people who felt good about themselves because they

didn't watch any TV, but after the past four months I've realized it's the most current,

applicable, personal medium out there. TV can address current issues. Have you ever watched the West Wing episode that came out after 9/11? It discussed all the things I was trying mull over in my head at the time, and acknowledged the presence of some difficult questions in our world. People can turn on a TV and laugh as a sitcom family struggles through the same tough times. It's relevant to them.

I'm not advocating that everyone should have a TV set and watch three hours a day. Far from it. I acknowledge that there's a lot of inferior quality programming on TV, and kids should still play outside and everyone should still eat dinner at the table as a family. But for myself, I have come to appreciate a medium that I had previously not considered artistic or important, and I think I would be damn lucky to have a hand in making it.

The Bearhouse Effect

"Pteradactyl," comprised of Mike Lee, Yusuke Watanabe, Meredith Upchurch, and myself, set out to create a project that blended expertly our four varying artistic specialties. We had Mike the photographer, Yusuke the musician, Meredith the production kid/ editor, and me the writer. We arrived at the idea of a series of photographs, mimicking stop action, that could be edited with music and based on a story.

I found my part in the assignment to be fairly enjoyable. I had very few limitations of what I could write, aside from the fact that we wanted to use as few real actors as possible, so one afternoon I hunkered down on my bed and looked around me. I had suggested my teddy bear as the subject because he's very cute and has a lot of character for a stuffed animal. In my imagination, Teddy started doing my laundry. Then he tired of that, and picked up a book. Kurt Vonnegut. Teddy longed for connection, for distraction during the long hours that I was away from him. Something catches his eye then, something sparkly thrown from above. A new friend perhaps? Someone to share the long days with? The story grew from there. My own contribution was both the first step and the through -line for the piece. We couldn't start working on the project without a script that told the story, and as production moved on we had to make sure the story was being told. When Mike was taking his photos, or Yusuke writing his music, or especially Meredith editing the clip, they all had to remind themselves of the original intent of the script and the character of Teddy. My work was not the flashiest part of the collaboration, but I might call it the starting point or backbone. I was particularly pleased to see something I wrote being brought into a visual form. I don't have the skills or tools to create my own visual art, so it is a really exciting experience for me to see what my fellow artists were capable of creating. We did not set out with the fine ideals of creating the ultimate artistic statement, but we did collaborate fully to produce a short, enjoyable presentation, and I could not have asked for more.

Artist's Statement

We don’t understand shit. Life doesn’t come with a making-of DVD, with your friends and acquaintances explaining their characters and motives. My plays don’t explain life, because nothing can. What would the answer be anyway? But when we go to the theatre, we feel like we “get” something new. We always knew friendship was a good thing, but after a show we feel it. We feel the depths of human despair and desperation, as well as the pinnacles of virtue and love. In everyday life, we forget to feel and to think a lot. We just do, do, do, action, action, action, now, now, now. My plays are a reminder to STOP doing and LIVE. I write an amalgamation of my interactions with people, thoughts about love, and attempts to map the motivations of the intricately simple human race. Idealistic and overly romantic, I write happy endings because I don’t have the heart to remind people of the truth. Life lessons are not learned from watching theatre. I’m not trying to change anyone’s life or make them a better person. I remind them that there’s a lot going on in their lives, and outside of their lives, and if they’re closed off from it they’re missing out. I write about the connections we make with people, animals, places, and events, because that's what I think life is about. I write things that never happen to people and things that happen all the time. The things that never happen inspire people to live outside the comfort of what they already know. The things that happen all the time are a sign that other people are having the same experiences as them. A great teacher told me once that we go to theatre to feel connected, to feel the pain and joy that other people have felt and know that it’s our pain and joy too. This connection is the only antidote to hatred, prejudice and war, and so I crave to experience it and to write it. Most importantly, I write because I don't want to live in a world without art, especially theatre. I've felt the wonder, the inspiration, the awe of experiencing art and I know it's what makes our species special. My writings are my way of contributing to what makes us human: our ability to appreciate and internalize the world around us.

