Play a Day: Cracked

Gwydion Suilebhan

For Friday, I read Cracked by Gwydion Suilebhan and posted at New Play Exchange.

For 2021, I conclude with a short play, not a full-length play. And I do so for several reasons. First of all, I am tired. It has been a long month. I have final projects to complete, polish and turn in before the end of the semester.

But I do not choose a short play out of resignation, far from it. I do so because this is my project, and so I celebrate the completion of another month of plays with a lagniappe. Yes, that should more appropriately come tomorrow, the “something extra”, but as I said, this is my project, and if that bothers you, you can suck it.

Speaking of which, this short play is about the egg. Not any particular egg, but the egg in general. The incredible, edible egg. And it was written by a good egg, Gwydion Suilebhan, Project Director for New Play Exchange, without whom I would not have had the opportunity to read all of these plays. And by that I don’t mean 30 plays, I mean those 149 full-length plays I have read since the beginning of April, 2017. And this one, short play.

In this short play, this six page monologue, Suilebhan presents a lyric and gentle rumination on the nature of existence, bundled into a small, delicate spheroid. A provocative, promised “demonstration” takes the shape of a sermon, through which the egg represents all things, and no thing. It’s a gorgeous piece of surprising depth.

And with that, I have read thirty plays in thirty days. The imagined thoughts of real people, reimagined classic plays and fables, the shockwaves of historic events, traveled across the nation and the cosmos, troubled and troublesome relationships. All written for our as yet still empty stages.

"Cracked" by Gwydion Suilebhan is available from Original Works publishing.

Play a Day: Fremont Junior High is NOT Doing “Oklahoma”!

Paul Michael Thomson

For Thursday, I read Fremont Junior High is NOT Doing “Oklahoma”! by Paul Michael Thomson and posted at New Play Exchange.

“A lot of classics are racist. And sexist. Or even homophobic! That doesn’t mean we stop doing them. We just take the good with the bad and maybe, you know, make a comment about it or something.”

And here we are.

The drama coach at Fremont Junior High has chosen Oklahoma for that year’s musical, and in a short period of time those dedicated, fourteen year-old students who will compose the company have broken into factions which reflect the current moment in national theater: do we produce a problematic yet popular American musical featuring a diverse cast, which may serve to undermine the worser aspects of the work and provide visibility and advantage to BIPOC these performers OR create a new, so-called divised play reflecting Gen Z anxiety and concerns which may not actually be good and no one’s going to want to see but at least it’s not fucking Oklahoma?

This play is so funny, even Thomson’s stage directions are hilarious.

Who should I read tomorrow?

Play a Day: What Was Lost

Steven Carl McCasland

For Wednesday, I read What Was Lost by Steven Carl McCasland and posted at New Play Exchange.

I have put the dead white male playwrights on a shelf for a while (except for, you know, that one) but I still hold a certain regard for those frustrating American navel-gazers of the mid-twentieth century, Miller and Williams. Miller fancied himself a poet but he only ever wrote a weird kind of prose. It is Williams whose work truly sings with beautiful melody.

The one thing they most had in common was the chosen subject matter of all of their plays; themselves.

McCasland has created a creation myth, about the original production of The Glass Menagerie. But he does not center the playwright but the ageing star, Laurette Taylor, who originated the role of Amanda Wingfield. It is a story of recovery, poetic in its own fashion, as Taylor presents at AA meetings, her stories of personal struggle rival that of Tom, the narrator of the play she is starring in.

Williams plays his part as well, an alcoholic philosopher who inspired his mother figure into sobriety, for her own sake, but really for his, you know?

Who should I read tomorrow?

Play a Day: Alien Motel 29: The Secret Outtakes of the Ebony Lady Macbeth

Robert Alexander

For Tuesday, I read Alien Motel 29: The Secret Outtakes of the Ebony Lady Macbeth by Robert Alexander and posted at New Play Exchange.

Shakespeare liked a good gangster film. Macbeth? Brutus? Hamlet? Gangsters. Okay, not Hamlet. But conspiracy to commit murder to gain power or maintain the order. What are the terrorists but what the big army calls the little army?

Alexander’s script takes its inspiration from “the Scottish play” reinterpreting it as a cross-generational Afrofuturist fever dream, in which Top Dollar and Lady Lava aspire to dominance in a poetic fantasy replete with vengeful ghosts, mysterious strangers and sex robots.

It's a trip, it's got a funky beat, and I can bug out to it.

Who should I read tomorrow?

Play a Day: Clyt; or, the Bathtub Play

Elizabeth Giffin Speckman

For Monday, I read Clyt; or, the Bathtub Play by Elisabeth Giffin Speckman and posted at New Play Exchange.

