Scenes From a Night's Dream: First Reading

dissociation n. the disconnection or separation of something from something else or the state of being disconnected. In psychiatry: separation of normally related mental processes, resulting in one group functioning independently from the rest, leading in extreme cases to disorders such as multiple personality.

No matter the project, be it for a writers group, as a commission, or the final project for one of MFA classes, I will hold a pre-reading reading with a cadre of close friends and colleagues to hear it in a safe space. Last fall that was in my living room, a year before that via Zoom. But it always happens.

Sunday night a delightful crew of friends (not an unsurprising amount either present or former actor-teachers) gathered on our patio, in perfect weather, to read Scenes From a Night’s Dream.

Random thoughts: Given all the messed up things that happen, some people were most upset by the dead goldfish. “The party downstairs” also set some on edge. The second act is too short (my opinion) which affords the opportunity to address some confusion as to what the company - "Morpheus" - actually does.

New rules: When holding a post-reading discussion (or in fact, the talkback following the workshop of a new work) the playwright must not answer any questions. You’ll never learn anything about how your play works if you do.

We started and I immediately got one question directed to me and I said, Oh. I’m not answering any questions. What followed was something like forty-five minutes of the assembled going over everything that had just happened.

The disconnect, the dissociation, the dream.

Last fall I mentioned how Mark Ravenhill was sharing 101 tips on playwriting over Twitter. That has developed into the 37 Plays podcast sponsored by the Royal Shakespeare Company where he interviews other playwrights and they discuss their own tips on writing. 

This week, writer and director Chinonyerem Odimba brought up Ravenhill’s Tip #12: There’s something cruel about constructing a play, putting characters in situations that are everything from awkward to very painful. Don’t shy from this cruelty but use it responsibly, explore all its ramifications and don’t use it cynically or for effect. 

This is a thing. I don’t normally indulge in cruelty in my plays. Or not since The Vampyres, anyway. And yet, I failed to provide any kind of content warning as we began reading. I immediately regretted that as we started reading. Sometimes people make light of or in fact scorn or ridicule such advance warning, but those people are children.

Now, I have a page of notes and an entire week to tweak the script before we read it in class. So glad!

UPDATE: A workshop of "Scenes From a Night's Dream" will be presented as part of the 2023 NEOMFA Playwrights Festival at Convergence-Continuum, February 16, 17 & 18, 2023.

Process XXXIV

Thursday evening writing desk.
(Parnell's Pub
on Playhouse Square)

Something new, something different: in-person classes. Only taking two courses this semester, each relating to my major, and both on the Cleveland State campus. We are wearing masks, we are small but mighty, sitting apart from each other. The difference is apparent -- cross-talk, sudden revelations suddenly shared, and that most spontaneous of human reaction, laughter. All of these things were absent from Zoom.

And now I am writing a play. Or at least, I have conceived of one, which is a good stretch better than where I was two days ago. I dropped this question on Facebook: What’s the worst thing you or someone you have worked with has done as a form of sabotage in your place of employment? As a result I received numerous responses which have become the basis of a new work.

There is a lot of reading I will need to do, and to do it every night. Starting tonight, I guess? Most of the texts we will be covering in Dramatic Structure I already own, so that’s convenient. A class on structure, the other a playwriting workshop. Convenient.

Question: What do you want this work to achieve? It is a commentary on the post-pandemic service class. On Monday night I had no idea how I was going to produce a one-page description of the play I intended to write within the next two weeks. Four days later I am confident I will have it complete by Sunday.

Meanwhile, Mark Ravenhill ("Shopping and Fucking") has taken it upon himself to offer a free masterclass in playwriting on Twitter, just dropping nuggets of wisdom several times a day. Each one is considerate and meaningful and often very, very challenging.

What is the nagging doubt in this play I am conceiving, the question that won't leave me alone? Currently it is merely a puzzle, but that's just the plot. What is the puzzle of the characters? I don't even know who they are yet.