Write A LOT of cruddy stuff: a conversation with three playwrights

I happened upon a panel discussion at the Orem library tonight that featured Eric Samuelsen, Melissa Leilani Larson, and Wendy Gorley.  Well, that makes it sound as if I was wandering the stacks and heard them talking.  In actuality, this morning Eric posted about remembering that he was doing something tonight and forgetting what it was.  When the mystery was solved I realized that I had nothing going on tonight and could ask my live-in babysitters to get the kids ready for bed while I ran off to the library.  Hooray!  It seemed like just the kick-in-the-pants I needed, playwriting-wise, and that’s what it ended up being.

It was a pretty intimate little gathering where the playwrights told fun stories about their experiences writing and producing plays.  Words of wisdom were offered.  Questions were answered.  A giant chocolate cake came into play at one point.  And I ended up looking like a dork, which I learned from the playwrights is something I should embrace. 

They made lots of good points, but the one that stuck with me (because it hit the closest to home) is that you should embrace failure, not fear looking stupid, and write lots and lots of cruddy stuff (so that you can have something to revise and revise into something better).  In the spirit of that sentiment, when I heard someone introduced to another person as a poet I took the next possible moment to introduce myself to him and to pitch my open mic to him.  He looked somewhat perplexed, mostly bemused, and talked with me about BYU (I graduated shortly after he began teaching there).  Then, later, I heard two of the playwrights talking in amazement about having this amazing BYU poet in attendance and how in awe they were of him.  Yes, I had pitched my budding performance poetry venue to one of the preeminent LDS poets, who very well might be the sort of poet who thinks that slam poetry isn’t actually poetry, who certainly doesn’t have a huge desire to hear a poem about the importance of tampons or the horrors of too tiny bikinis.  I kind-of wanted to sink into a crack in the floor. 

But then I embraced my dorkiness.  Because, you know what?  That sentence up there makes a whole lot of assumptions about a person I actually don’t know at all.  Tie-clad BYU professors that students worship may very well be closet performance poets.  You never know.  And part of my mission with this creative writing open mic is to draw in a segment of the writing population that isn’t already in the slam poetry scene.  That would be this poet for sure.  Definitely following up the dorky encounter with a professional but dorky email.

The other thing that made me feel dorky in a positive way is the restlessness that this discussion made me feel about one of my major goals with moving up to Utah County.  I had lost my theater community and I wanted that back.  In the past few years I have stoked the fires of my writing with poetry but haven’t really gotten back on the playwriting horse.  My hope with this move is that I can establish a new artistic community up here.  I don’t know how that will play out.  I don’t know who will be involved in that long-term.  I do know, however, that it takes time to establish those connections and friendships.  And it takes time to get back on that horse.  So maybe it’s a good thing that I won’t have live-in babysitters for much longer because what I most need right now, as I am establishing the community part of the dream, is to establish the art part of the scene.  Instead of dashing off to a fun panel discussion to get a kick in my playwriting pants, I need to spend an hour at home writing.  I need to give myself my own kick in the pants.  Because I’m a dork and I embrace that.  And I’m going to write a ton of really crappy stuff, including introspective blogs, saccharine novels, ridiculous poems, and contrived plays.  Complete drivel.  Look forward to it, Utah County.

Real Live Mormon Women

3
by Eric Samuelsen
March 29, 2014
Plan B Theatre, Salt Lake City UT

When a character in a play speaks a truth plucked from your own heart that no one understands, you begin to wonder if people will really understand the play.  You wonder if people will get it or if they will walk away feeling like all of their prejudices have been confirmed.  The play is Eric Samuelsen's 3 and I fear the likelihood is high that the outcome will be the latter.

3 is a series of short pieces about Mormon women and in many ways it is uncanny how Eric, who to my knowledge has never been a Mormon woman, captures some of the struggles faced by Mormon women.  One thing he fails to capture, though, are any of the triumphs.  Sure, Kel (in the first piece, Bar and Kel) does end up having a personal relationship with her visiting teaching "project" and comes to recognize what is wrong with Bar's approach to service, but she still plays the part of Bar's faithful #2 to the end.  Bar herself is a woman we are all familiar with, but she becomes a caricature of the pushy Relief Society sister.  We all got to pat ourselves on the back for being so much more enlightened than she was because we never saw her humanity.  We never really understood her.  People are rarely so simple and completely awful in their motivations.

