WHY READING PLAYS IS GOOD FOR YOU....

 

If you haven't been following my blog (it's okay, there's a lot of stuff to do in this world of ours), I read 30 plays for the 30 days of September, one a play a day, reading the plays in one sitting to get a good feel of their dramatic arc and structure. I then wrote about each play, giving a basic run down of what it was about, as well as some history of its premiere production and its playwright, and other dramaturgical information, as well as some of my opinions about each play.  The 30 plays were as follows (you can click on each one to go to my post about it) :

1. Lemon Sky by Lanford Wilson
2. Ceremonies in Dark Old Men by Lonne Elder III
3. Painting Churches by Tina Howe
4. The Flies by Jean-Paul Sartre
5. All Over by Edward Albee
6. Other Places by Harold Pinter
7. Marat/Sade by Peter Weiss, Translated by Geoffrey Skelton, Verse Adaptation by Adrian Mitchell
8. for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf by Ntozake Shange
9. Brilliant Traces by Cindy Lou Johnson
10. Titanic by Christopher Durang
11. Sticks and Bones by David Rabe
12. Bosoms and Neglect by John Guare
13. Arcadia by Tom Stoppard 
14. R.U.R. by Karel Čapek
15. Trudy Blue  by Marsha Norman 
16. Morning, Noon, and Night by Israel Horovitz, Terrence McNally, and Leonard Melfi
17. Jack and Jill: A Romance by Jane Martin
18. The Good Doctor by Neil Simon
19. Fences by August Wilson
20. Tea and Sympathy by Robert Anderson
21. One Flea Spare by Naomi Wallace
22. The Taking of Miss Janie by Ed Bullins
23. The Master Builder by Henrik Ibsen
24. I Hate Hamlet by Paul Rudnick 
25. Hunger and Thirst by Eugene Ionesco
26. Summer and Smoke by Tennessee Williams
27. Mary, Mary by Jean Kerr
28. Indians by Arthur Kopit
29. Salomé by Oscar Wilde
30. Little Murders by Jules Feiffer
BONUS PLAYS THROUGHOUT THE MONTH:  This Property is Condemned by Tennessee Williams, Come Down Burning by Kia Corthron, and My Left Breast by Susan Miller

As the title of this post might and the above picture suggests, spending a month focusing on reading a play daily was very good for me, and I think it will be good for you, too. 

But why, Bobby, why?

Here are a few reasons:

- IT REFRESHES YOUR VISUALIZATION:  I found that working my visualization muscles was a real treat. Setting the scene in your mind, hearing the characters in your head, and actually watching the play unfold in your imagination is a valuable tool for any playwright, actor or director. 

- DETECTING STRUCTURE BECOMES ALMOST AUTOMATIC: Especially with well-crafted plays, the reader begins to fully and almost inherently feel the structure of a play, and sense its dramatic arc. Clearly, this is valuable for any one involved in theater. 

-ONE BEGINS TO GLEAN CHARACTER BUILDING TECHNIQUE AND DRAMATIC ACTION: All these things one learns in a script analysis class or an early acting college course can start to be gleaned simply by reading plays, paying attention to how dialogue creates ACTION for character, how the dramatic action builds based on OBJECTIVES and OBSTRUCTIONS. One can find this stuff easily on the page--- it is not hard to find, because as you read, you simply begin to understand it as you let the play build in your imagination. 

- IT IS FUN:  Yes, pure and simple, reading plays is fun. And by fun, I don't just mean with the comedies and laughing, etc. Fun is also being engaged. Fun is feeling something deeply, understanding something in a new way that you have never understood it before. 

-IT IS BOTH HISTORY LESSONS AND EMPATY LESSONS:  I noticed when reading many of these plays, particularly American plays of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, how even plays that weren't outwardly political had something to say. Mary, Mary example, in many ways, seems like just a fun comedy, and it is that, certainly. But when you think of the time period and a female protagonist taking agency for herself, making the choices based on what she wants, it is a statement. A play like Tea and Sympathy  comments on toxic masculinity before the term existed, and comments on homophobia when it wasn't popular to do so. And plays like Indians, Fences, Come Down Burning, and The Taking of Miss Janie  deal with America's racism in stark and honest and necessary ways. And by presenting all of this as plays, where the reader and the audience is in the character's shoes, hearing their voices, it becomes an easier delivery system for empathy in many ways than other forms of writing (in my opinion... but don't get me wrong... I love pretty much all forms of writing). 

