How vain it is to sit down and write when you have not stood up to live.
Thoreau
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You're welcome here, rain or shine.
---------------------------
Happy are those artists who achieve success at an early age. As long as they keep going they know that their works will be bought. But why do we hear of someone who publishes his or her first novel at the age of 75 or 80? That's a good question.
Many years ago I got a phone call from a man I didn't know. He told me he had written a play and wondered if I would read it and give him my opinion. He told me it was about the assassination of a famous political leader in England. It sounded like a good drama so I agreed to read it. He had it delivered to my building and I started to read. I wasn't particularly tired but I feel asleep midway through the first act.
He had made a series of fundamental mistakes. First of all it began with a chorus of men rolling beer kegs into a pub. It was a musical. I thought maybe it was a comedy about death, so I read on. Then he struggled over writing British dialect. One should not try to write dialect unless one knows it thoroughly. Otherwise just say they are Englishmen and leave it up to the actors to do the right dialects. Then he brought into the pub the character of George Bernard Shaw. One shouldn't bring Shaw into a play unless one can write dialogue for him which is at least as clever as his own, The assassination was a foregone fact. There was no suspense, no distress, no danger. And finally, there was nothing of the writer in the play, no point of view, no character speaking for or against the author's own ideas. In fact, there were no ideas. It was a straight narrative of events. No doubt the author's history was correct, but it wasn't a play. I sent it back with my opinions and that was that. The play was never done.
When I was asked what kinds of roles I played as an actor, I answered that they were either autobiographical or wish fulfillment. In a certain sense those are both the same. They were autobiographical because I made them that. I always drew from my own life experiences, either lived or observed, to fill in the important areas of the role. The rest was invented.
Every work of art is autobiographical to one degree or another, That can't be helped. The good artist can never completely disassociate himself from the work. Nor should he try to. The reason that fellow's play didn't work is because there was nothing of himself in it.
I've had a few exhibits of my paintings and won a couple of awards. But I have never sold anything through an exhibit. No one is publishing my essays or stories. So why do I do it? I do it because I have to. It's like breathing or feeding myself. One good reason for older folks to write is wisdom. Wisdom doesn't necessarily come from intelligence, it may come from a life lived. My words are often torn from the obscure, inner pages of my being. I am not rich or famous but I have stood up to live 7 decades of a difficult, adventuresome, vagabond life and now I am sitting down to write about it.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
______________________
Spend a day without worry.
****************************
Coin I put before the wrong deep, worm. (9)
Showing posts with label playwrights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label playwrights. Show all posts
Friday, August 7, 2009
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Satisfactory Service 8/06/09
I played it right because that's what you're supposed to do - play it right and with respect.
Ryne Sandberg
*******************
Smile, you're on Candid Journal.
--------------------------------
"Jus' 'cause it ain't by Shakespeare don't mean it ain't no good."
I used to do public readings of new plays for a playwright's workshop way over on the East Side of Manhattan. One evening I read a major role in a political drama. A year later the playwright called and asked if I would come back and read it again. I did, and before the reading she said to the audience "A playwright is one who if she changes a line from 'I want to meet with you' to 'It's important that I meet with you' that is a major rewriting of the play and therefore needs to be read again. She was half joking, but she made a valid point about how important the lines are to the playwright and the play. They need to be respected.
I was doing the role of Cassio in Shakespeare's "Othello" at a theatre in New England. After one of our late rehearsals, close to opening, the stage manager, who was a nice, polite, benign fellow, came up to me with a sheet of paper and said "I thought you should see the difference between the way you are speaking the speech to Desdamona and the way Shakespeare wrote it." I was stunned. I had almost completely rewritten that speech.
That was early in my career, but from that day on I have always made sure that I spoke the lines the way they were written. That's called playing it right and with respect.
It's not just the lines that need to be played right. I saw a production of Sophocles' "Electra," In that play Electra's brother Orestes enters with a friend, Pylades. Sophocles has given no lines to Pylades. It is a completely silent role. But he is on stage with Orestes the entire time. I watched an actor named Maurice Breslau play that role and if I didn't know that he had no lines I would have sworn he spoke. He was mentally, emotionally and physically involved in every moment of that play. That's playing it right and with respect.
