30 PLAYS IN 30 DAYS: Play #15 "Trudy Blue" by Marsha Norman

 

I have decided for the month of September to read 30 plays in 30 days. It is my belief that, if possible, a play should be read in one sitting to get a better inherent sense of the dramatic arc. Each day, I will write a short post here about the play of the day.

Play #15

Trudy Blue by Marsha Norman

Marsha Norman received the Pulitzer Prize in 1983 for her play 'Night Mother, and wrote the book and lyrics for a Broadway musical adaptation of The Secret Garden, which scored her Tony and Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical. I was mostly familiar with three things about her:  a writer's handbook in which she wrote an essay giving advice (including to read 4 hours a day and not let anyone ask you why you were just sitting around reading), her play Traveler in the Dark that a friend and fellow student directed at Bennington, and her play Loving Daniel Boone (which I read because the premiere production starred my playwriting professor Gladden Schrock in the title role). 

Trudy Blue originally grew from a short one act called Lunch With Ginger, which is still a scene in the play. The play centers around Ginger, a middle-aged writer who lives a great deal in her mind, struggling with a marriage that has gone stale and a life that doesn't feel all that happy to her. The play moves back and forth between what is real, what is imagined, and what is remembered, and has a tendency to honestly feel like it can operate outside of or general ideas of space and time. In this regard, Norman achieves a true kind of daydream-like quality that goes well with the character. Ginger is working on a new book, featuring a lead character named Trudy Blue, a stand-in for Ginger who knows exactly what she wants, knows exactly what she wants to say, and is unafraid of doing what will make her happy. 

Some may be bothered by the fact that Norman doesn't give us exact answers, but such things rarely bother me, so long as I have been interested enough in the journey. And while I do feel the play could be shaved a little bit, Ginger is an interesting character, and, as someone who daydreams quite a bit myself, I could relate to her. I think most writers could. I mean, who doesn't wish they could write a character who could solve all of their problems and be as brave and bold as we all secretly wish we could be?

Trudy Blue was first performed at the prestigious Humana Festival of New plays in 1995, but, from what I could find, is not the most popular of Norman's works. Regardless, it is a play that I think would be interesting to see on the stage.