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Re: RAT Toastmaster
"Everything that is not the case is toast" LW
A very large problem I see for playwrights is the lack of a universal notation system for intended emotion, important inflection, and various sorts of subtext.
The assumption that's been made ever since the Method/Hollywood connection took over U.S. performance process is that a playscript contains the ingredients from which the director and actors make ... toast.
"Collaboration" became a code word for actor/director-centric performance for which the writer provides "raw material" -- the number of eggs, the amount of yeast. It is up to the other collaborators to determine what sort of toast it becomes.
This works well for work coming out of improvisation, or intended to allow for a lot of interpretation, or for playwrights (like Mamet or Stoppard, or Shakespeare/Moliere) who are writing for specific actors and know that the initial productions will probably be "right", or for playwrights who are heavily visual or mostly auditory and *want* a lot of help with interpretation.
For most other playwrights I've worked with / commiserated with, though, the process is a culinary minefield. Their carefully crafted English scones will be turned into toast, or loaded with marmalade, or deconstructed for the raisins. Playwrights understand that different casts will have slightly different interpretations (and some, defensively I think, welcome that publicly), but they don't expect an entirely different play to emerge.
In a way this is teenage rebellion that has found a home in a performance form. "I don't want to do it the way you wrote it. I want to do it my way. I like it better my way. And besides, I'm producing the piece and they're acting in it. You just put these ... blobs of ink on paper." And so the playwright finds him/herself back in high school (in grade school?), having the [fill in the blanks] taken away from them by the popular/aggressive kids.
One justification for this, of course, is that by allowing wide varieties of interpretation, the way is opened for many more productions and assures wider exposure to a particular play.
But, what I actually see happening, throughout this country -- and extending into Europe -- is that film/TV saturated actors and directors tend to have such homogenized perormance/directing styles -- and such homogenized life experiences -- that they turn scripts that are very different than one another in intent into *the same performance piece". The characters of Chekhov, Tristan Tzara, Bill T. Jones all come to look like the cast of Friends -- hungover, or having a particularly verbal day in the coffee shop.
But... if you think of a playscript as more of an engineering specification than a do-it-yourself bakefest, you can see why I'm arguing the need for a notational system that "scores" many of the elements from the playwrights point of view.
Different casts will *always* produce different productions. The assumption that the playwright's vision isn't correct, or isn't practical or doesn't make sense often really means "I don't know what she is talking about" ... or ... "We don't have the skill to do it that way, so...." ... or ... "The plot and characters are cool -- and just like something I was thinking about. I can't write for shit, so I'll turn what you wrote into what I would like to write."
So... the next time "making toast" comes up, how about thinking about "making a fine watch" from blueprints. Too time consuming? Too much trouble? Too ego suppressing?
There we have it.
Cheers,
Cat Hebert
cat@virtualdrama.com
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