Written Snapshots from the Weekend:

My fear in writing a play about something I have not experienced is making the grave mistake of getting it all wrong.  That is the risk you take in writing fiction.

After this weekend, I realize that the risk paid off.  I was not expecting such a strong reaction from the audience.  Some people were in tears, others told me how much it moved them or that they experienced the same thing with their own parent.  It was as if their story finally mattered.  It validated people’s feelings–their anger, their sadness, their joy.  When theatre touches people in this way, it becomes more than storytelling.  It becomes something essential to our being. Theatre can bring healing too. ***

Packing list for the weekend:  

five scripts for actors and director with flashy multicolored binder clips,

clothes, toiletries and technology,

a picture drawn in marker by my daughter,

my snacks–orange juice, granola bars, goldfish crackers and chocolate,

my bible and a surprise letter from Sam,

a very hard pillow,

some nervousness, some homesickness, some expectation and a thick skin.

Because whether it’s theatre or writing or politics or preaching, you need to have a thick skin, especially when there’s an audience around. ***

We were a hodgepodge group on Friday night: playwrights, actors, and a few directors, most who didn’t know each other.  We were what others might call “the theatre crowd.”  I forgot what it’s like to be part of this group of sacrificial and artistic souls who spend countless hours rehearsing shows, all for the sake of “art.”  At one time, when I worked professional theatre for two summers, I was part of that crowd. They stayed up late and slept in on Mondays (I didn’t–I worked a day job). They talked about the next show, or the last show, or what they taught and where.  Some of them liked to swear, or drink, or smoke, or do all three.  Some were homosexuals, some were single, some were married with no children.  At the conference there were a few people married with children, most of them grown children or adolescents.  I still wonder where I fit?  A stay at home mother of a two-year-old.  ***

Since I have been a pastor’s wife for eight years, most people avoid certain behaviors around me. It’s not that church people don’t swear, drink and smoke, it’s just that they usually try to avoid doing it around my family, which leaves me with few chances to see people acting naturally around me. This is why it was so oddly delightful for one weekend to be around people who have no clue that I’m a pastor’s wife. ***  

One of the women in my show was a professional actress, the other was a high school drama teacher who wants to get her MFA in acting.  The guy in my show was a high school drama student–a last minute recruit.  For a high schooler, he did well, but he was overshadowed by the women, who showed an incredible range of emotion.  Actors who can pull off all layers of emotion and motivations make a script even better than it is.  ***

It’s a bit overwhelming to rewrite again after four years of rewriting. But this play is so close. That’s what I keep telling myself.  So close. ***

This weekend there was a motercycle race in Indy and the hotels were filled with motorcycle men and their tag-along girlfriends.  About midnight I heard them arrive in the parking lot, laughing and carrying on outside my door until two in the morning.  Along with the AC, I turned on the bathroom fan to try and cover up the noise, then finally I resorted to adding the TV, hoping that some combination of the three would cover up their racket outside.  I fell asleep sometime after two in the morning. ***

“We had so little time. The years vanished.  Take care what you hang a life on.”   Over the Rhine’s Linford Detweiler wrote this quote after looking back at twenty years of writing lyrics and music. He wanted to know if his music really mattered after all these years.  I ask myself the same thing. If I’m going to write a play, I want it to matter, even if it only matters to a few people–even if it only matters to me. ***

Some people ask me why I would want to write about such depressing stuff, like Alzheimer’s.  Why not a musical, with lots of spectacle and songs in a major key?  Or a love story, followed by a very high love ballad?   Fluffy musicals are fun, and they make people happy, but in the end, they do not make us think very much.  Let’s at least make people think, or feel something deeply, and occasionally we can enjoy the fluff.  ***

Having a character with Alzheimer’s in a play shows the extremes of human behavior; they are both lovable and detestable, acting like both child and parent, the sick and the well.  In a way, it is everyone’s future–to look at the sick and realize that they will be us someday.  The way we handle the sick, and the forgiveness we grant them, is a powerful motivator in our lives. ***

When the critique started, I was told to sit there and smile; I could not respond.  I could not defend the play.  I could not explain it.  I could only nod my head and write down whatever was helpful. Cat, the NY facilitator for the weekend, told me privately if I got a lousy comment, to say thank you with a smile and then write down in my notes, “That’s the stupidest comment I’ve ever heard.” ***

When the discussion began after my play, the first comment was from an older lady who asked if I was in West Virginia in 1979.   Then she told me, in tears, that I had captured her life story, as she took care of one parent with Alzheimer’s and another with Parkinson’s.  Her final comment about my play: “I shouldn’t change one damn thing.”

I’m back from Indy, after driving through Hurricane Ike (a weird phenomenon in the Midwest), and can report that the weekend was a big success.  I am both exhilarated and tired all at once.  I have wonderful things to report from my experience.  The performance of the play was really beautiful (thanks to wonderful actors and a very talented director) and I am eager to tell you all about it.  

But first, there is real life.  Since I’m teaching a four hour detective fiction class tonight (and doing all the last minute prep today), I will try to give you the details in the next day or two.  

Maybe then I’ll have a little breathing space, a little perspective, and a well rested mind (which I don’t have right now).   But I will say this:  the play made people cry.  I was not expecting that.  I was not expecting it to touch people the way it did.  And that, my friends, is part of the beauty of theatre–the ability to touch hearts and lives in a powerful way.