Doh! Just got it...
I think I've had a small revelation. A lot of my feedback at the first workshop centered around allowing my writing to 'surprise' me. At the time, it seemed kinda dumb (as is often the case with good advice) ... and I couldn't make much of it.
How do you let your writing surprise you? Sneak up on yourself when you are asleep or writing and put ice down your back??? Strangely enough, at this point in time, I think this is probably how it's done.
This retrospective actually occurred to me as a result of a conversation I had last night with herr direktor. At some point I figured that the single atomic unit of the play is a single action ... an activity that is carried out by one entity on another... and this atomic action is electric with possibilities. Man looks at skull - on screen, or in performance, is pretty solidified, but Man looks at skull - on the page is an entire world of possibility.
Is this the terror of it all - the surprise - the 'possibility'? The single line on the page that seems perfectly stable to you, ends up as something totally different in the director's mind and a third in the actors, and another in every member of the audience... I think that's terrifying! Not because 'that's not what i meant' or 'this is my interpretation' ... but because the text is a bundle of atomic units carefully assembled by the writer, and god knows what lurks in there - and the rush of it all, is in the release of the dormant nuclear power!
Significant time is spent in rehearsal in the 'exploration' of texts. And that is an exciting time for directors and actors! And when you think about it, all the time spent writing has also been an exploration - the struggle to fixate ideas onto paper. And here I make a jump - an actor trains in an effort to 'create the moment' - and some of the most dazzling moments are those born of absolute spontaniety... If an actor can train to receive this instant, much the same can be said of the writer...
Beyond the burden of words, beyond the problems of text - in the act of writing itself - is the unimaginably staggering world of possibility... the terror of the blank page, the horror of staring down at places in yourself and seeing characters shimmer into existence, the shearing agony of knowing where the play is going and not knowing at all how to get there, the 'stomach burn' of being hit sideways by ideas at 3am when you've passed out on your keyboard... waking up in unknown territory ...
You 'surprise yourself' by walking out of the world of 'round, flat, real, type' characters and action - and into the realm of the silhouette...
How do you let your writing surprise you? Sneak up on yourself when you are asleep or writing and put ice down your back??? Strangely enough, at this point in time, I think this is probably how it's done.
This retrospective actually occurred to me as a result of a conversation I had last night with herr direktor. At some point I figured that the single atomic unit of the play is a single action ... an activity that is carried out by one entity on another... and this atomic action is electric with possibilities. Man looks at skull - on screen, or in performance, is pretty solidified, but Man looks at skull - on the page is an entire world of possibility.
Is this the terror of it all - the surprise - the 'possibility'? The single line on the page that seems perfectly stable to you, ends up as something totally different in the director's mind and a third in the actors, and another in every member of the audience... I think that's terrifying! Not because 'that's not what i meant' or 'this is my interpretation' ... but because the text is a bundle of atomic units carefully assembled by the writer, and god knows what lurks in there - and the rush of it all, is in the release of the dormant nuclear power!
Significant time is spent in rehearsal in the 'exploration' of texts. And that is an exciting time for directors and actors! And when you think about it, all the time spent writing has also been an exploration - the struggle to fixate ideas onto paper. And here I make a jump - an actor trains in an effort to 'create the moment' - and some of the most dazzling moments are those born of absolute spontaniety... If an actor can train to receive this instant, much the same can be said of the writer...
Beyond the burden of words, beyond the problems of text - in the act of writing itself - is the unimaginably staggering world of possibility... the terror of the blank page, the horror of staring down at places in yourself and seeing characters shimmer into existence, the shearing agony of knowing where the play is going and not knowing at all how to get there, the 'stomach burn' of being hit sideways by ideas at 3am when you've passed out on your keyboard... waking up in unknown territory ...
You 'surprise yourself' by walking out of the world of 'round, flat, real, type' characters and action - and into the realm of the silhouette...
posted by ramganeshk at 8:53 am
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