Hyde-ing your Jekyll

    I may be a nice guy.  Do nice guys feel guilty about not posting for four months?  Do nice guys keep track of their felony total? (Zero, by the way) How many nice guys turn in lost items rather than sell them on eBay?  I may be a nice guy.

However, writers (and performers) can’t afford to be “nice.”
It fosters blandness, avoids conflict, and leaves your fans wanting more…of something else.

I’m in the midst of a writing project to train corporate folk in spotting (and avoiding) harassment of every sort—basically, presenting the worst behaviors onstage.  This means I’ve got to portray 'natural’ behavior embodied in bigots, sexists, and bullies.

Evil is not foreign ground to me.  In past scripts, I’ve created: a man who feared being jailed more than being accountable; the Zodiac killer’s ‘down time’; and a man who did unspeakable things to his daughter.  Evil is in all of us and when the want or need is strong enough, it will come out.

How to keep Evil on the paper is my issue.  When a normal nice person expresses the darkside, it’s usually a singular act of vengeance or violence.  As a writer, though, you have to inhabit each character—their past, their motives, their physicality—for truth to be told in the work.  Sometimes a lengthy process.

It’s not difficult to ‘duel’ good and bad characters on paper…there’s balance and natural responses from both parties.  It IS difficult to turn on your internal censor at those times.  Letting the djinn out of the bottle, opening Pandora’s Box, and similar metaphors are apt.  You made a choice and now you have to live with it or the art, the work, doesn’t sound sincere enough to create interest, tension, shock & awe, etc.

Don’t get me wrong.  This project has my “Dr. Jekyll” working overtime against “Mister Hyde” tendencies in order to keep the script acceptable and palatable to the potential audiences.  Lessons are still inherent but that doesn’t mean the comfort level has to be at a ‘My Pretty Pony’ low.

*SIDE NOTE: I am curious if people like Dr. Seuss just went off occasionally.  Deep in their closet, you’d find their weekly output of bile-on-paper with puppy-kicking virgin-sacrificing chainsaw-wielding ‘John Doe’s having things their way.    If YOU don’t go to the darkside, ever, is it repressed to be expressed by painting ‘Dogs Playing Poker’?

Actors always say it’s more interesting playing the bad guy (or gal).  You know why? Because the writer did what every performer, reader, audience member, and human being would LOVE to do: Get away with something big…just once.

I may be a nice guy.  I may be a bad guy. 

I may have to think on this some more…

The Doctor is In!

Actors are supposed to be thick-skinned, all the better to deal with rejection at 90% of your auditions.  Actors are supposed to be soft-hearted, all the better to empathize with your character 90% of the time.  These traits would be welcome in a Writer/Playwright as well but…surprise!  Picking up a pencil or laptop to create IMMEDIATELY decreases my skin-thickness down to a cellular level.

However, I also know a Doctor is their own worst patient (Don’t visit the 5-foot podiatrist). So for 20-some years I’ve had a writing partner, another set of eyes, a Yin to my Yang, a "script doctor", if you will.

He (lets call him Gary) is a friend and former college roomie.  When he entered graduate programs in playwriting, I was performing…somewhere.  Despite the fact Gary had peers and instructors dissecting his works, I always got a complimentary look-see, sometimes before and sometimes after the grade came through.

My philosophy in assessing a play-script is: Am I interested?  Am I curious enough to continue?

My philosophy in giving feedback is: Tell it like it is…Positive and Constructive.  The difference between Constructive and Negative feedback?  Glad you asked!  Constructive gives you something positive, something to literally build on; Negative feedback is Not liking and not helping further.

Positive: What works in the script, entertains, keeps me engaged.
Constructive: What could work if not overstated, repeated, or insincere. *I never rewrite someone’s words—not my place—but I offer suggestions, alternatives or questions based on the prior premises. (EXAMPLE = Do you need Seven Dwarves?  Do they represent aspects of the human soul OR are they necessary to combine abilities to meet a physical challenge? etc.)

Getting back to thin-skin…Since my plays have been proofread by just a handful of people in my career, I can tell you my philosophy in receiving script feedback: Military readiness.

My troops (defensive reaction) amass at the border.  Intelligence or weaponry approaches and we (I) agree with it, accept it as ‘ally’, and incorporate it into the work.
    Possibly some stranger attempts to infiltrate my defenses.  They say they’re neutral but there’s no proof…yet.  Questioning and testing must occur before this newbie is assigned ‘friend’ or ‘foe’ status.
    Finally, there is the frontal assault.  A blatant threat to our concept and confidence!  Hearing shuts down; rapid-fire justification shoots forth; and we assess our position after the threat has been silenced.
    I am not a ‘hawk’ in spirit.  If the frontal approach is repeated, I will acknowledge there is a weak spot in the script worth rebuilding—not defending to the death.

A novelist has to satisfy one read at a time, an agonizing fate.  A playwright has to satisfy one reader first, then a mass of hearts, eyes, and ears gathered in the theatre as audience…no less nerve-wracking. That’s why my anxiety runs high in this process; that’s why I’m my own worst critic. 

My partner has the playwriting pedigree, so I trust his words.  He is not all business as I tend to be and I appreciate my friend’s spice of humor.
    I’ve worked with some producers (doubling as script-doctors) who couldn’t find Humor with a map and a rubber chicken.  I’ve worked with some producers who didn’t want a play with dramatic structure as much as a Lesson with educational objectives.  There have been dramaturgs who said to me: ‘Everything I say to you is a gift.  What you choose to do with each gift is up to you.’

Bottom line is all the script doctors are offering a way to make your play better, more successful.  Your cooperation is necessary for that to happen.  Sacrificing your voice, your style, should not be necessary.

That’s when you should get a second opinion…even if it’s your own.

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