Changing Titles, Changing Plays

It's rarely the case that I change the title of a play... Why? I don't know. I guess the play titles usually fit. Either that, or I'm so insanely stubborn to consider the fact that a play's title might be wrong. The second one is most likely closer to the truth.

I've renamed The Drowning Dance, and it's very difficult to call it by its new name, despite the fact that I've already renamed the file, the folders it rests in, and the pages on my dormant website. The new name? Bloodletting. In looking closely at Drowning Dance during my rewrites, I noticed that I was trying to paste in as many water images as possible in order to make the play work. But the play was telling me it was about something else. Everywhere, all throughout, there were references to blood and flesh. I thought about calling it "Flesh and Blood," but that was dumb. More than dumb, it was fucking stupid. So, I looked up the words "flesh" and "blood" in the good ol' thesaurus. "Flesh:" Meat. Food. (Boring.) "Blood:" plasma, vital fluid, gore. "Vital Fluids?" That's a terrible name for a play! "Vitality?" Nah.

But "Bloodletting." 1. The surgical removal of some of a patient's blood for therapeutic purposes. (YES!)
2. The violent killing and wounding of people during a war or conflict. (Yes, to a smaller extent)
3. Bitter division and quarreling within an organization. (Yes, again!)

So, the new play is born. Even though it's mostly the same play, there's a different feeling now that it has a new name. Why? Because it makes you search for meaning differently. Instead of searching for "Drowning," you're tapping into "blood" and "therapy" or conflict. It's a major change in the audience's focus.