The Witches (process)

"The Witches" at Pandemonium
(Cleveland Public Theatre, 2019)

History is marked with terror, in America as it is in the rest of the world. There are monuments and memorials to moments of great suffering and tragedy which are peaceful sites of reflection, like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, or the Salem Witch Trials Memorial.

Then there are the museums, houses of artifacts and exhibits. Some are an attempt to rectify previously unacknowledged history, as they have been working to do at Monticello; some are meant to memorialize recent events like the National September 11 Memorial Museum in Manhattan. These efforts have also received their share of criticism.

What does it mean that there are for-profit tourist traps and wax museums exploiting such curiosities as Bonnie & Clyde’s Death Car, the actual mummified remains of mental health patients, and, of course, the Salem Witch Trials?

Two and a half years ago we workshopped the first scene I had written for The Witches at Pandemonium, the annual gala for Cleveland Public Theatre. It was there that I understood (once again) the inherent difficulty in pairing comedy with horror.

Salem Witch Dungeon Museum

We are attempting to walk the line between satire (n.: the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues) and the reality of misogyny, generational trauma, capital punishment, child abuse, and on and on. It’s not funny, this being burned alive business.

In spite of having to miss a week’s worth of rehearsals due to class, family obligations and the playwrights festival, I have been engaged in the process of revision, listening to our actors, trying to make it all clear. I can be obtuse, you know. Editing has happened.

I wrote speeches. Some work. Some do not. There were also a number of Hamilton references which in 2022 are embarrassing like naked baby pictures are embarrassing. No one wants to see that shit.

There’s a lot of stuff in the words, and yet, not enough stuff. There’s also jokes. I am going to be sitting in the back next weekend, paying close attention to what gets laughs – and what does not.

To be continued.

Cleveland Public Theatre presents THE WITCHES as part of Test Flight, a showcase of new works, March 3, 4 & 5, 2022.

Smile (book)

Sarah Ruhl
(Sally Deng, New York Times)

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

The book I chose to read over Christmas break, this year more like a three-day weekend, was Smile by Sarah Ruhl (Dead Man’s Cell Phone, In the Next Room) a memoir in which she recounts her struggles with Bell’s palsy, an affliction which left one side of her face partially paralyzed following the birth of twins in 2010.

It was not the easiest book for me to read, I found myself sighing and wincing often as I read it, prompting my wife to ask if I was all right. I have never or not yet experienced this kind of physical trauma, but Ruhl honestly describes feelings of both rage and helplessness toward certain members of the medical community who failed her, and I have felt that.

I have known helplessness, and I have known rage. She shares several incidents, in detail, as members of the medical community continue to disappoint her, and is unapologetic for her disgust with their personal as well as professional failings. It made me regret those times I have pulled my punches in my writing, the edits I have made over the years to soften certain tales.

Ruhl recounts an episode in which she was escalating a stairwell and her legs entirely failed to work, she just pitched forward, with her body’s momentum. It is fortunate she was not terribly hurt. I was reminded of that time two years ago, when my mother claimed she “missed a step” on her way downstairs in her home. She struck her head on a bannister, leaving a shiner and a nasty web of scabs on her brow through our final Thanksgiving together.

As the extent and effect of my mother’s illness became more apparent, it was clear to me that she had not missed a step, but that her brain was ceasing to send messages to the right side of her body. Shortly after the accident she could no longer write. My mother's ability to write did not degenerate over time, one day she could write with a pen, the next she could not.

It is hard not to see this as a betrayal, when our body, our own self, refuses to obey.

One of the great lessons of this book is that there is no one way to manage (to quote another playwright) the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to. Not one religion, not one philosophy, not one path of medicine, not one course of therapy. There are known and unknown palliatives and cures in their thousands to ease our imperfect selves and souls.

That her journey would lead to Buddhism appeared to me to be inevitable, though she has engaged with it deeper than I have, which is an inspiration and not a shame.

Play a Day: Johanna: Facing Forward

Tlaloc Riveras

For Thursday, I read Johanna: Facing Forward by Tlaloc Rivas and posted at New Play Exchange.

This play is a work of nonfiction, adapted from personal writing by Johanna Orozco and also the journalism of Rachel Dissell. The play premiered at Cleveland Public Theatre/Teatro Público de Cleveland in 2015, and is the true story of a young woman who was shot in the face by her boyfriend and how she survived.

It’s not just about that. It’s about domestic abuse, and about the failure of our protective services. It is also about the fourth estate, and how journalism has been compromised by the corporations who have acquired our media outlets and have compromised them to serve profit.

Cleveland Public Theatre, 2015

And it’s about women. How they are hurt, and once hurt how our systems are more successful at protecting the men who have harmed them.

The subject matter is compelling enough, but it is well-served by the playwright. Rivas structured a fact-based script which is gripping, moving, poetic and frank.

As a personal note; I don't know any of the players involved in this tragedy. But I do know the high school. Located on Cleveland's near west side, Lincoln-West is a city school, and before COVID we would bring the residency program there once or twice a year, to teach Shakespeare, and The Crucible. It's a great school, and I engaged with brilliant, young students there, taught by strong, dedicated teachers. Devastating events like these can truly happen anywhere.

