Structure and Evolution

In trying to rewrite, or "reboot," my play All Grace, I'm back to facing the original challenges from the first attempt. How do you tell three stories at once?

The three stories are:

Father Couturier, a priest, is fighting to create a church filled with Modern Art, which is against a decree from the Pope.

Jacques Lipchitz, a sculptor, is battling with his past, escapes from Paris to NYC when the Nazis invade, and is asked to create a sculpture of the Virgin Mary for Couturier's church.

The Virgin Mary becomes pregnant with a son, gives birth, and witnesses his execution... And mingles with Lipchitz and Couturier.

Now... In the original draft, I set the stories on parallel paths, separate, yet blending. I began Couturier's story with his friend's invitation to work on the church in 1941; Lipchitz' with his leaving of his Lithuanian hometown to become an artist in Paris in the early 1900's; Mary's story began with the angel coming to her, telling her she was going to have a famous baby.

The second act finally let the stories come together as Lipchitz and Couturier actually meet. I remember the audience reaction at the production in the Iowa New Play Festival when Lipchitz heard a knock on his door and it was Father Couturier. There was a delight in that moment, of "finally!," of "I see, it's all coming together!" It was primarily because of this reaction from the audience that kept me from changing the structure of the play. I knew that the first act wasn't as strong as the second. I wondered if it had to do with the fact that Lipchitz started his story as an 18-year-old and ended at the end of act one as a 50-year-old man. That's quite a feat for any actor.

So, my first decision in returning to the world of All Grace was to allow Lipchitz' story to begin at the same moment as Couturiers: 1941. This would bring the parallel lines closer together, almost touching. I also made the decision that Lipchitz' past could speak to him in the present, "ghosts" could touch his life, bring up the same old worries that have plagued him all his life.

That line of thinking began over a year ago, September of 2006. I have the scrawlings in my Moleskine and the notes stolen on a playbill of all these new ideas that I'm trying to put into reality.

But, of course, time changes all things, and my ideas for setting the story of Act One, changed drastically about two weeks ago. The first act had always begun with a prologue showing Lipchitz and Couturier shaking hands and the Virgin Mary putting her hand on theirs. This was meant to be a visual cue to the audience that the play is about all three, it's about the mingling of these characters, that not one story is supposed to trump the others, it's the juxtaposition that makes the play operate. In a burst of inspiration so random that I can't remember when or where it occurred, I thought, "What if once Lipchitz and Couturier shake hands in the prologue, I just continue with their first meeting?" As I said, the first meeting between these two characters took place in the second act, so it would be a major shift to put the meeting at the first moment of the play.

One of the weakest scenes in the play when it was produced was this initial meeting of Lipchitz and Couturier. It lacked substance. It lacked the amount of time that was needed to convince Lipchitz to agree to create the statue of the Virgin, something so incredibly against his beliefs. But it couldn't be longer because it was simply the first scene of act two, and the audience was already used to the play moving much quicker, flowing...

What if I made it longer? What if the first meeting between these two men was not just a scene, but an entire act? What if the first act begins with them shaking hands in introduction and ends with them shaking hands in agreement?

And how does Mary fit into it?

These are the questions that I'm dealing with as I continue to plug along with the "reboot." I feel as though I'm on the verge of cracking the play open, finding the one thing that pulls everything together in my mind. So close.