by William S. E. Coleman
I virtually abandoned writing for the stage a dozen years ago after writing full-length plays at the rate of one or two a year for most of a decade. Why? There were productions and a few awards. All well and good, but writing for the theatre has become an act of futility in America if you want a broader audience. Regional and educational theatre is possible; but “serious” plays are rarely done on Broadway, and only a few make it to Off-Broadway.
Eight years ago I had the opportunity of talking with a producer/director whose work has appeared on HBO and the American Playhouse. During one of these conversations, he flatly stated, “A writer has a better chance of having a movie made from his script than getting a play done in New York.”
Shortly after that conversation, I walked away from the theatre as a writer and began writing screenplays.
My view regarding writing plays has not changed. In fact, it has been reinforced. Boulevard comedies were once a staple of Broadway. The last master—and I use the word “last” intentionally—of this form was [and is] Neil Simon. Last spring at the annual William Inge Festival in Independence, Kansas, Simon carried on a conversation with an audience and then appeared on a panel that also included Robert Anderson, a distinguished elder playwright (Tea and Sympathy). The panel became a wake for plays in New York, even though Simon owns a theatre. He flatly said that the regional theatre is where the action is. He did not mention there isn't much money there.
In spite of these admonitions, theatre slowly lured me back, first with a series of one act plays dealing with possible futures of the human race, and then with a linked series of plays that combine into a full length play called Life Study. It was performed at Drake in early May 1, 2, and 3. ISA members attended the final dress rehearsal.
Life Study emerged slowly between several screenwriting projects and work on a non-fiction book. The first play in the series was workshopped by Drake's Playwrights Acting Company in 1996. In it a young artist attempts to work with a nude model, but his strict religious upbringing turns this attempt into a comic fiasco.
Immediately, ideas for other plays dealing with the same artist at different ages began to pop into my head. Each succeeding play idea referred back to past characters and events, but the six women in the artists's life tended to appear and fade into the past, with two exceptions; but even there they were referred to by the artist as the years passed. In my notes are the ideas for perhaps a dozen plays in the series.
Late in the summer of 1996 I was off to Greece with my laptop in my carry-on bag. I stayed with Costas Castanas, my friend and one of Greece's finest actors, at his villa near Epidauros. There, and also in a modest hotel on Paros, more plays took form. I had isolation and no diversions other than late dinner and dips in the Aegean or Costas' new pool.
For almost two weeks and I worked on Eugene O'Neill's Hughie, with the intention of my directing Costas in it (in Greek) and in Athens. No backers appeared, but I remembered that Hughie was to be one of eight plays that would be collected under the title By Way of Obit. Only Hughie was finished. I am sure that this fact drove me on with my writing, even as we were rehearsing O'Neill on Costas' veranda facing his pool. His friends and family came and went. There were long dinners by the sea with Athenian artists and theatre people, as well going to see plays every weekend at the ancient Theatre of Epidauros. Ironically, a very American play began to take on life in my laptop as I enjoyed the grandeur or rural Greece..
The writing process that produced most of Life Study was as relaxed as a day in the Greek sun. I let the characters talk and interact, and they seemed to grow almost spontaneously. At times they even surprised me.
A broad schematic developed. I found I was writing six plays and a monologue about the artist that began at the age of 24 and ended in his late seventies. The young actor who could have played the artist graduated.
I showed my draft of the play to Mike Barton, a director and chair of the Drake Theatre Arts Department. His response was to say he wanted to do it. There were rewrites and trimming and finally readings of the plays. It was decided that three actors would play the artist—the first as a young man, the second as a man approaching a mid-life crisis, and finally as a man facing the end of his career and his life.
I had hoped to write seven theatre pieces that would stand on their own or be performed as a group. Only the first play and a slightly different version of the fourth play will do that. All the rest depend on each other.
As with every new play going into production, a strong director is needed who will ask the right questions and make stimulating suggestions to the writer. That working relationship is at the center of the development of any play. It is the foundation stone of the Playwrights Acting Company I formed many years ago. It is at the roots of the development of Life Study.
Why did I return to writing for the theatre? Characters emerged in my imagination, and they needed pages, not five-line scenes, to express themselves. The subject matter of my new play would not interest even the most venturesome producer. What I wrote could only appear on a stage. I am fully aware that the Drake production may have been the last time the play is ever performed, but it contained things I wanted to say, even to a small audience.
Will I continue to write for the theatre? I'm not sure, but the basic structures of two new full-length plays stir in my head. I remain drawn to writing screenplays, but...