Maureen schools Shadon, Andy, Samson and Leki

The Producer and Director have names, too: Jenni Heka and Chris Molloy, respectively – I salute you both. Their bios are here.

And the cast, of course. Shadon Meredith, who was one of the voice actors in O le Samaria. The young ‘n’ hungry Samson Chan-Boon. And Andy Sani and Leki Jackson Bourke, both hot off The Brave. Cast bios are here.

As for the rehearsals… what can I say? They’ve started. Four weeks to go.

One of the nice things about a closed read-through is that the atmosphere is collegial: it’s okay to say, This dialogue sucks because it’s understood that the speaker will then say why it sucks, and maybe even suggest how it can be made to suck less, all in a thick fug of We’re here about the work.

A public reading – well, that’s a different kettle of hedgehogs. There’s the possibility – no matter how remote in these ever-so-polite South Pacific isles – that someone in the crowd will say, That sucks! and hide in the mass of unfamiliar faces. And I suspect that stalking up and down the stage eye-fucking every suspicious-looking audience member and yelling WHO SAID THAT? is not really the look I want to promote.

Saturday’s public reading had no such impromptu drama – all the drama was scripted, there was polite applause, and at the end of each reading, there were questions and comments that forced the writers to think and consider.

Ah, humanity: how I love thee at times.

With just over four weeks to go (30 days, to be precise), the production exudes a quiet confidence while the writer goes through 250 grams of cocoa product a day and worries at the script, desperately trying not to think that any day now, he will have to let go of it and trust in the director and actors.

A script doesn’t get better on itself, but.

So. I took the notes I was given from the read-through, some more from the director hisself, and some of my own, and tried to integrate those that were most applicable (ie., felt right) into the next iteration of the draft.

If nothing else, it’s making more sense. It’s jumped from 33 pages to 37 pages but that’s okay. The director is not afraid to cut lines and stuff whether I’m in the room sobbing or not.

I used to wonder what a “revised first draft” meant. I used to think it was virtually identical to the first draft – it just had all the typos ironed out. As far as feature scripts were concerned, the definition could vary, depending on the producer.

But with this project, my wearing the writer and co-producer hats means that a revised first draft is whatever I damned well say it is.

So, yesterday was the read-through and…. Read-through’s are always an heady, anxious, butterflies-in-the-bowels kind of experience. You’ve just emerged into the light with a draft that you think/hope/pray hits the mark. You anticipate the joy of hearing your dialogue sing and await the inevitable praise to be heaped upon you from your readers.

This read-through was no different.

The actors reading their lines sounded nothing like the voices I’d heard when writing the script. (Disclosure: this was a cold read.) Holes that I thought I’d papered over sufficiently stuck out like… holes don’t stick out, really, do they? The dialogue did not sing. Arcs I thought I’d artfully sketched turned out to be just sketches waiting some proper writing to define them.

Praise was not inevitable. Warm supportive noises were welcomed. Carefully phrased criticism was taken on board. No tears were shed. No pride was swallowed.

With an open reading less than a fortnight away, it’s about tightening and bridging and articulating and… writing.

Development continues apace.

INT. PRODUCER’S OFFICE – DAY

TIGHT ON WRITER, lower lip trembling.

WRITER

You’re what?

PRODUCER

Oh don’t be a sookie -

WRITER

You’re swanning off to who-knows-where so I have to deal directly with the director -

PRODUCER

Shut up and have a Chupachup.

The Writer crosses his arms. Looks meaningfully at a corner of the Producer’s desk.

The Producer follows the Writer’s eyes.

Beat lengthens.

PRODUCER

If I have to reach into that drawer, you better drop the tears and trembly lips.

The Writer’s lips tighten, then tremble again. They tighten.

The Producer opens the DRAWER – we see only a faint glow from its contents – as --

PRODUCER

(as if to a dog)

Who’s a good boy?

OUT ON WRITER.

Friday, I must say, for all its excitement and marathon-like/-lite duration, was a little frustrating.

Oh, and then I was reminded that:
 -  Saturday we were expecting seldom-seen relatives.

Forcing condensing three potential writing days into five hours can be an exhilarating experience.  I love it.  After the fact.

