2010 in Pictures, Text and Theatre

Comics

    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 SonLeilani Unasa
    Le TauvagaLouise Tu’u
    Raising the TitanicsAlbert Belz
    Two Old WomenVelma 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.

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Own It

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.

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Point & Click

Kinda flat out.

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Hobnob

Just over a year ago, I reeled from a Pasifika playwrights forum.

This year, I networked at it.

Yes: I hate networking. It feels false:

INT. A GATHERING – WHENEVER

Our WRITER walks up to a STRANGER --

WRITER

(extends hand)

Hi I’m D F Mamea.

STRANGER

Hi.

Beat.

WRITER

(drops hand)

And your name is?

STRANGER

Dave.

WRITER

(shit-eating grin)

Well, hi Dave. What do you do?

(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:

INT. A GATHERING – WHENEVER

Our WRITER approaches a STRANGER --

WRITER

(extends his hand)

Hi, my name’s D F Mamea.

(voice-over)

Should I’ve said I was a writer? Or is that too forward? Too desperate?

They shake hands.

STRANGER

Steve Ranger. Pleasetameetcha.

(voice-over)

Oh please god no, not another desperate writer.

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

Now for some rampant name-dropping:

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.

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A Gathering of Brown

The Pasifika Playwrights Forum is TOMORROW, Saturday 2 May from 12:30pm to 7:00pm at the Aotea Centre, Auckland CBD.

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.

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Pots on the Boil

INT. LOUNGE, HOME – EVENING

I lie in the arms of THE GODDESS.

ME

I haven’t done ANYTHING this year.

THE GODDESS

Oh rubbish.

ME

I’m serious.

THE GODDESS

What were you busy doing at the beginning of the year then?

ME

... The short film.

THE GODDESS

And what have you been doing with those playwrights, hm? And that stuff for the guild?

I open my mouth, then close it.

THE GODDESS

And then there’s your radio play. Well?

ME

You can’t just let me feel sorry for myself, can you?

She kisses my forehead --

THE GODDESS

No, I cannot.

What have I achieved this year then?

I’m tempted to skew my stats a la the police leadership in The Wire but, for me, a project isn’t finished unless it’s finished, knowwha’Imean?

So:

  • To’ona’i crawls towards completion;
  • I’m co-writing a play, to premiere in 2012;
  • I have my own play to push – and thanks to the joys of misery likes company peer pressure, the first act is due by mid-January 2009;
  • the diversionary feature spec has copious thematic and strucutural notes… but an actual story has yet to emerge;
  • enamoured with the short radio play’s ‘success’, I’m writing an hour-long radio play: I’ve got the opening and closing acts while the middle is currently all rough notes – forty pages to go!
  • and the long awaited spec feature of 2007 has been roughed out and is approaching a proper first draft.

[Takes a few steps back and squints]

Okay. I suppose it’s just about perspective.

INT. LOUNGE, HOME – LATER

ME

Maybe this is my dash. Maybe this is IT. Maybe –

THE GODDESS

Maybe you needed a year to consolidate.

ME

I thought last year was a consolidating year.

THE GODDESS

It’s a bit hard to consolidate when you’re juggling paying work, don’t you think?

I mumble something.

THE GODDESS

Pardon?

ME

... I suppose.

She nods, knowing, as always, that She’s right.

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Point & Click

I’ve done my shopping. I can do whatever I like now.

Ladies and germs – happy holiday reading, viewing and relaxing.

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Tick Tock

You know those black-and-white films where –

INT. NEWSROOM – NIGHT

Several strata of cigarette smoke span this large room. A handful of reporters sit at their desks, hands and fingers stabbing and massaging their typewriters.

An OFFICE DOOR opens to reveal THE EDITOR, cigar in a corner of his mouth –

EDITOR

I want five hundred words on string theory using words of three syllables or less! Which one of you bums feeling lucky?

One dozing JOURNO pushes his fedora up from his eyes and sticks a well-chewed pencil stub into his mouth:

JOURNO

Give me ten minutes, chief – five if Miss Stanton brings me a cup of joe.

How do they do that?

(Okay-okay-okay: it’s a movie.)

I was flashing on those kinds of scenes when I took up a 24-hour theatre challenge last weekend. Twelve hours to write a ten-minute script (to be followed by another twelve hours where the director and actors would make the script a reality). I’d spent the first two hours thus: 30 minutes to find out the actors’ strengths and weaknesses (the director couldn’t make the meet-and-greet so I’d have to wing the content and style); 15 minutes to drive home; 45 minutes of quality time with The Goddess; and 30 minutes of, among other things, making coffee, adjusting my seat, realigning the rubbish on my workspace for optimum feng shui, scheduling my chocolate intake, and surfing the net.

… Maybe the quality time was more 30 minutes (and no less) and the fart-arsing writing prep/warm-up was 45 minutes.

So. There I was, in my cave, mentally juggling the following elements:

  • three actors – one male and two females – to play with;
  • two props – a length of rope and a violin case – to work into the story;
  • and less than ten hours before I had to hand in a script.

The first opening riffed on Waiting for Godot. Maybe too self-referencing. I stopped after the second line of dialogue.

The second opening came straight out of Casablanca. I stopped the moment I typed (V.O.).

I had beginnings but no ends. With the nine-hour mark rapidly approaching, I tried to tackle it more from a production point of view instead of my usual story-is-king position.

I had my props, both meat and inanimate. I had a running time. I was one of six writers, and my position in the playing schedule was four – after an intermission. Assuming the first three plays were trend- and bar-setters, I needed to get right into the action. I needed to stake a claim on the audience’s attention, and keep it.

A filthy smile formed on my lips: What if we returned from intermission to some good ol’ bondage?

I laughed out loud.

The stage is BLACK as --

HAYLEY

(unseen)

Aow! ... Yes. ... Agh! ... Yes!

LIGHTS UP on --

And in that beginning was the ending, too.

Sometimes, I’m just too cool for school.

POSTSCRIPT: As it played out on stage, all I could see were the bits of dialogue I could have trimmed, all the action I could have written, as well as an act that is one long fridge moment. But it has a beginning, middle and end. It has a set-up, exposition and pay-off. And it got some laughs, none of them cheaply, and moved. Thank the gods for actors – and the director, of course.

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How Long Does It Take?

After the play’s opening scene was given a group reading, I did a Q&A on the script’s background, why’s and wherefores, and there was one question I didn’t get around to answering (sorry Bronwen): How long did it take to write?

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.

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