I am taking playwriting seminar this semester. For this class I must write a 10-minute one-act, oh what you call it, play.
Tonight was the night to pitch ideas. In a perfect world. I found myself aggravated by continual prolonging of the idea session, of which we were each supposed to pitch 2 ideas tonight. Only half the class ended up pitching 1.
My point? (which is not the annoyance)
I actually very badly wanted to pitch one of my ideas tonight. So much that I was practically falling out of my chair, anticipating my turn to run my thoughts. This is not because I think I have some genius idea, and that it is the best one ever. It's because I have an idea for a play that might be mediocre, but I'm burning to write, and I wanted feedback. I wanted ideas to how this could be staged. And I wanted to know if this could even work.
And I went home with nothing.
And so. If you would be so nice, I will propose my pitch right now to whoever might read this blog. All 3 of you (but that's better than non).
working title- Drink Your Coffee, It’ll all be OK.
This will probably end up being a satire, with some black comedy and some absurdism rooted in it.
Broad Stroke (theme):
Apathy is one of the biggest diseases of this generation. The only way to break out of this apathy and truly live is to die to your old life.
Stasis:
Normal, comfortable college campus, named Freedom University, slightly isolated from everywhere else, in a bubble. Angela is a student there, privileged and wealthy, and deeply in love with her boyfriend, she wants to marry. Her world is in perfect oblivion. Nothing bad can happen.
Intrusion:
Angela starts to notice that people are falling down, dying. And no one is doing anything about it, except when the bodies get removed. Not many around her notices these bodies. And when they do, they just go on with their lives.
Fight: Angela must overcome her fear of people andself-consciousness of her lisp to get people to understand what’s happening and do something about it. Her boyfriend acts as a barrier to this, as he has always served to protect her and give her confidence.
It isn’t until poor students get kicked out of housing that anyone decides to start fighting the administration, who is behind these deaths. Angela tries to figure out what she can actively do, but gets even more confused when her boyfriend starts urging her to marry him. He wants to protect her to get away from the messy life of the now flawed campus, but she wants to stay and help out.
Angela finds out that if she gives away everything she has and gets the other wealthy students to share, they can stop the death and poverty. Even when she reaches this realization, she sees that more than money must be given, and she doesn't know what.
Crisis
She has to decide though to give away everything or to leave and marry her boyfriend, and live a comfortable American dream.
So that's it.
The major issue this play is addressing is the human rights crimes made around the world that we are daily ignorant to in our sheltered culture. The genocide/plague that persists will be made to parallel the events occurring in Sudan. The satire will hopefully encourage people to think about their living situations, how lucky we really are, and think about giving away their hearts, their lives to help people who are suffering and promote a movement against apathy in American youth/young adult culture.
I have a general idea here. And I think this is unique and interesting to see on stage, but I'm not sure how to flesh it out for the stage. So any suggestions would be wonderful.
Thank you.
6 comments:
So is there an element of exastentalism here... real dead bodies pileing up without people noticing seems to point to that kind of unreal absurdity play. If so I think you should take it to the extreme to illustrate the degree to which the class you are representing can be completly oblivious to the truth about the rest of society and poverty.
It would also be hard to focus in on the play I think if only one element of it was absurd, I would imagine i'd be like "wtf mate, why are they being so stupid!" So i think the whole play needs to have absurdity throughout.
ok so matt is right. absurdism throughout. just repeat conversations between her boyfriend and her, then its kinda funny cuz that totally happened anyways. end them with somethinglike "i feel like we just had this arguement 5 minutes ago!" when in reality they really did.
i feel like in the end she has to run away with her beau. because, pretty much, it will be too conclusive if she stands up, and then people wont feel the urge to do something about anything...they will just be content. so you should totally lead people to think she is about to do something...like...she sets this thing up to make a huge annoucement...and then its like..."i'm getting married...i hope you guys can get on without me." after which her and her boo should climb over all the dead bodies off stage...or...get married on top of them.
just a crazy mind at work...
let me know if you want me to read your stuff after you start writing.
p.s. you are sooo good at ideas. let's publish together. :-P
so, i'm honestly not really feeling straight-out absurdism. i feel like there's no plot thickening in any of those plays. think about rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead. tell me what it's about. I want people to get a good idea what this play is about, and i feel like using a satirical dark comedy can very well be adequate for the use of the bodies. i still want there to be absurdism in there, with repetitive and circular dialogue, but not really direct. and i would die writing a straight absurdist play. i would die.
that is all.
I just have to say, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern does have a message. I need to re read it in order to give any coherent summary/interpretation...but I know it's there. Also, I agree with both thoughts about the absurdism. One, a full absurdist play would be very difficult to write, and often, tedious to watch. Yet if it combines too many different styles, the play might not make much sense.
The idea is very interesting...I am not sure what to say in regards to preliminary work, but if you make a draft, I would love to look it over, and then make an informed statement.
As interesting as an absurdist play can be...my first instinct on reading this was definitely not something that could be told in such a style...and i'm not sure if it would get the kind of reaction that i sensed you were going for...I think the whole idea might be to really shoot for the "wtf are these stupid people doing" idea...if I spent a whole play thinking along these lines and unconciously (or conciously) making these connections (connected for me by the playwright of course) between this situation and the serious real-world situations that you are trying to illuminate, there would be this crowning moment for me in which i would start saying to myself "wtf am I doing these stupid things for?"....its that moment for your audience that i think you are going for...
I also think that giving no resolution at all could be an interesting way to do this...give them the idea that the audience must do something or nothing will be done...but then again you run the risk of this being overtly didactic, and one thing "people" in general hate is a moral story...
I think there is going to need to be a lot of plotting and careful thought to truly get this fleshed out, but i think the concept is beautiful, esp setting it in a place that is truly relevant to yourself and to your possible target audience...
i'd love to get a look at some of your ideas in a more substantive way...by this i mean let me know if you need someone to read it...can't say i'd be perfect but i would definitely be interested in seeing how you decide to go with this yourself...=)
tim, you are right. rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead does have a message. and absurdist plays do, but its not the medium i think will best portray my message. i want people to say wtf, but i don't want them to be confused about what's actually going on. i want the action to be clear. absurdist elements will be used to serve the futility and loss of the characters, but that's not what will be the whole play. i want to use absurdism as how it's used in real situations. you know when you keep on repeating the same thing over and over again but you fail to communicate? those are the sorts of elements i want to use. beth pretty much pinpointed a couple of my goals and a couple of my difficulties this play is gonna bring.
and as far as having no resolution...well...i'll just have show you when i write it. i don't know that far into the play yet.
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