Who should I read tomorrow?

Source (warning, graphic images): A look back at Johanna Orozco: Facing Forward, by Rachel Dissell, The Plain Dealer (5/19/2015)

Cat and the Canary (film)

I have adapted Agatha Christie mysteries for the stage, The Mysterious Affair at Styles and The Secret Adversary. However, it was my older brother Henrik who was mystery-obsessive. It was he who introduced me to Hercule Poirot, Nero Wolfe, Ellery Queen, and he was quite an expert on Sherlock Holmes.

I say he “introduced” me because though throughout my childhood these tales were in the atmosphere, I didn’t take an interest. I wasn’t into puzzles and plotting, and to be honest, mysteries scared me. Someone’s dead -- and we don’t know why or how it happened? The unknown is horrifying to me.

I understand that it is the solution to mysteries than many find so reassuring, they bring order to chaos, and suggest that every problem has an answer, that all loose ends will eventually be tied. These people are also probably have religion for the same reason.

I always flash back to that moment when the victim is dying, perhaps violently, shocked, and afraid and alone. The tragedy itself is not made softer by there existing an explanation. Perhaps I am an atheist for the same reason.

My brother took me to this film once -- twice, actually. He would have been fourteen, I was only ten. We went twice on two different days, probably over a weekend. Maybe we took the bus, maybe my parents dropped us at the mall, can’t remember, I was ten. The film was Cat and the Canary, a stylish, period remake of a film made famous as a Bob Hope picture in the 30s. This 1978 version was considerably more bloody. Grisly. It was the seventies.

Cat and the Canary is one of those "bumped-off-one-at-a-time" mysteries in which the house itself is the murder weapon. I was fascinated by the twists and turns, the disappearances, the horrible, clever ways people were separated from each other, and then craftily dispatched. I was also horrified. I was unable to sleep. I was terrified someone would come through my window or stab me through the bed.

My brother was scolded for taking me to see it, to see it twice. I protested that I had asked him to take me to see it again, and so attention was turned to me. I was made to feel foolish. “If it scared you so, why would you want to see it again?”

I carried this with me as I became an adolescent and we moved into the era of the slasher film -- and cable TV. From Michael Myers to Jason Voorhees to Freddy Kruger, I abstained. I just didn’t watch them.

Now, slasher movies aren’t necessarily mysteries, but mysteries can be slasher films (see: Psycho) and I have watched each, but it is the moments of isolation and despair which frighten me the most. The Vanishing comes to mind. Never seen it, know how it ends, that’s enough to keep me awake at night.

So when it came time to adapt a Sherlock Holmes mystery into a play for children, there was more than one reason to avoid plots featuring violent crimes -- or any violence at all. When we produced Jabberwocky three years ago, there is a scene where a child confronts a bully the wrong way, by hitting back. With a stick.

It was meant to be an example of making a bad choice. And yet, talkback after talkback, this was the kids’ favorite part. It was what they best remembered, it elicited the most joyful reaction. They loved seeing that one kids hit the other kids with a stick -- and they hadn’t even seen it! The beating took place off stage, with one child character chasing the other behind a curtain and then hearing the bully cry out in pain.

Now, many of Doyle’s mysteries are murder mysteries, so it couldn’t be any of those. There are a few thefts in his tales, but none presented situations that interested me -- or more importantly, supporting characters that would interest children.

The education department brainstorm non-violent crimes, which included theft, extortion, vandalism, fraud, embezzlement, forgery, pickpocketing, arson, the receipt of stolen goods, and counterfeiting.

For the past several months, these ideas have been simmering, and I have been making notes, and reading story after story, and stringing together original ideas for a brand new mystery of my own.

Because there was one very important element lacking in all of Sherlock Holmes’ adventures, and it was that which would not only set this story apart, but satisfying a great many details of the upcoming outreach tour.

Strong female characters.

To be continued.

Play a Day: Spoons

Ben Firke

For Thursday I read Spoons by Ben Firke and available at New Play Exchange.

I was compelled by the keywords for this script which include not only "intimacy and "trauma" but also "The 2016 Golden State Warriors Blew A 3-1 Series Lead."

There are plentiful tales of the "whore with a heart of gold," the stories of sex workers that are entirely male oriented fantasy wish-fulfillment, to wit, "She doesn't care about any of her other johns, but she loves me."

Already this month I have read one script about sex work, Craigslisted (wow, was that only last week?) from a female perspective, breaking down that myth by clearly describing the needs and neuroses of someone who chooses or is economically compelled to walk that road.

Spoons walks a careful line down the middle, trying to present both male and female perspective, even if it leans heavily on his unhappiness.Which only makes sense, he is reaching out to her, he has need which he is paying her to fulfill.

But the playwright works very hard to make this her story, too. I can sympathize, that was the journey I took to make The Way I Danced With You more about her than him. As in my script, we are left uncertain as to where this relationship will go, an I was grateful for that.

Who should I read tomorrow?