De-confusing “Cast Appropriately"

Casting Call
BEN: Male, 35-40, large-boned, seems dangerous but really a pussycat. Dark blond hair.
ALVY: cast appropriately.

The above confuses some people. Why does Ben get all this specificity, and Alvy none at all? Doesn't the playwright care about who plays Alvy? Is the playwright too lazy? Is the part so small and unimportant that the playwright couldn't be bothered?

Or is it a typical situation in which the regular actors at a particular theatre get all the juicy roles and there I am again, last to be picked, knowing I'm going to hear the dreadful words: “Oh yeah. Sapio. Right field.”

When as a playwright I instruct directors to “cast appropriately,” I mean the play has, in terms of physical requirements, a non-specific role. Thus I don't care if you cast an actor who male-identifies, female-identifies, is non-binary, tall, thin, blonde, bald, Asian, physically different . . . or not. I use “cast appropriately” because the question is not the visual physical relationship, replete with all of its subliminal cues, but the resulting dynamic between the onstage actors. It has to work onstage, and those prattling about in the gaslight need to appear as if they were truly intended to be there.

My first play, Headstrong, has one of those roles: an agent who shows up mid-play to provide the unexpected twist necessary to hurl the play into its screwball second half. What matters is that actor playing the part must be breathlessly hopeful in anticipation of meeting their literary idol, annoyingly bubbly, and so briskly incessant with their non-stop, true-believer monologue that you wish their character had been the one who’d been murdered (and now being ickily disposed of).

When I first wrote the play I was told that I couldn't, nay shouldn't be vague in defining this character. That in order to be “professional” I needed to be specific with my casting requirements. But when it matters little or none at all what the physical presence is, but matters a lot that the resulting chemistry is correct, then I feel that it would be inappropriate to narrow down the casting choices because of my own biases. I may have imagined and indeed have written the role with a woman in mind who is in her fifties, desperately lonely, who reads two Gothic novels a week and swoons over the Fabio-esque cover art. (A stock character, but one that gives me an initial voice to the entity when I do not have a specific human being to cull from.) But—what if in the audition queue for this role there was a gentleman in his senior years with serious acting chops who could perfectly fit the lead in The Adventures of Mister Magoo? Think of the possibilities then. Or what if the right actor was someone completely different? Plays are living, breathing entities that live uniquely in different situations. It is fitting that flexibility be built in to allow for different dynamics, different experiences. “Cast appropriately” simply means no more that “find someone who makes the proper dynamic happen onstage.”

We can fling words back and forth onstage all night long, and with luck and thoughtful assignment of actors to roles, they will flow mellifluously and with true intent and effect because the people onstage fit each other. They work perfectly together because of some non-quantifiable, ethereal...magic. They're right together, and that's it. I can't describe how it happens, but I know it when I see it.

I have a seriously talented actor friend who measured six-foot-four, and back in the day wore a mane of blazing red dreadlocks and a full bushy beard. Because he fit the dynamic for a particular part and had the right chemistry with the other actors, I had no problem sticking him in a onesie and a crib and told him he thought he was three years old. To say he nailed the role would be a criminal understatement. This actor might not have been the obvious first choice to play someone who sleeps in a crib and thinks he's three, but because of who he was at the time his casting was perfect. His grasp of the part was instinctive and his dynamic with the other cast members was seamless and fluid. In a production of Macbeth that I directed, my Banquo was played by a female because she had the right mix of ballsiness and rough carriage and she was pretty damn comfortable—scarily, in fact--with a sword. Richard III in my play Kynges Games was played completely believably by a woman—because she had what it took to do the part truthfully. I could have specified Richard as “early 30's, dark hair, medium build, slight case of scoliosis, brash, lacks a sense of humor” and so forth, but I wasn't into strict verisimilitude. The part of Richard needed the correct personality to make it real. I wanted my Richard up there, and my friend Holly had that in spades.

