Category: Theatre

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.

You know those black-and-white films where –

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.

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.

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.