Acting as the Gateway Drug, or How I Became a Writer

Taco Sex is not what it sounds like. My friends and I would “have Taco Sex” when we drenched our Mexican food, in the form of tacos purchased from a very particular Taco Bus, in horribly spicy salsa and then ate said tacos. The term “sex” was used to describe the spiritual cleansing that came from the extraordinary sensation of feeling like your esophagus and stomach had caught on fire. After Taco Sex you panted, lay on the ground, maybe even smoked a cigarette: because by God, you had lived through something. Why did I participate in this strange and sometimes excruciating ritual? Not for masochistic reasons, but because it was something my friends and I did. More specifically, my theatre friends. There was something wonderful in watching Bryson’s face as he contemplated eating his second taco, though the first one’s potency had already brought him to tears. Watching Von, the king of Taco Sex, jump around with his shirt flapping around him, writhe on the floor and holler for his mother was a unique pleasure. The dramatics were priceless because, after all, we were students of drama. We rehearsed together, we partied together, and we had Taco Sex together. It wasn’t until later that’d I’d make the distinction between my love for them and my love of acting. I remember Taco Sex so vividly because it was such a collective experience. You would never have Taco Sex by yourself, it couldn’t be the same. Theatre was much the same way. I’d look forward so much to the hours spent rehearsing after school, that I developed a great love for acting. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, “The Nerd,” “Once Upon a Mattress,” “Kiss Me, Kate,” every show was so fun that I thought, “Wow, acting is incredible! I want to do this forever!” We would make up new song lyrics while our fellow castmembers were performing.

A blurry picture of me (right) in Midsummer. During our run of “Little Shop of

Horrors,” the song “Suddenly Seymour” became “Sudden Erection.” We’d try to crack each other up on stage. One good friend, Derek, was repulsed by Whoopie Goldberg. For whatever reason, he thought she was the least attractive person on earth, so of course we put a postcard of the famous image featuring Whoopie submerged in a bathtub of milk on one of his props. We had so many inside jokes, so many goofy moments that I never wanted rehearsal to be over. And the best part about it was that these people, who were so funny and so outgoing, thought that I was good. Which made me think I was good. Which is a great feeling.

So I made my plans. The first step was to go to a great theatre school and learn from the professionals. Next I would start the audition circuit, and then would come the Oscar. Of course I was aware that it was a difficult field to succeed in, but I literally could not think of anything else I wanted to pursue, not when I thought about how wonderful it felt to be in a play. When the time came, I learned my monologues, auditioned for colleges, and set off on my way to the University of Southern California.

Something changed that first year. I liked the people in my acting classes, but they weren’t my people. They weren’t funny the way Von and Bryson and Derek were funny, not as sharp or witty or elegantly vulgar. They didn’t take pride in their weirdness, but banded together to ridicule other people, and I couldn’t imagine having a long conversation with them about religion or sexuality or any of the other juicy topics I relished talking about with my friends back home.

We didn’t become instant friends. Also, and most importantly, I wasn’t cast in any of the myriad plays produced on campus. All of a sudden, acting didn’t seem so great anymore. I had fun doing scenes in class, but not the kind of fun I had had in high school. Had acting changed, or had I? My parents had always told me that I could be whatever I wanted to be, and I knew that I could probably find success in another field, but I didn’t switch out of the theatre major. Even though that first year was a crisis in which all my adolescent ambitions came shattering down from their pedestals, I didn’t resort to marketing or engineering. I kept taking theatre classes, sure that my acting fervor would return and I would continue on the road I began when I was ten years old.

In 2008, two things happened: I took my first playwriting class and my last acting class. The playwriting was initially at the request, or nagging, of my mother, who always said I was “such a good little writer.” I’m not one to trust my mother’s opinion on issues concerning my competency or physical appearance – she’s not exactly unbiased – but I signed up anyway. I entered the classroom for the first time with no ideas to write about and no experience except for some embarrassing adaptations of Greek myths my high school had been silly enough to produce. It was uncharted territory.

