Continuing with the Alethiometer

My friend Kate just recently commented on the Alethiometer post, and I thought it a good topic to continue as it pertains to artist feedback and "workshopping." I've pulled some of the choice bits from Kate's comments to begin the conversation. Before I delve into it, I wanted to give some preemptive explanation of the Coe Writing Center. As the website says:

"The Coe Writing Center is a place for conversation and composition. Students can bring papers in any stage of writing, from assignment to final draft... to provide ideas and assistance in the writing process..."

It's a place for students to gain feedback on academic papers (I always confused people by bringing in plays and screenplays) to get past writer's block or to make sure that the paper is working on all levels.

So, now, onto Kate:

"One thing that always frustrated me at the Coe Writing Center was, when I took in a piece of writing, I set my compass at certain symbols. And the consultant looked at the compass and came up with the fourth symbol, based on what they thought my compass symbols meant. But, sometimes (often?), our interpretations of the symbols were different, so they would end up giving me answers to questions I hadn't asked. I wanted to know what they thought of the validity of my argument; they told me why Dr. Burke wouldn't give me an A. Or vice versa.

Their answers, and the "confersations" were good, often great and helpful and interesting in their own right. But, I would still come away with some of my own questions, as well as more questions about how others would read the piece."

I love this conversation! Okay. Let's get the metaphor set again. In using the Alethiometer, you have three knobs that you control to ask your question, steering three hands to symbols with meanings specific to your way of asking the question. The fourth hand spins and spins, stopping on different symbols on the way, pointing you to an answer. In the past post, I mentioned that a play is an alethiometer, but to make it more specific, the play, or a piece of writing, is the fourth hand of the alethiometer giving answer to a question that the author has wriggled out on those three knobs. In this sense, the audience or reader isn't privy to the knobs or the original question, so, in a sense, they're playing metaphorical Jeopardy, searching for the question from the given answer. This, Kate, is what I believe is the issue with feedback in the Writing Center, and also in playwriting workshops. In short, they aren't addressing the answer of the paper, they are trying to guess at your question.

Now, in terms of academic papers, there is an assignment, which gives some guidance, since it is the "question" being asked. Then, the consultant or such is judging the paper as it pertains to the given question and by the person doing the asking, in your example "Dr. Burke." So, the consultant asks themselves, "If Dr. Burke asked about the character of Medea as a Hellenistic hero, does this paper answer it to Dr. Burke's liking." Now, a different game is being played, they are trying to read Dr. Burke, himself, as an alethiometer. Hope I haven't lost anyone yet. If I have, read to here again and hopefully it'll become clearer.

Let's go back to Kate:

"I think what I mean to say is this: maybe the compass settings/questions we ask have as many layers of meaning as the answers we get. How do we more accurately set the compass to receive the more true or more accurate answers we are looking for? For example, and not to pick on you, but it's the example in your entry: is there a way to ask your wife (I won't use her name here since you don't) for a more specific form of feedback so that you can get the type of answer you are looking for? Not to just hear what you may want to hear about it, but her real perceptions about the exact things you have questions about?"

Kate brings up an interesting point, and I hope that I don't go to deeply into the metaphor, but, at this point, there's no real way around it... How does an author get specific answers from those he/she is requesting feedback from? In a sense, Kate, we're turning the person giving feedback into an alethiometer. How? We give them our writing, ask them a question, and then they give an answer. This is especially true in settings such as the MFA Playwrights Workshop at the University of Iowa. Let me share something from my graduate thesis that might speak to the heart of this:

"In most workshop settings, indeed in the Playwrights Workshop, there is the model of the 'Silent Playwright' who merely [sits back in silence after the play is read or heard and] takes in and digests the questions [and comments from his/her colleagues]. This process might prove more effective with a play that is further along in a playwright’s process (I'll come back to this), but not in an initial meeting with a playwright when the draft is fresh off the printer. Often at this stage, the playwright isn’t ready to answer many questions, but allowing a conversation to take place with the playwright and learning what questions the playwright is able to answer would lead to advice that is centered more on the playwright’s process and the current stage of the play, which can lead to a plan of action. With an 'active' playwright, the meeting becomes a conversation and is led, by a large part, by the playwright’s vision of the play. Since the playwright explicitly describes the goals of the play, everyone involved in the conversation can see the play at the play from the playwright’s perspective."

So, to answer your question, Kate, yes, there are ways to steer people to your specific questions. If we continue thinking of our givers of feedback as alethiometers themselves, I would say there are ways to "turn their knobs," and get to the heart of what your question really is, asking about specific moments, specific characters, specific points. But, in the end, there remains the unending levels of meaning and understanding. The feedback that you are given as the author still must be interpreted and digested as it pertains to you and your question. Let's take, for example, the workshop meeting I had with my play, Solamente Una Vez; A Thaw. The ending of the play was something that I was extremely curious about. I had written an ending that was simple, gave no "catharsis," and that I hoped would make the audience say, "Aw man! Why?!" This ending exceeding frustrated my colleagues at the Playwrights Workshop. "This character doesn't get any comeuppance." "Why would these two characters make that decision, it doesn't make sense?!" And so on and so on. They hated the ending and told me so quite explicitly. Earlier in my career, I would have heard their feedback and said, "Well, I suppose I should change it if it causes that kind of reaction." But I knew that the play had elicited the exact reaction that I had wanted. In readings of the play in New York and Atlanta, the audiences groaned and laughed at the ending of the play. Susan Booth, the artistic director of the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, praised the ending, saying that the fun of the ending was in the frustration of knowing that these two characters who shouldn't be together are still getting married despite all the crap that just happened in the play. So, in the end, I had to know the reaction that I wanted the audience to have, so that I could better interpret the feedback given by my peers.