Even so, I looked at her and felt mortified again for every visiting teaching fumble I've ever committed.  I thought, "Is that how people see me?": the less active sister who called the Bishop to complain I was stalking her when I left two messages on her cell phone in a 4 week period, the sister who wanted to get her GED but didn't want to study, any little slice of my life where people who have already made their minds up about the Mormons could point and say, "See!  They're pushy!  They only care about their own agenda.  All they think about is appearances...I was right."  Ok.  So maybe you are right sometimes.  But there are so many more times when you are wrong.

The second piece, Community Standard, was heartbreaking in its veracity.  You could tell that Janeal's monologue struck a cord in the audience when she asked a rhetorical question and a woman in the audience called out the answer ("Did he ever listen?" "NO!").  Struggling with how the power dynamic in pornography played out in her own life, I loved how this was manifest in recurring dreams of being on the Titanic and "girl porn," where the main character doesn't get an unrealistic sexual response but, instead, a sensitive male response that doesn't align with her reality.  For all of its nuances, though (her journey of self-realization was striking), it still felt like a moment where someone could say "See!  I was right about them."  As a playwright I recognize that you can't tell all stories at once.  The fact that not all Mormon marriages have this dynamic does not negate the fact that some marriages do.  But acknowledging in such a powerful way that some Mormon marriages do have this dynamic while sitting in a theater in Salt Lake City (a town that feels like Ground Zero for Entrenched Anti-Mormons) made me, as a faithful LDS woman, feel way too vulnerable.  I acknowledge both sides of the coin on this topic and my harshest critics--I say my critics instead of "critics of the church" because attacking my religion is attacking my core--my harshest critics seem to only acknowledge one side of the coin.  I don't think anyone wants to pull back a bandage to show the wounds of their culture while people are standing around ready to poke it with a sharp stick.  I recognize that I may be being too sensitive here.  I blame it on one too many pokes with a sharp stick.

The third piece, Duet, is the one that resonated the most with me, at first because of my many years as Ward Music Chairperson and then because of the beautifully sympathetic portrayal of Sondra, a woman who finds herself in an impossible situation (one that I've never been in, but that I can deeply sympathize with).  Using singing as a metaphor for emotional intimacy, the piece explores how we support each other and how we let each other down.  Sondra's story unfolds as a series of contrasts: beauty they can't keep their eyes off/ugliness they can't bring themselves to look at, perfection/imperfection, harmony/disharmony, acceptance/rejection.  Sondra appears to reject the choir sisters when, in fact, she is dealing with entirely different issues.  This should soften the rejection of Sondra at the end because we have seen that surface appearances don't even come close to telling the whole story, but it doesn't.  What I most wanted here was for one moment in the play to expose some beauty rather than some more awfulness.  Could the "typical" Relief Society sister not have gone to her friend in the end?  Did she have to walk away?  I know there are people who walk away, but there have been so many times that I have seen sisters not walk away.  Could that sister have a voice in this play too?  Could the other side of the argument have a "See!  I was right!" moment too?

Perhaps I misspoke when I wondered whether or not people would understand this play.  I really wonder if people understand that the spectrum of human experience applies to the Mormon experience too and that looking at one end of the spectrum doesn't invalidate the other end.  Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the play, though.  Perhaps I'm not getting it.  Perhaps my assumption of sympathetic understanding is entirely off base.  Perhaps if I said to my friend Eric that "I would give anything to sing with that man for the rest of my life" he would feel only kind-hearted pity and thank his lucky stars that he isn't as misguided as I am.  I hope not.