Experiencing it is another matter as the knot in the stomach gnaws and gnaws, your fingers won’t type fast enough – and they keep inserting typos! – and a headache tries to distract you with variations of “How you like me now?”-type pain.

But it’s not all bad.  Honest.  There’s the actual exhilaration – the fevered and/or inspired connection and transformation of notes-to-self into a story, the page count in the bottom corner of the screen clicking over and reinforcing the sense of hard work in progress, and the process of writing, throwing shit down, cursing as you delete, mentally high-five-ing as it just flows.  Five minutes to the contracted deadline, and you’re done.

One thinks, Gaw, that weren’t so bad!

Oh how quickly one forgets.

(Final page count:  33 pages.)

In this case, I only had to wait three days.

   From:  Producer
  To:  Writer
  Subject:  Goodbye My Feleni – first draft
  Message:  Where’s the second act?

Ah yes.

The second act.

So yeah: I hit 23 pages five minutes before deadline, held my breath and clicked on Send.

The Producer can’t ditch me now.

A measly three pages since yesterday.

But I did spend an hour negotiating a formal agreement that reasonably I’m happy with. There were moments that gave me some ‘Nam-style flashbacks but everyone’s still alive and still talking.

It’s late afternoon now and we’re entertaining in the banquet hall so there’ll be no more writing today.

Three pages is always better than no pages.

INT. KEEP, FORTRESS MAMEA – NIGHT

Our WRITER hunches over his desk, fingers flying over his KEYBOARD, head bopping to Charlie Parker. A particularly intense buzz of typing and he squints at his MONITOR --

ON MONITOR where a page count shows “12″.

WRITER

Yeah, baby!

His CELLPHONE vibrates.

ON CELLPHONE which shows “New txt from Producer”.

He snatches up his cell.

ON CELLPHONE – “You have a Director.”

Our Writer’s brow furrows as --

CUT TO:

FLASHBACK – INT. PRODUCER’S OFFICE – DAY

-- our Writer squirms on his KINDERGARTEN STOOL, eyes barely clearing the top of the PRODUCER’S DESK.

PRODUCER

Do you want to direct?

WRITER

Hell, no.

PRODUCER

Shut -, uh. Good.

ON WRITER as he stares at the Producer, a bead of sweat tracking down his forehead as we --

CUT BACK TO:

INT. KEEP, FORTRESS MAMEA – NIGHT

-- and the Writer’s thumb hovers over the ‘Send’ button --

ON CELLPHONE – “Wow. Without a script, too.”

-- then he thumbs the ‘Cancel’ button, before trying another answer --

ON CELLPHONE – “You are so O for AWESOME.”

-- then he cancels that reply – a DROP OF SWEAT splashes the cellphone and he blinks and remembers to breathe – then types in --

ON CELLPHONE – “Thank you.”

Working backwards from mid-June, I’ll have three weeks of rehearsal, leaving me with five weeks to write a script. But I don’t have five weeks to write a script.

Did I neglect to mention that there’re two readings in the schedule? Part of the fixed-and-unmoveable-deadline package. The first reading is two weekends from today.

I have no actors. I have no director.

My wonderfully supportive Producer has pointed out that without a script, I can’t attract actors. A script also tends to have things like the number of characters, a description of where those characters are, what they’re wearing, and what utensils instruments/tools they are handling.

So.

I flash on Writing fast is really about writing smart which means that for the first five days of my ten day writing schedule, I do a Game of Thrones season one marathon, knock a few outstanding DVDs off my to-watch list, and circle and circle and circle the idea of a script.

With five days remaining, I decided to –

  1.  rework something I had lying around; and

  2.  eschew my current timekeeping programme –

    — for something more goal oriented like a page count.

I’m six pages in and I’ve got four days to go.

Whoa Nellie!

Why theatre? you ask.

Because I’ve threatened to do it a couple of times in this blog.

And an opportunity arose. … Okay: I rashly – foolishly, even – accepted a fixed and unmoveable deadline.

After all – all together now – How hard could it be?

Partly for an escape or diversion or some writerly time-out, partly to provide you, my ever loyal readers, with some entertainment, and partly to start building some profile, I’ll be blogging about it.