Which brings us to Kate's interesting final points:

"Another thing that comes to mind is that with a play (for most people, a one time performance with a multitude of variables, and no chance to go back/re-experience the moment), the answer may be different for each person who views it, at each moment they view it. How does a playwright, especially (although the question could be asked of any artist, really), make certain each person's answer is the same, or similar? If you write a play and set those hands to symbols with your own meanings, how do you ever get your specific answer to the viewer? Or, is that not the point at all? Is the whole point that you set the alethiometer and write to answer your own question, and then let go, and then each viewer picks up your alethiometer with their admission ticket, and find an answer of their own (perhaps from a question of their own -- we never know how people choose to attend a play or pick up a certain book, or open up a book of poetry to a certain page)?"

For me, I know that I have something specific, yet unspecific in mind in terms of audience reactions to my plays: I want the audience to feel something, anything! It reminds me of a man who was sitting beside my parents during my play All Grace, who kept turning to his friend and asking angrily, "Yes, but what's he trying to SAY?!" I think audiences don't give themselves enough credit. They spend too much time, trying to figure out what the artist is "trying to say." I'm guilty of it as well. I think a lot of it comes from not being used to deep digestion thanks to certain films and tv shows, which I'm not blaming as a downfall of society or anything, since I watch "The Big Bang Theory" and catch my fair share of episodes of "Two and a Half Men." I'm just saying we're all out of practice of interpretation. Of letting meaning come to us. We want immediate answers. Sometimes a good play or novel or essay or even report on "This American Life" needs to sit in us for months or years before the meaning and understanding blossoms for us. We're just so used to having answers given to us explicitly in soundbites and easy to digest candy coating. It makes it all the more difficult when someone slips us a, to borrow from Alanis, jagged-little pill that works on our insides.

Thoughts?

Reading the Alethiometer

I was speaking to my wife today about reading plays and giving comments and criticism. "You don't like when I give you feedback, do you?" she asked. In truth, I love when my wife gives me feedback. However, when I ask for feedback, I'm often looking for something deep... I couldn't find the words to describe it.

Then, I remembered the alethiometer, better known as The Golden Compass in the His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip Pullman. The name comes from "alètheia," Greek for "Truth." So, in essence, it's a measurer of truth. Here's a description of the device from the novel:

"It was very like a clock, or a compass, for there were hands pointing to places around the dial, but instead of the hours or the points of the compass there were several little pictures, each of them painted with extraordinary precision... There was an anchor; an hourglass surmounted by a skull; a bull, a beehive... Thirty-six altogether... There were three little knurled winding-wheels... and each of them turned one of the three shorter hands... You could arrange them to point at any of the pictures... The fourth hand was longer and more slender, and seemed to be made of a duller metal than the other three. Lyra couldn't control its movement at all; it swung where it wanted to, like a compass-needle, except that it didn't settle."

Okay, what does this have to do with reading/seeing a play? I'm getting to that. In order to get into it, I have to expand on the thought of reading the alethiometer itself. You ask the device a question, maneuvering the three knobs to point the hands to different symbols. Then, the answer comes from the fourth hand as it whips and spins to different symbols, giving the answer. Each symbol "stands for a whole series of things. Take the anchor, there. The first meaning of that is hope, because hope holds you fast like an anchor so you don't give way. The second meaning is steadfastness. The third meaning is snag, or prevention. The fourth meaning is the sea. And so on, down to ten, twelve, maybe a never-ending series of meanings..."

But it's not just the symbols that create the answer; it's also the frame of mind of the reader that helps the answer come to light. You have to be able to hold all the symbols in your mind and then see down to the depths, through all the levels of meaning behind each symbol. The books describe this as an almost trance-like state of mind.

I believe that plays are, themselves, alethiometers, each with their own "symbols" and levels of meaning to be interpreted and understood. Some are able to reach an understanding through intellectual means, research and the like. Some come to understand meaning in a more intuitive way. When I came to this realization, I was able to tell my wife that I respect her feedback, but now see that when I ask for her it, I expect her to immediately see to the very deepest level of understanding of my plays, and become impatient when she can only see the surface meanings at first. I need to cultivate patience to let her catch up.

Melanie Marnich once said that a play begins when a question is asked and ends when the question is answered. I agree, but the answer a play comes to shouldn't be simple, shouldn't be given in a happy package. The question should lead you into the murky depths of perception and understanding. The answer won't be clear. As in reading the alethiometer, you have to actively engage in it if you are to witness the flash of epiphany, the gust of comprehension that quickly and almost imperceptibly flows through your mind.

What do you think of this?