Clearing Bombs

Clearing Bombs by Eric Samuelsen
World Premiere at Plan-B Theatre Company
February 22, 2014

Perhaps the worst time to watch a play that consists of two economists arguing about the larger economic picture is when you are about to make a major, life-changing decision in your own personal economics.  That’s what I did, though, because when I bought the tickets I had no idea that’s what last Saturday would be for me.  I wasn’t about to give up my chance to see an Eric Samuelsen world premiere, though, so I told the respective parties that they would have to give me a couple more hours to let the idea percolate and headed off to the theatre to let two famous economists sit on either shoulder and give me the pros and cons of making what Keynes referred to as the “inspired madness” of personal investment.

I should let you all know that I’m not the sort of person who seeks out these sorts of discussions in my own life.  I get overwhelmed by the political back and forth.  I feel ignorant.  I rely on emotional arguments that are easily refuted.  I feel like people are talking circles around me.  I am, essentially, the modern equivalent of the Everyman figure in the show, Mr. Bowles (Kirt Bateman).  I do feel a nagging obligation to be less ignorant, though, which is why I like listening to other people discuss stuff like this, as long as I’m not required to defend my thoughts/opinions and as long as they don’t talk over my head.  I like to think I’m not alone in that, which is why I feel comfortable admitting to it.  This is also why the structure of the show worked so well for me.  The two economists spent their time trying to win the heart and mind of the Everyman and, hey, that’s me.

The first thing that I started tracking in the show was the visual element.  I immediately saw the downward trend of a graph in the line of the roof (well done, set designer Randy Rasmussen!).  I also loved the contrast between the two men (Keynes, played by Mark Fossen, and Hayek, played by Jay Perry).  Hayek was short; Keynes was tall.  Hayek wore a black suit and black shoes; Keynes wore a navy blue suit and brown shoes.  Hayek had a white collar; Keynes had a striped collar.  Hayek’s suit felt more formal with a more formal style vest; Keynes had the comfortable suit of a rumpled professor and a less formal style vest (yes, I'm also a fan of costume designer Phillip R. Lowe's work).  The men were also contrasted in their temperament and approach to the stressful situation they were in.  Hayek was frightened; Keynes was laid back.  Both were startled at some points but Hayek reacted physically while Keynes showed his fear more in his face.  Also, Hayek was writing a book whereas Keynes had written a book.  Hayek was married; Keynes was single.  Every element in the play set these two at odds, which made it both startling and delightful whenever they weren’t at odds.

The personal relationship between the two men was as interesting to track as their ongoing battle to sway the Everyman (ok, more so because I’m far more interested in personal relationships).  That journey, as well as the immediacy of the dangerous situation they were in, made sure this play never became a Talking Heads play.  I can’t decide if the play was attempting to be even handed with an ambiguous ending, though, or if the way that it favored Keynes was intentional.  After all, Hayek was operating from a position of fear.  He hyperventilated every time a siren sounded.  Keynes came off as a much stronger character.  Mr. Bowles most often sided with Keynes as well and had many more harsh words for Hayek.  When Keynes asks at the end of the play who won the argument, Mr. Bowles does not reply but it is clear that Keynes won more of his heart that Hayek did (his resolve to vote Labor from here on out notwithstanding).  I did like the final image, though, of all three men being required for the task at hand: spread out on the rooftop, separate but necessary in their own way.  All hands on deck required to clear the bombs of our society, the passionate arguments just an idle thing to be dropped when life suddenly gets very real.

Of course, maybe I saw it as a win for Keynes because the man directly in front of me was very vocal in his support of Keynes throughout (very loud “mmmHMM”s and “yes!”es) and started his “Bravo”s before the lights went down on the stage.  And maybe I saw it that way because I ended up taking a Keynesian leap of faith in my own economic sphere.  Or maybe it’s because I hope that if I fall on my face after that leap that I’ll have Keynes’ compassionate approach to pick me up (since I find Hayek’s self-correction less than pleasant to live through).  I liked this play.  It made me think, even if I was thinking all the time through the lens of my own personal dilemma.  Don’t we all look at the national economy through our own checkbook, though?  And don’t we all see the virtues of both sides of the argument and then ditch them both in favor of action?  Or is that just us ignorant Everyman figures?