On the other hand, when I do take the time to specify actor parameters, I do so because the mechanics of the text demand it. The actor must be of a certain age either because their actions and beliefs are of a certain time period or the number of their years is a critical plot point. Or they may be of a certain financial situation. Or of a particular physical reality. When I say Ben is “Male, 35-40, large-boned, seems dangerous but really a pussycat. Dark blonde hair” I mean that the script needs someone of those exact characteristics to make the dynamics of the play work. Even the seemingly innocuous requirement of blonde hair means something. It's not a trivial whim because in my wildest, most secret dreams I want to see a young Gerard Depardieu play the part. It's me, the playwright, giving the director, actors, and reading audience the clues necessary to make the script work as best it should.

How much control is too much? How much control is not enough?

There's an ongoing discussion (started around Euripides' time, I think) about how far playwrights should go to protect the intent, the mode of expression, the overall tone, the biology of the being – the essential, unique identity that communicates the play's intent..

Unlike movies, where the final presentation is set in digital stone--static, unchangeable, and repeated exactly the same with every viewing--every individual production (indeed, every performance of every production) of The Play I Took Fifty Years to Write will undoubtedly be different. And while this allows flexibility and creative input from the artistic and technical collaborators involved, to uniquely flavor each performance, it also opens the door for individual professionals to alter and even destroy a play's original intention.

Some playwrights are famous for demanding strict adherence to their specific ideas of how a script should be cast, directed, and performed, insisting that every production remain as close to the playwright's personal vision as possible. And in all fairness, playwrights have that right. The play is theirs, and they can be as prescriptive as they like. The play is an entity that represents themselves as artists, and any egregious variations in such representation will mislead audiences as to what the playwright meant to offer the world.

And while some playwrights have made news by exercising strict control over their work, I believe that in most cases their “interference” is not about hyper-control. Yes, there have been productions where a particular piece was so altered through direction and/or actor choice that it becomes almost unrecognizable. It's happened to lots of us. A few years back one of my monologues was presented at a community theatre. What was originally intended as a tender, confessional moment became a threatening, macabre date gone wrong. How did this happen? Performance interpretation without playwright guidance.

It proved to be an invaluable lesson to me about how differently my words can be interpreted, and thus, how much more thoughtful I must be when I finalize those words within the context of the whole piece. Did the director and actor do the piece as I intended? Hell, no. They simply worked with the words they had been given and presented a reality that, while making perfect sense to them, I had never considered.

Was there any harm done? Nope, none at all. The world moved on with nary a ripple in the zeitgeist.

But this experience made me think about how widely my words could be interpreted. (And no, I am not referring to the myriad and innumerable productions of Hamlet Out West/in Space/in a Zoo/in a Brothel/with Zombies.) Without explicit playwright guidance to a certain character's proclivities, limitations, or critical actions, how many possible doors of interpretation might be opened with my use of, say, this particular word choice? Or this sentence? (Or this syllable, even?) What Pandora's Box might I inadvertently open if I employ the use of, say, slang? Every word choice should be a clue to a certain character. And, since in most cases the playwright is nowhere near the rehearsal room, it's possible for directors and players to stray from the playwright's intention.

As a director, actor, dramaturg, and sometime designer as well as a playwright, I have always strived to be as open as possible to interpretative variations. To me, theatre is a room with an always-open door where anyone with a desire and passion can enter and play. Theatre does not look at who you are, nor does it restrict; it is the ultimate playground for any and all to have the chance to exercise their visions and creativity.

And yet casting and directorial choices do affect the production. Change the chemistry, and you change the result. A recent play of mine included a married couple, one man, one woman. Why this choice? No reason other than I am a straight white male and my play did not call for the couple to be anything other than straight. Initially, I thought, making them anything but a straight couple would have been disingenuous. I felt that if I were going to include a gay couple, that particular choice should be relevant to the theme of the play.* In this production, the director found a perfect female actor to play opposite the female lead. The chemistry was so good between the two actors that he asked for permission to cast them as a lesbian couple. 