For me, from the moment the cast opened with song, my right eye teared up. It wept steadily through the remaining hour and a half of the play – and copiously in the closing ten minutes.

I can’t figure out my reaction to the play. I’d read the first act the year before and had a pretty good idea of where it was going to go.

Was it the songs? They sounded familiar but I didn’t know any of them. I grew up with The Sound of Music and Easter Parade (and Jesus Christ Superstar). According to my sister-in-law, being Samoan, I’m genetically/naturally disposed to singing well, in tune, and harmoniously – so maybe the brown people singing and laughing and crying on stage touched some genetic/native chord within.

Whatever it was, it touched me, I loved it, and when it tours and touches down in your neighbourhood, I recommend you go see it.

Disclosure: playwright Albert Belz is a generous supporter of the Banana Boat writing group, honouring it with a reading of the play’s first act, in first draft form, in June 2009.

The Arrival – Shaun Tan
Ball Peen Hammer – Adam Rapp and George O’Connor
Berlin Volume 2 – Jason Lutes
The Education of Hopey Glass – Jaime Hernandez
Ex Machina: Dirty Tricks; Ring Out the Old – Brian K Vaughan & Tony Harris
I Kill Giants – Joe Kelly and JM Ken Niimura
I Killed Adolf Hitler – Jason
Low Moon – Jason
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier - Alan Moore & Kevin O’Neill
Omega the Unknown – Jonathan Lethem and Farel Dalrymple
Planetary: Spacetime Archaeology – Warren Ellis & John Cassaday
Powers: The Sellouts; Forever; 25 Greatest Dead Superheroes of All Time – Brian Michael Bendis & Michael Avon Oeming
Scalped: The Gravel in Your Gut – Jason Aaron & R M Guera
Stitches: A Memoir – David Small
Usagi Yojimbo: Tomoe’s Story – Stan Sakai
The Walking Dead – Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard
The Complete Zot! – Scott McCloud

A bit sad to see the end of Planetary and Ex Machina but The Walking Dead and Scalped carry the torch onward.

Books

Blood Meridian – Cormac McCarthy
The Constant Gardener – John Le Carre
The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-city Neighbourhood – David Simon and Ed Burns
Crafty TV Writing – Alex Epstein
Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets – David Simon
Notes from a Small Island - Bill Bryson
The Road – Cormac McCarthy

I suspect Blood Meridian has ruined all other western fiction for me.

Scripts

30 Rock – various
The 40 Year Old Virgin – Judd Apatow and Steve Carell
The American – Rowan Joffe
The Blind Side – John Lee Hancock
The Book of Eli – Gary Whitta
Green Zone – Paul Greengrass
Michael Clayton – Tony Gilroy
Out of Sight – Scott Frank
Scrubs (pilot) – Bill Lawrence
Starting Out in the Evening – Fred Parnes and Andrew Wagner
The Shield: Circles – Shawn Ryan
Three Kings – David O Russell
Valkyrie – Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander

I’m pretty sure Out of Sight and Three Kings are re-reads, but I just can’t remember for sure. And if they were, they were just as enjoyable this time ’round.

Theatre

His Mother’s Son – Leilani Unasa
Le Tauvaga – Louise Tu’u
Raising the Titanics – Albert Belz
Two Old Women – Velma Wallis

I suspect I may be cheating here by having just one actual production – Belz’s Titanics – surrounded by three readings but… these were the ones I marked as having made an impact.

INT. THEATRE – NIGHT

People mill about as stagehands begin cleaning up the theatre.

A FELLOW CREATIVE chats with a couple of straggling AUDIENCE MEMBERS – we overhear “It was... interesting” – before Fellow Creative joins our WRITER.

WRITER

(shakes hands with Fellow Creative)

Well done on your opening night.

FELLOW CREATIVE

Thank you.

WRITER

It was a good turn out.

FELLOW CREATIVE

Yes it was.

Beat. The Writer scans the posters on the stage. Fellow Creative looks at Writer.

FELLOW CREATIVE

... What did you think of the play?

WRITER

What did YOU think?

FELLOW CREATIVE

This -

(indicates the stage)

- this was just a trifle ’cause what I REALLY care about is -

Writer holds up his hand:

WRITER

Whoa there. Sorry to cut you off but --

(counts off a finger)

-- did you write it?

