Shaolin Playwriting

Okay, so we've had three guests visit the program recently, all three testing our limits of our imagination in terms of how to create and view our work. One guest, Norma Bowles, was very physical and made us focus on improvisation to create a collaborative piece to present to the community. The next, John Walch, was concerned with structure and spoke to us about "Feng Shui" revision, which actually helped me focus the revisions of "Holy Schmidt!" I was having trouble letting go of certain things because I had grown to love them, but knew they weren't working for the script. But after the guest, I was able to refocus my energy without the fear of letting go.

Our most recent guest, Ruth Margraff, who is still here, had us look at the five shaolin fighting styles: Dragon, Crane, Tiger, Snake, Leopard. She had us consider three plot points from a current play of ours, three actions. We were each assigned an animal, I was a Crane. The Crane is patient, yet full of libido. The Crane lives a long time. The Crane tries to control opponents with the minimum amount of energy. Somewhat passive aggressive. Great for my characters. So we had to partner up and present our actions in martial arts movements... Didn't go over completely well with everyone, but most of us were good sports about it. It was an interesting concept to physicalize and then internalize that into writing a scene. It gave me a large sense of purpose on a particular scene that I couldn't wrap my head around for my new play "Solamente Una Vez." How do you ask a friend that you're in love with to have sex with you? That was the bulk of the scene. How do you communicate lust in an effectual way? The Crane point of view focused the writing of the scene. I didn't even take a break when it was available. I continued writing and writing, the words were coming. This is a play that seems to be coming from a different place in me. Usually plays come from theme songs or images or jokes. This play is coming from somewhere else entirely. The writing of it reminds me of writing my first draft of my play "Father Bob." It started out as a ten minute play, which was different from anything I had written. The characters were very dark and gritty. They wanted something taboo and were going after it. That was the fun of the scene I wrote yesterday for "Solamente Una Vez." I was completely inside the character's struggle to get something they couldn't come right out and say. I think it's one of my strongest scenes. And, as a play, I think it's going to be stronger and more visceral than things I've written so far. It's starting to inform my other plays as well, which is a good thing. The plays from different genres are now starting to bleed into each other, making them more complex and rich. I'm excited about my writing again. It's always to hard to find that spark to carry you through writing an entirely new play, but I've found it, and for the first time, it's internal rather than external.