Sitting on a stone bench one day, I started to write. I wrote a whole page. That page turned into a scene. Then I added another scene. By the end of the semester I had a one-act play, a little rough around the edges but finished. Though I was aware that this was no Tony-winning script, I still felt satisfaction that I had completed a work that could be produced. With this sense of completion I had an epiphany: theatre does not spring up from the ground. The works I regarded as classic were once new and untested. Arthur Miller and Christopher Durang were not the names of tree varietals that grew plays on their branches. They were writers, and plays had to be written. Knowing this, that the greatest pieces of theatre had started as a glimmer of an idea in a real person’s head, made the whole process seem much more human and more accessible.

Then there was my last acting class. I was in a class with a superb teacher who told us that she wouldn’t be forcing us to “get on our feet” and act in class. We had to take responsibility for our development, and as someone who loved getting up in front of people and performing, I was sure I’d be up a lot. Imagine my surprise when class after class I found no urge to get up in front of everyone, instead preferring to study the way the words of the script informed the scene or how the specificity of the action could communicate an idea even better than the words. I shared my ideas and honed my sense of perception, but the entire semester passed by with me watching contentedly, never taking the stage. On the last day of class my teacher, who was generally very inspiring, shared some words that really moved me. She said that whenever a person felt alone in their fight against the troubles of the world, they could turn to theatre. In theatre was the evidence that we were not alone, that in fact we were all struggling with the same problems towards the same goals, and to be part of that human struggle was a very wonderful thing. I hugged my teacher with tears in my eyes, thanked her for all she’d taught me, and left the classroom with an intense desire to write the kind of theatre she was talking about.

Thus my acting career ended and my Mary Joan Negro, one of my biggest inspirations. writing career began. I felt like I had been walking down a long, dark road and there had been a break in the clouds. I could see where I was going, but I also felt a sadness for what I had left behind. Hadn’t I, after all, failed at my intention of becoming an actress? This disconcerting notion bothered me, and prompted me to investigate. Why had I liked acting for so long and how could I now be relieved to rid myself of it? When I looked back at my acting days I thought of the backstage games, the teasing and the long conversations, and Taco Sex. These memories were proof that acting had been a great experience for me because of the people I did it with. I had never realized how much I had valued the community that theatre created. Most of my friends were actors. Most of my time was spent acting because that also meant hanging out with my friends. It had really never occurred to me how much I had confused my enjoyment of acting with my enjoyment of my friends. And although I fully intend on continuing to enjoy the theatre community, my place in the community has changed. Acting was my introduction to theatre, but it was also a part of growing up. It was not the epitome of my creativity, but rather just the beginning.

I’m comfortable, now, with the idea of being a writer, and I embrace the hardships and challenges that it involves. I’m filled with the drive to write what my teacher talked about, the connection between all of us, and also to unleash my own humor upon the world. In a way, writing is scarier than acting because, although you’re not climbing onto a stage and talking in front of people, you’re putting your ideas in front of people, as well as the little bit of you that inevitably seeps into your characters. This doesn’t bother me, however. I’m just excited to try my hand at the most fiercely creative part of theatre and see where it takes

me.

So far, writing has taken me...to the

theatre! My first play has been produced, with real actors and a real director who really put effort into my work. This is the realization of the goal I set when I began playwriting: creating theatre. It is not only fulfilling to see my work performed, but inspiring to write better and more exciting pieces for the future.