Do I think if you are serious about theater that you should try a similar challenge of reading 30 plays in 30 days?  Yes I do! 

Do I think if you just like reading that you should try a similar challenge of reading 30 plays in 30 days? Yes I do!

Do I think we should normalize reading plays in the same way that we read novels and short stories and poems,etc.? You bet! 

I know I plan to keep reading more and more plays. As a playwright, it has recharged my batteries and inspired me. I hope to read at least one play a week from here on out (on top of all the books and such I want to read, too). 

Don't feel you have to have the same reading list that I did (although I must say it is a pretty good one... I did try to be diverse and wide-ranging). Read any type of play that interests you, and then, please feel free to comment here and tell me about it. 

Thanks for taking the time to read my final thoughts on my 30 day play reading challenge. Go out and have a great month of reading yourselves! 

Shameless plug:  If you want to read any of my plays as part of your challenge, you can learn about them by CLICKING HERE

30 PLAYS IN 30 DAYS: Play #28 "Indians" by Arthur Kopit

 

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 #28

Indians by Arthur Kopit

If Arthur Kopit had stopped writing plays after his debut with Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You In The Closet And I'm Feelin' So Sad: A Pseudoclassical Tragifarce in a Bastard French Tradition, I would still consider him one of the most important American dramatists of his time, and, perhaps, of any time. That play proved to be prophetic about the sixties and the very notion of revolution, a theme shared in the brilliant one act play Madam Popov by Gladden Schrock. Fortunately for all of us, Kopit continued to write plays, including the brilliant Indians which I have finally read today. 

Again, I am glad that I saved it in a way, because the play seems even more relevant and tragic today as it did at the time it was written. Michael Patterson wrote in The Oxford Guide to Plays that Kopit "turned to a more serious political investigation of the white settlers' treatment of Native Americans," and that "Kopit's play was one of the first major pieces to confront the issue and to relate it to continuing genocide in South-East Asia." 

Indeed, I kept thinking as I read the play how it should be required reading in every high school in America, whether in history or English classes, with discussions about a country built on white supremacy and a notion of exceptionalism. 

Unlike Oh Dad, Poor Dad, which Kopit reportedly wrote in five days (!), Indians took a number of years to research, write, stage, rewrite, re-stage and rewrite some more (Kopit admitted this could have been a process for his entire lifetime with this particular piece). 

Indians sets out to obliterate the American myths of the wild west, our culture of "Cowboys vs. Indians," with the great white roughriders saving innocent white folks from the bloodthirsty savages with their trusty six-shooters. The play deftly cuts between Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show (something that caused a great deal of damage with its mythic nonsense of cowboy heroes, as did the dime novels of Ned Buntline, also a character in the play) and a so-called presidential commission meeting with Sitting Bull to hear their grievances about the American government's lies and broken promises to his people.  And the play also deals with the massacre at Wounded Knee and makes no bones about the fact that it was a completely politically motivated act of genocide. 

While this theater blog and this project is not meant to be political, I cannot help but say for a moment that the history of America needs to be told in honest terms. I even know people who will say it is tragic what happened, but seem to say so with a tone that suggest that it had to be this way. As Indians helps to reinforce, IT DID NOT HAVE TO BE THIS WAY. The American Government chose for it to be this way. When cheating Indigenous People out of their land, moving them to reservations, refusing to help them as promised, when all this didn't work, then there were the smallpox blankets, the massacres, the notion of wiping them out as though they were just a speedbump in progress. It did not have to be this way. Sadly, what people aren't really saying is, "It had to be this way to maintain white dominance, supremacy, and expansion." 

But back to the theater...

Kopit's final script is brilliantly structure, powerful and heartbreaking. Like his other pieces, it is also wonderfully theatrical and moves along at an exceptional pace, with brilliant dialogue, visual mastery and moment of dark and ironic humor. He clearly researched this with his heart and kept working to make it the best version of itself it could be, and it shows. 

