You're Quite A Character
Tuesday, 17 February 2009

After a production of Post Game Show, a woman approached me and said, "You lived every moment of that!" I smiled. During a run of Throwing Snowballs at the Moon, a woman ran out of the theatre crying. She later said to me, "that's your life, right? You did that didn't you?!" She wasn't angry; she was incredulous.

I'm grateful for the compliments. I'm glad that sometimes I hit the mark and my dialogue and characters feel so real that it becomes hard to breathe or impossible not to laugh. That's a great feeling. Having said that, my characters are not necessarily drawn from myself or my friends and family. I find character composites in unusual places. Several years ago I came across a postcard dated in 1964. The card was addressed to a woman and written by a woman. I loved their names and decided they were sisters. Seven years later I'm writing a play about these two sisters with a plot line taken from a 1999 newspaper item. Another piece was originally a short story that I drafted in 1997. The story failed, but I persevered. I reworked the piece for a class in 2005. It failed again. This year, two more characters made their way to my conciousness, and I knew then that I had to say goodbye to of a few of the original ones. 

It is true that the setting for Post Game Show was inspired by an experience my husband and I had sitting in a parking garage for half an hour one night after a Suns game. It's also true that echoes of my relationships with friends are sprinkled throughout the play. However, the plot and through line are pure story. Throwing Snowballs at the Moon convinced a number of audience members that I had, in fact, abandoned my husband and children after losing a parent. I have not. Ironically, I did not face the death of a parent until six years after the play was initially drafted. I had no idea what it was like to attend to a child with medical needs until after the first draft was crafted. After one matinee a man approached me, "How did you get this so right? I just left my family. Now I feel sick." He seemed to wait for my own confession, but I had nothing to give him but consolation for his dilemma. It doesn't matter what provokes the action, but I don't know a mother who hasn't walked up to this line and peered over the edge. I just took my character and pushed her off the cliff.

After denying and explaining for the last three paragraphs, I will share this with you: I wrote a play based entirely on a life experience. I don't recommend it. The process was excruciating and felt more like fodder for therapy than dramatic play. Because I had to sift through the story of what happened and build in a dramatic premise, I became too attached to the script. The piece was dangerously close to blinding my objectivity. To becoming precious. Shades, sprinkles or dollops of life can, at times, lend authenticity to moments on stage both spoken and unspoken. For me, the craft lies in fiction over fact; characters over people. Besides, I seriously doubt that I am anywhere near as interesting as I hope my characters are.