“It wasn't until I gave birth that I started to think a lot about dying.” This line struck me particularly, because it is absolutely true. I never thought seriously of death or dying until my wife was first pregnant. Because he died, and she may well have. But then, after having subsequent, living children, it never stopped. To have a child is to put your heart into another living thing and watch it move about on its own. And one day, to move away.

My daughter leaves for college later this year. It’s beautiful. It’s worrying.

Speckman’s script tells the story of the period of the Trojan War from the point of view of Clytemnestra, sister to Helen, wife to Agamemmnon. Things do not go well for any of them. Except, I guess, Helen. She is often depicted as feckless and self-involved, she is a canvas for whatever the male writer thinks of women.

In this case she is the sibling who went away and had fun and attention while Clytemnestra remains at home, to do the things that mothers are expected to do. Care for the children, manage the relationships, and wait. Bath time is “me time” and she does seem to deserve a great deal of that.

The playwright playful anachronrizes the tale, it is then, but also now, with phones and media and humorous, contemporary turns of phrase. But it’s comic relief, which serves to make the tragedy, the drama bearable, not to send it up. The protagonist endures such grief, the absence of her husband, the murder of one child, the dismissive behavior of her other children.

She is left alone, and when the “great” Agamemmnon returns she does exact her revenge, but there is no joy in it. Why would there be?

I would imagine most productions would eschew the use of an actual bath. There’s the nudity thing, but that’s not what I’m talking about. It’s water. Water is the most villainous of stage elements. A water actor can develop a chill, the water can become contaminated. And then there is the danger of slipping, falling, twisting, breaking.

But in the right hands it is so magical.

Who should I read tomorrow?

Process XXVI

"The Children Who Played at Slaughtering"
Directed by Dan Riordan
Animation by Chris Gleason

My Saturday routine has been to draw all day, and especially in the evening. I have been slavishly dedicated to the all-request show Radio Free Current, where Sean McPherson refers to me as “David from Cleveland.” He’d call me that anyway, but it provides me a distinction from “David from Las Vegas.” We are both dedicated listeners. 

Perhaps it would have been worth it to bring the drawing table out of storage, but there is literally nowhere we could have put it without it being in the way for the entire semester.

This week, as I was drafting the text for the final page, I began to get depressed. Already! Completion depression, and I am not even close to finished! It needs to be turned in by May 11. I am in the zone, though. Last week I was behind, and I spent the entire weekend catching up.

But last night I was not drawing. Because I was done! I did the whole page on Friday. I mean, I’m not done-done, I need to go back and clean things up, add some backgrounds. However, the big work is complete.

Click on for detail.

I also need to write a radio drama. This is also a thing I have done. I have been repurposing a lot of my work this semester, which I am entirely justified in doing (he said somewhat defensively) because it’s about form, not originality. I adapted a comic book from a short play, there are other unproduced works that might make for good radio drama.

Speaking of which, tonight is the 2021 NEOMFA Playwriting Festival. Five short films will be presented at the Tremont Taphouse, including an adaptation of The Children Who Played at Slaughtering. It’s an eight minute film, directed by Dan Riordan, animated by Chris Gleason, with all the voices performed by Jo Roueiheb.

I’ve seen a preview. The team improved on the text, by which I mean, they changed text and for the better. It has a better ending line than the one I wrote. Also, because it is animation, they were able to add a lot of business that isn't in the text, but comments on the text, on the horrible world the kids see around them, and I love that. It’s a real collaborative effort.

Play a Day: The Two Kids That Blow Shit Up

Carla Ching

For Sunday, I read The Two Kids Who Blow Shit Up by Carla Ching and posted at New Play Exchange.

When I was younger, I held the belief that I would have one of those relationships which lasted my entire life, from childhood and on through to whenever. I held onto this belief for longer than was necessary, but when I look back it really wasn’t that long. Life really does seem to go on forever when you’re in the middle of it.

Still, I love those stories that span decades about people who are each other’s one, less than perfect soulmates, much more than friends.

Max and Diana were united when their parents began sleeping together, and over the next thirty years they manage their folks and themselves, two souls entwined in a need for trust, for having one person that they can entirely count on.

And that’s hard. To be the child of divorce, to have addictions, enter into unstable relationships. To clean up after each other’s messes, and those of their parents. It’s a very touching, soul-bearing work that jumps back and forth in time, from childhood to middle years, and all points in between, creating a tapestry of love and dependence. It’s worth it to have someone.

Who should I read tomorrow?