After productions in London and Washington (with rewrites after each), Indians opened in New York on Broadway in October of 1969. Theater heavyweight Stacy Keach played Buffalo Bill, and other greats like Manu Tupou, Raul Julia, Charles Durning, and Sam Waterston appeared in it. And as much as I loved reading it, I am sure it is even more powerful to watch. 

The play was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award. In 1976, Robert Altman adapted it into a movie called Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson, which did not fare well as the country was celebrating its bicentennial.

Aruthur Kopit would also be a Pulitzer finalist for his play Wings, which also received a Tony nomination for Best Play. He would receive another Tony nomination for Best Book of a Musical for Nine, an adaptation of the film 81/2. With his Nine collaborator, he wrote the book for Phantom, an adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera that was overshadowed by Andrew Lloyd Webber's, though many critics prefer the Kopit version with music by Maury Yeston.

Sadly, Mr. Kopit passed away just this last April at the age of 83. He had been living with progressive dementia prior to his death. 

He will always be one of my heroes, and reading Indians today only solidifies my feelings on the matter. 

If you are interested in producing the play, it is licensed by Concord Theatricals, and you can learn more about it by CLICKING HERE.

Thanks for reading, and feel free to comment with your thoughts on this play or on Arthur Kopit below. If you are looking for a great Christmas play, check out A Wicked Christmas Carol, by me, which combines the worlds of Dickens and L. Frank Baum's Oz books. You can learn more by CLICKING HERE.

BREAK A LEG!: A look at this Theater Superstition

Note:  I am in no way affiliated with HBO or "Game of Thrones".... a wonderful student named Claire Hamlin sent this along to me!

Greetings, ladies and gentlemen!  Let's talk superstition, shall we?

There are MANY superstitions involved with the theater, but today I'm going to talk about what I believe to be the most common--- saying "break a leg" as opposed to "good luck".  As most people who have been in  a play know, it is supposedly bad luck to say "good luck" to a performer.  Instead, the term you use is "Break a leg."  (Mel Brooks has an entire song dedicated to this superstition in his musical, The Producers).

Indeed, in my experience with theater, I know people who are truly HORRIFIED if someone tells them good luck.  I have never been the type to be overly superstitious (not really--- I have my own superstitions and rituals I like to perform for myself, but I don't freak out over too many of the traditional superstitions).  Nonetheless, I do not ever tell my fellow cast members "good luck"--- I obey the terms as set down by history.

The questions then becomes this:  where did "break a leg" come from?

Interestingly enough, I have found several explanations for this expression, and the actual answer is not truly known.  Like all things that have a certain mythology around them, the true origin will most likely remain obscure. 

But here are some thoughts:

1.  In Ancient Greece, it is said that, instead of applauding, audience members would stomp their feet.  The more they enjoyed a performance, the harder they stomped.  Thus, if they stomped hard enough, they would break a leg.  So, really, perhaps what we're telling actors is to do a good enough job to hurt someone who paid money to see the show.

1A.  This one is close to the Ancient Greece explanation:  in Elizabethan times, they say audiences, instead of applauding, they would stomp their chair legs... if they liked the show a lot , they might break the chair leg. 

2.  In Ancient Rome, during the gladiator days, they supposedly had a term that the audience would shout out to a gladiator they liked, wishing them to merely be crippled as opposed to being killed.

3.  Some say it has to do with bowing.  Bowing, traditionally, consisted of putting one leg behind the other and giving a little kneel, thereby, "breaking the line in the leg".  Hence, breaking a leg. 

4. The answer I always heard growing up was something completely different, but, for the life of me, I can't find any written documentation of it.  It was told to me by an elder actor, and, I have since told it to many people.  But, in doing my research for this post, I could not find it written anywhere.  Nonetheless, I will tell you, because I am quite fond of this explanation:
I was told that the expression came from raked stages, where upstage really went up, like a little hill.  Thus, if you were standing right on the steepest area of the stage as it moved up, you would have to "brake" your leg to keep from losing your balance ("brake" in this case being like a car "brake" as opposed to a "break").  Over the years, I was told, the expression, which started as "brake a leg", became "break a leg". 

In any case, the expression did not become popular until the 1920s, and was never mentioned in print until the 1940s.  In this regard, it is still rather a young superstition. 