FELLOW CREATIVE

Yes.

WRITER

(counts off another finger)

Did you direct it?

FELLOW CREATIVE

... Yes.

ON FELLOW CREATIVE as their expression shows a swathe of emotions.

WRITER

(gentle)

Not everyone could’ve done what you’ve achieved tonight.

FELLOW CREATIVE

Nah, anyone could’ve -

WRITER

I don’t see anyone here but you, bucko.

(again with the finger-counting)

You had a dream – a vision. You wrote it up. You got some people involved because they were fired up by your vision and your passion. You directed it. You produced it. You put it out there. It may not have turned out the way you first dreamed it but you made it REAL.

(puts a hand on Fellow Creative’s shoulder)

This is your night. Enjoy it.

Then some background music SWELLED –

– and CREDITS floated upwards into the sky as –

– I headed for the exit – the DOOR opened by unseen hands as I approached it and –

– FADE OUT.

• PostmodernBarney has an adorable array of uncomfortable plot summaries.
• There’s an interesting article over the ditch about the journey of multihyphenate Serhat Caradee who, despite having a developed script and a few short films, found he had to shoot ‘pilot scenes’ to attract funding. (Fedora-tip: Lynden Barber.)
• If, like me, you found Battlestar Galactica‘s final moments wanting, to quote the late King of Pop, you are not alone. (Fedora-tip: Alex Epstein.)
• The National Post has a cautionary tale about the four acts of a television series’ life. (Fedora-tip: Ben Boychuk.)
• After a looong period of radio silence (hey, he was busy), Josh Friedman has lately thrown up two posts in as many months.
• An excellent New York Times article explores the seduction and corruption of Graham Greene by the silver screen. (Try here if that NY Times link doesn’t work.)
• And English playwright David Edgar has a brill’ extract from his book, How Plays Work, in The Guardian. (Fedora-tip: WGGB Blog.)

This year, I networked at it.

Yes: I hate networking. It feels false:

(I really should just let go of such exchanges – it’s just -, it’s not often that I want to smash someone in the face [half an hour later because it didn't register with me at the time].)

What I meant to illustrate as false was something like this:

What was different this time around was that I knew more of the faces. Familiarity breeds confidence.

Now for some rampant name-dropping:

• TV and feature writer Oscar Kightley;
• I got snapped by playwright Gary Henderson;
• visual and performance artist Shigeyuki Kihara;
• playwright and producer Makerita Urale;
• film and TV director Sima Urale (and Makerita’s sister);
• film and TV director, and reluctant producer Justine Simei Barton; and
• actor and theatre director Nancy Brunning.

It wasn’t all about the laying on of hands – forum attendees were treated to works in progress:

• Ali Foa’i‘s MindSex;
• Victoria Schmidt‘s Then Sings My Soul;
• Jonathan P Riley‘s Makigi;
• and Chetan Patel & Eric Smith‘s I Don’t Do Coconut.

(A first draft of this post had one-word adjectives for each of the above. I’ve changed my mind, obviously: you can stew in anticipation.)

My plan to be in the right place at the right time has yet to bear fruit. But seeds have been sown. The competition has been reconnoitred and noted.

I am patient.

The Playmarket website has more information – but most exciting to me are presentations of works in progress by Banana Boat writers Victoria Schmidt and Jonathan P Riley.

Alu la ‘ia, e.

Thirty minutes including a couple of passes at dialogue and characterisation.

Such a glib response, however, is disrespectful to the craft. The actual writing typing may have taken only a half-hour but that doesn’t take into account that:

  -  I’d had the idea since May;
  -  I didn’t start making notes about it until July;
  -  and the mental image of actors lying on the stage before the audience only occurred in September, and kicked around my head for a week before I put finger to keyboard.

I continue to live in hope that my creative process would be something like being struck by a sustained series of creative lightning, long enough to thump out a feature-length script… but the reality is a much more mundane process:

    eureka-moment -> cogitate -> avoid -> make notes -> procrastinate -> write

Sometimes, due to sheer inspiration, utter bullheadedness or an insane deadline, it can all occur within a matter of weeks. Other times… it takes as long as it takes.