Re: RAT nature of the play...

[The Independent Eye <bards@independenteye.org>]

Lyle, hi-
	Quick replies.
	Sure, broad archetypal characters can work if they're interesting.
Mephistopheles in DR. FAUSTUS, Dionysus in THE BACCHAE, countless
characters in the work of SF Mime Troupe and the early Teatro Campesino,
etc. etc.  Depends on what they're in contrast to, and often on the
capacity of the actor to make them vivid - certainly requires a
larger-than-life actor.
	Long monologs, surely, can forward the action, but it's easy to get
wrapped up in the thought & language and fake the "action" of the monolog.
Also depends where it is in the structure:  if the audience wants stuff to
move forward at that moment, they probably want a scene; on the other hand,
if they've just been through the wringer and would dig cooling out a while,
then talk away.
	Actually, it's pretty amazing that you got such specific comments
from script submissions.  Most lit. managers avoid that because (a) they
don't have time, and (b) if they comment much, they'll immediately get 5
plays from the same writer.  And they should know that, as you say, all
their comments are relative, and this sort of textbook theorizing simply
sounds dumb.
	But it's not so much a matter of debate as to whether they're right
or wrong.  (And you should be grateful that if they didn't understand the
technique of the play, they didn't try to produce it.)  In my own
experience, I've found that the most functional way of dealing with
negative comments, whether from collaborators, friends,
playwriting-labsters, audience, or reviewers, is to see the comment as
Symptom rather than as Prescription.  That is, I take very seriously that
this particular person had some sort of problem with this character or this
monolog.  Maybe that was totally personal with him, but I should really
look at it more closely.  It's quite possible that the pain in the gut is
real but that the diagnosis and prescription are idiotic.
	My favorite example of this was an experience of mine in doing a
solo show of Mark Twain stories (not the Hal Holbrook mimicry style, but
simply performed for their own value).  The centerpiece of the show was
"The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg," a long, very plot-driven piece, very
complicated.  The show was very successful, but I continued to get
comments, both from audience and critics, that "Hadleyburg" was too long,
needed to be cut shorter.  I sensed this too in the playing, and I tried to
cut it more (very difficult because of the plot turns), tried to go faster.
Nothing worked.  At last, I don't recall how, I realized that "too long"
was a relative term.  There's no such thing as a piece being "too long" if
it takes you with it all the way.  So where was I losing them?  What I came
to realize was that the plot complications weren't being fully understood,
so they were missing the bus, running to catch up, missing more, and
finally just settling in to watching the (brilliant!) performance without
fully understanding what was going on.  It was a great party, but nobody
spoke English.  The solution to the piece being too long was to take the
time to get them fully on board - in short, to make it longer.
	My critics were doing their best to describe the symptom, but like
most of us, they could do this only by suggesting a prescription, and their
prescription made no sense, so I stayed in denial as long as I could.  So I
try always to take *every* comment as a potentially useful response, but
usually the solution to the problem, if a problem exists, isn't what's
being suggested.

Cheers-
Conrad Bishop



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