However young it may be, it is highly respected, and I would say to all you laypeople who have loved ones about to perform in a show:  never say good luck.  Break a leg, break a leg, break a leg.  It might seem silly, but theater is a world of pretend, and in this world of pretend, superstition can become very, very real. 

Until next time, thanks for reading this post.  To all my performer friends out there:  break a leg, and remember--- theater is a sport.  So try to avoid any real injury. 

IMMORTALITY and the MOMENT: The Writing On the Wall

Lakewood Theater, my summer home growing up

I had the karmic good fortune (to borrow a phrase from novelist Roland Merullo, one of my favorite professors from Bennington) to spend my summers growing up at Lakewood Theater, first as a theater brat tagging along with my parents, and then as an actor.  I can't say for certain how many plays I have been in at Lakewood Theater, only that it is a whole lot.  Because of my association with this historic institution, I have one of the largest extended families you will ever see.

There is a rich history and many ghosts running through the walls of this building, one of my favorite buildings on the planet.  I could write an entire post on its history, and may some day, but today I would like to focus on just a relatively small piece of history that only a relatively select few are given the opportunity to behold.

The dressing rooms, behind the hallowed stage, have walls that are covered with signatures of actors who have lived inside of them for the run of a show.  All right, perhaps they are not technically "lived in", but, trust me, they are lived in.  I have been in each and every one of them over the years.  My favorite is dressing room number 2.  I have especially fond memories of number 2.  You will find my name on that wall quite a bit. 

It's amazing the names you will find in Lakewood's dressing rooms.  When I was playing Finch in "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying", I was delighted to find the signature of Hal Holbrook on the wall of my dressing room for the same part more than 30 years before.  Hume Cronyn is there, as well as John Travolta (who appeared in Bus Stop years ago, his signature now faded, but always a source of excitement), as well as countless others. 

And there are plenty of names that years from now no one will recognize (I count my own among them). 

Every one signs differently.  Some make huge pieces of art, others are small and humble, barely noticeable.  Some write their name, followed by their character's name, followed by the name of the show and the year it was performed (I do variations of this).  Some write quotes from the show.  Some people write their names together.  Some search to find the perfect, unobtrusive spot, and others search for the spot that will get them the most attention. 

It's all good. 

I can't say for certain that I have signed for every show I've been in, but I know I have for most of them.  And whenever I move into a dressing room at Lakewood, I look around, checking out for the names of people I know, as well as the older signatures of rep actors, young hopefuls getting their professional start as part of Lakewood's stock company, back when it was an Equity house. 

Funny, but the old lighting booth at my high school, Foxcroft Academy, is also covered with signatures of actors and techies from shows over the years (the shows are no longer performed at FA, but at the local theater in town, Center Theatre). 

Why this desire to sign the walls?  Why do actors take part in this fun, legal graffiti? 

In my opinion, I think it comes from the idea of leaving your mark.  Theater, as we know, is a medium of the moment.  A performance is a specific time in the Universe that is shared by the performers, the crew, and that particular audience.  And then it is gone from the physical, tangible world.  It is filed into the memories of each person involved, all of the witnesses if you will.  Obviously, this is unlike film and video, which is a more permanent medium. 

It is this shared moment that makes me love live theater above other forms of performing.  It is this connection, this shared memory, that makes it all worthwhile.  Each signature on the wall of Lakewood Theater's dressing rooms represents a treasured experience--- it represents an individual with a theater story to tell, a perception of a moment in time that is fixed and unshakeable and beautiful in their memory.  It is a way to capture a sense of permanence and immortality in a passing flash of creation, a piece of art that is viewed but once and must be held on to.  These signatures say, "I was here.  I was part of this connection, this communion with others.  I made something with these people, something imperfect, but all the more beautiful because of it.  I was a part of this family."

A very wise and lovely person once told me that it is a good thing that some moments are not captured by anything but memory.  Because in memory, every moment can truly last forever, and never be anything but perfect. 

I wish I could say things so eloquently.

I will be back in good old dressing room number 2 this afternoon, but will not sign its walls yet again until the end of the run.  But I will look at some of the old signatures, one in particular, and take a moment to bask in those perfect memories, those moments that have become immortal for me.

Until next time... remember, theater is a sport.