My entire concern was about the dynamics and tension between the couple, not their genders or sexual orientation. I agreed with the casting change. Ultimately this proved to be without a doubt the correct decision. The two particular actors embodied everything I could have wished for in their onstage relationship: love, truthfulness, strength, and dedication. It was clearly the best actor combination I could have wished for. And I was happy to be able to be a part of the discussion. But I was part of that decision, which is what's important here.

But what if I hadn't been? What if the production company was in West Noodle, AK, and I was on the Riviera drinking away my royalties for The Play I Took Fifty Years to Write? What responsibilities do I have, as a playwright, to ensure that my work is handled with proper creative judgment? I loathe the idea of flooding my work with caveats and prescriptive stage directions, attempting to force directors and actors to do it “this way and only this way.” I cherish freedom and variation, yet how can I as a playwright ensure that the original intent and purpose are maintained?

Guidelines. No director will be able to read your mind to determine your preferences. It's up to playwrights to include, either in the character descriptions or notes, whatever they think is of critical importance to keep the play on its best track. The inclusion of playwright's notes, perhaps such as “X remains calm until the last scene,” “Y exhibits no verbal hesitations whatsoever before page 32,” “Character B is an African American lesbian and should be played by an African American female,” can guide the production team toward performing the work as closely as possible to what the playwright intended.

Playwrights are not prescient. It's hard to envision the many interpretative choices a production will surface. This is why I wholeheartedly recommend a workshop process. With a good team of actors and a capable dramaturg/director, nearly every play will undergo a series of readings and examinations that will most likely bring out possible interpretive pitfalls.

Can one make a play actor- and director-proof? Probably not. But a playwright can take steps to reduce possible future instances of “What were they thinking?” It's part of the job to journey with the play beyond the initial creative phase and into the second part of the process: giving it over to new participants, and therefore new viewpoints. This is an excellent way for a playwright to learn about other possible pitfalls lying in wait within the script.

*Oddly enough, the choice to make the couple gay was welcomed by several same-sex couples who thanked me for (inadvertently) "normalizing" the characters' marital status.

Obstacles. Those bits in the middle.

We've all had issues with obstacles--those pesky road blocks that all protagonists have to navigate successfully in order to achieve their goals. Every play needs 'em. But some playwrights have trouble finding them.

I almost always know the beginnings and endings of my plays. Can't start unless I do. I usually also know of some first-act cliffhanger or Momentously Dramatic Moment I need to have happen.

Some folks road map their projects, using index cards or spreadsheets. I think I envy that technique, but I also wonder if by the time I've drawn out the entire plot I may have lost the urge to write it. I say this because I tried it. I spent more time trying to arrange the cards so I could see them all at once, but half of them fell off the wall and behind my desk and they are still back there, presumably talking amongst themselves and the dust bunnies. 

I tried again with the string-path thing, sticking things on the wall and running strings between relevant items. Although that was a complete disaster (it made me dizzy), I did end up with a ten-minute play set in a spider web and about a dozen new political conspiracy theories so it wasn't a complete loss.

In any event, how do we negotiate the ascent up the shark fin (see diagram)? What gauntlets do we design for our protagonists to bravely fight through? What are the individual obstacles? How do we playwrights find them?

I usually take a look at the world of the play itself and see what difficulties it may provide organically.

Assuming I have my basic characters and a general idea of the world of the play, I start to think about some of the following things. Let's start with the basics:

- What does the protagonist want?
- Why does he/she want it?
- Is the protagonist good, evil, or complex?
- Why does the antagonist try to foil the protagonist's efforts?
- Is the antagonist good, evil, or complex?
- Where are the ethical limits/moral boundaries for both protagonist and antagonist?
- What actions do I initially envision the protagonist taking? What would be the results of those?
- What would be the next logical step?
- What would be the next illogical step?
- What dramatic moments do I imagine taking place within the play?
- What are the breaking points for the protagonist/antagonist?
- What are the protagonist's flaws and how does he/she work against him/herself?

