Process XIV

Zyrece & Brian
("Savory Taṇhā" rehearsal)

Last summer, Savory Taṇhā began with a short play about playwriting. It was a little snarky, like I was taking the piss out of the kind of writing I was in my early years, but also men who write a certain kind of play in general. It was a fun way to open, but in discussion with our director, Caitlin, I felt we needed so start with something a bit more sincere. 

The play ends so well with a monologue (Monument) that I thought perhaps we should begin with one. There was a monologue I wrote last summer, during the BLM uprising, about a teacher finding a slur written on the whiteboard in their class.

This week Chennelle and I were team-teaching live classes on Romeo and Juliet for students in Chardon, which caused a great deal of stress in the middle of the week. It is exhausting conducting this work via Zoom, even worse over Google Meet, because Google Meet sucks.

Then, however, I caught Brian James Polak’s The Subtext podcast. Last March he invited playwrights to record their immediate reaction to the shutdown, and I participated in that. He extended another invitation last month for those same playwrights to check in once again, and I heard my own voice. 

At that time, in mid-December, as we were starting up these live residencies, I recounted how grateful I was to have the opportunity to resume bringing the classics to students, live, even at a distance. It was a very helpful reality check.

Meanwhile, I have been taking melatonin gummies to help me sleep. Isn’t everyone? It has been very helpful, but my dreams are deep and vivid. This week in craft and theory we read work by Adrienne Kennedy, and imagery of the dead loved one haunted me. I had a dream this week of the death of a loved one. I also received a very nice anniversary card from hospice. 

And today is our daughter's eighteenth birthday. And I need to redraft a ten-minute screenplay before tomorrow evening. It's all a bit confounding.

Finally, if I say that Foucault makes my eyes water, does that make me a bad student? 

The Subtext: Pandemic Playwriting, Part 2