I did many original plays while I was with the Circle Rep Lab in New York. There were excellent actors in that Lab. We were professional, working actors. It was a great challenge and an invigorating experience to take on the problems of a new play and solve them. The playwrights were usually around and had a hand in rewriting if they felt they needed to. But we played them right and with respect.
Some actors and directors think nothing of messing around with a script, rewriting things, cutting things and rearranging the scenes, adding characters and dropping characters. That's not playing it right. Playwrights worry over every line. They should be respected.
I was in a show in New York in which the leading actor got the same line wrong every night. He bungled it because he didn't know what it was and he never went back to the script to find out. He will remain nameless. He was a famous actor, but he was a lazy bum.
Whatever you do, do it right and with respect.
DB - The Vagabond
_____________________________
Grasp some joy today and don't let go of it.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
SUMMER QUIZ
This is not a contest.
A young man out west just took home 88 million dollars from the lottery.
Whether you play the lottery or not, if you suddenly had 88 million dollars, or the equivalent of whatever your currency is, what are the first three things you would do with it?
You have all summer to answer if you wish.
19 responses so far.
DB
Thus on the edge a screwed up miss is egotistical. (9)
dbdacoba@aol.com
http://vagabondjourneys.blogspot.com/
http://db-vagabondtales.blogspot.com/
http://vagabondjottings.blogspot.com./
http://vagabondleaves.blogspot.com/
Ryne Sandberg
*******************
Smile, you're on Candid Journal.
--------------------------------
"Jus' 'cause it ain't by Shakespeare don't mean it ain't no good."
I used to do public readings of new plays for a playwright's workshop way over on the East Side of Manhattan. One evening I read a major role in a political drama. A year later the playwright called and asked if I would come back and read it again. I did, and before the reading she said to the audience "A playwright is one who if she changes a line from 'I want to meet with you' to 'It's important that I meet with you' that is a major rewriting of the play and therefore needs to be read again. She was half joking, but she made a valid point about how important the lines are to the playwright and the play. They need to be respected.
I was doing the role of Cassio in Shakespeare's "Othello" at a theatre in New England. After one of our late rehearsals, close to opening, the stage manager, who was a nice, polite, benign fellow, came up to me with a sheet of paper and said "I thought you should see the difference between the way you are speaking the speech to Desdamona and the way Shakespeare wrote it." I was stunned. I had almost completely rewritten that speech.
That was early in my career, but from that day on I have always made sure that I spoke the lines the way they were written. That's called playing it right and with respect.
It's not just the lines that need to be played right. I saw a production of Sophocles' "Electra," In that play Electra's brother Orestes enters with a friend, Pylades. Sophocles has given no lines to Pylades. It is a completely silent role. But he is on stage with Orestes the entire time. I watched an actor named Maurice Breslau play that role and if I didn't know that he had no lines I would have sworn he spoke. He was mentally, emotionally and physically involved in every moment of that play. That's playing it right and with respect.
I did many original plays while I was with the Circle Rep Lab in New York. There were excellent actors in that Lab. We were professional, working actors. It was a great challenge and an invigorating experience to take on the problems of a new play and solve them. The playwrights were usually around and had a hand in rewriting if they felt they needed to. But we played them right and with respect.
Some actors and directors think nothing of messing around with a script, rewriting things, cutting things and rearranging the scenes, adding characters and dropping characters. That's not playing it right. Playwrights worry over every line. They should be respected.
I was in a show in New York in which the leading actor got the same line wrong every night. He bungled it because he didn't know what it was and he never went back to the script to find out. He will remain nameless. He was a famous actor, but he was a lazy bum.
Whatever you do, do it right and with respect.
DB - The Vagabond
_____________________________
Grasp some joy today and don't let go of it.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
SUMMER QUIZ
This is not a contest.
A young man out west just took home 88 million dollars from the lottery.
Whether you play the lottery or not, if you suddenly had 88 million dollars, or the equivalent of whatever your currency is, what are the first three things you would do with it?
You have all summer to answer if you wish.
19 responses so far.
DB
Thus on the edge a screwed up miss is egotistical. (9)
dbdacoba@aol.com
http://vagabondjourneys.blogspot.com/
http://db-vagabondtales.blogspot.com/
http://vagabondjottings.blogspot.com./
http://vagabondleaves.blogspot.com/
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