Synecdoche: Hard to Say, Harder to Understand

Prelude Being a fan of Charlie Kaufman, I was very excited for his newest work, a movie called Synecdoche, New York, to premiere. As soon as I could, I grabbed a friend, bought a ticket, and plopped down in the theatre seat, eagerly awaiting the Kaufman magic to engulf me. The Experience Never in my movie-watching experience have I turned to someone next to me and mouthed "What the fuck?!!?" so many times during a single film. When the movie started, my senses were tingling with anticipation for the brilliant plot twists and startlingly surreal departures. Twenty minutes into the movie, I had gotten a few plot twists and surreal moments, but I had also turned to my friend and mouthed those choice words at least once. It felt like Charlie Kaufman's work, but to an extreme I had never encountered before. The plot twisted so much that it was unrecognizable. Philip Seymour Hoffman's character, Caden Cotard, has health problems that include urinating a vibrant green. Hazel, one of Caden's love interests, lives in a house that is on fire. Continually. His daughter turns into a dancing girl with roses tattooed all over her body. And most importantly, Caden starts a theatre project that attempts to encapsulate real life, hiring actors to play the people he knows in an enormous warehouse. Also, to add to the confusion of the plot developments, there is no marking for the passage of time. All of a sudden someone reminds Caden that his wife left him seven years ago, even though it occured cinematically in the previous scene. All these elements may sound strange when I describe them, but seeing them on screen was even more startlingly so. My experience during the movie is best described by the vulgar phrase I introduced at the onset of this paragraph. Coming to Terms This movie does not explain itself. Caden's health problems are never explained. They happen, and then they are over. It is unabashedly surreal, as in the case of the continually burning house. Hazel lives in the house for forty years, with it on fire, and then suddenly dies of smoke inhalation. This sort of randomness and unaccountability just isn't seen in movies today, which suggests to me that it can't be judged in the way other movies are judged. It is its own kind. I think the only way to appreciate Synecdoche is by thinking of it as an experience. An experience of life. It felt more like life to me than any other movie I've seen because it didn't explain itself, because there were loose ends. We don't go through life with a narrator making sense of everything for us! We live day to day, trying to figure things out based on our own impressions, bizarre experiences, and skewed sense of reality. From this movie we get the muddled recollections of what Caden might remember on his death bed. The film is not a story, but a simulation of life - not because it's "realistic," but because it's a mess. Life. The Value So why should this film be appreciated? First of all, I'm excited that this film was made. I'm aware that Charlie Kaufman is kind of a big deal and can kind of do what he wants, but I still think it's exciting that such a non-mainstream movie found quality production and an audience. In an industry where the only original screenplays that have a good chance of getting made are action-adventures, it's slightly encouraging to see something weird and thought-provoking. Further, the life-like quality of the film is comforting. You experience strange health problems that are never diagnosed. You meet people who put themselves in harm's way, like living in a house that's on fire. You are abandoned. People in your life turn out differently than you thought they would. You can't eradicate all the awkwardness. You struggle for a higher purpose that you never seem to reach. You want to make a difference. All these things happen in our lives, just as they happen in the movie, and seeing our own stories told by someone else is part of the entire allure of movies and theatre. This movie reflects ourselves as people, and perhaps it is even a stepping stone to understanding our own reality.

So Fresh and So Surreal - The Work of Sarah Ruhl

Sarah Ruhl is a new and powerful force in the playwriting world. She won the MacArthur “genius” grant. Her most notable piece, The Clean House, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2005, and she has achieved successful runs with some of her other plays such as Eurydice and Passion Play.

However, Sarah Ruhl is not considered a good playwright in this artist’s opinion because of the success of her plays or the prizes she’s won or almost won. She is a good playwright because her plays feel so fresh. I get a sensation, reading her work, of being in a room with high ceilings and white drapes on tall windows, a warm breeze circulating. I feel this way partly because her writing on the page is so open and breezy. The dialogue and action have lots of space to be read and enjoyed, nothing is cramped or forced. She also gives the reader a treat with her stage directions:

“She writes in her journal, something secret and beautiful. She makes up a metaphor.”

Compared to the usually dry and sparse stage directions in other plays, this is poetry. She lays down the secret emotional actions of the characters, which makes it both clear for the reader and the actor what is happening in that moment. The clarity is refreshing.

The other reason I describe her writing as “fresh” is because of the surreal aspects she weaves into her work. She imagines an elevator that rains as the transportation from earth to the underworld in Eurydice. In Melancholy Play she writes that a woman turns into an almond. The surreal elements keep her writing completely unpredictable and exciting, never trudging down a path you’ve already visited. It’s fresh.

Ms. Ruhl has also inspired my own work. Although I can’t hope to, and wouldn’t try to, imitate her style, I really enjoyed her exploration of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice and have decided to adapt a myth of my own. I’m writing the love story between Eros and Psyche, and I hope to pay a lot of attention to the subtle emotions and motivations of each character, after Ms. Ruhl.

Source:

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/sarah_ruhl/index.html

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