Next, let's look at the world of the play in all of its aspects.
Is the world “real” as we know it, hard-wired and limited by our current reality, or is set within magical realism? If not real, what rules apply that don't in the real world (because even in magical realism there have to be rules) and how do these exceptions affect the characters? What limitations or freedoms does that world impose or allow?

Politics: What are the political aspects and boundaries? Are the characters discriminated against? Do they discriminate? Are they endowed with political power or under political restraint? What are their views? Are they active or passive? What form does the government take? Democratic? Authoritarian? Absent?

Sexual/gender: What natural empowerments or liabilities do the sexual/gender aspects of each character impose? What views of life? What past experiences? What possibilities for the future? What ways of creating joy in a relationship? What ways of destroying a reputation? Are they out or closeted? Are they bigoted or welcoming? Is it against the law to be anything but straight...or gay?

Geographical: How does the physical world of the play affect the characters' actions? Is it oppressively hot or freezingly cold? Is it dangerous? Is it unremarkable? Is it lush? Destroyed? Post-apocalyptic or Garden of Eden? In what settings does the world of the play take place: a bar, bowling alley, a castle, a resort, a tenement, a living room, a detention center? What aspects of your setting can be used to challenge a character?

Physical/Medical: Look at the physical traits of your characters and see how they relate to the world around them? What aspects make it easier/more difficult for them to interact? Are they too good looking? Shunned for disabilities? Comely/plain? Sick? Contagious? Can they speak/hear/see?

Other things to think about:

- Time/date/era of the work
- Technological: age of the plow/industrial revolution/computerization/cybernetics?
- Psychological: are there any neuroses/phobias/past events that may inhibit action?

And: Is the protagonist's goal actually reachable? Or are they doomed to failure?

I examine all the elements of the world my characters inhabit and I look to see how they can either aid or work against them. Every particular in the world of your play may serve as an organic problem or a tool used by another character to trouble your protagonist.

Notes from "The Viking Suicides" Workshop, Part 2

In Part I of this post I promised to address why I encourage everyone at the table to speak their minds freely and openly. Here’s why.

I have this thing about endings. I never start writing a piece until I know the ending. The ending has to be right. By that I mean it has to be perfect for the play. Truthful, not convenient. It has to be the unique destination that the preceding actions in the text have logically dictated. Looking back, it has to have been, as Aristotle said, inevitable. Nothing else will work. Once I know how the adventure ends, I know the play itself.

I despise a gratuitous wrap-up, a crowbarred feel-good ending where, for the safety of the audience's emotions (and the promise of further ticket sales) the resolution is deliberately manipulated to maximize positive responses. And the very worst: a deus ex machina, a last-minute reprieve featuring the most sketchy manipulations. Case in point: a hero, who has fallen into a vat of toxic chemicals and logically (a) drowned or (b) been fatally poisoned, suddenly reappears dripping and ecstatic, claiming to have survived by using his emergency inhaler. While submerged in toxic waste. For close to ten minutes. You’ve seen these deus ex rectums a hundred times. Tell me you never felt cheated.

So the ending to The Viking Suicides. Stage one: the idea bounces around the cranial area. This could last from a minute's worth of time to forever. In this case it was a couple of weeks. Stage two: Immediately after writing it down for the first time it I looked at it and had to take a breath. Now it was in print. It had physical form for the first time. Makes a difference seeing it on the laptop screen. Have to admit: This was a rough one. Disney fans would probably crap their Hello Kittys.

I took a couple of days’ break then came back to it. I had come to two decisions: It was absolutely the most correct ending for the play, and despite thinking that I may have just killed any chance of it getting produced, I loved it.

A successful sign of a good workshopping team is that they throw everything onto the table. So when the director addressed the ending, they all went silent. Oh great. The director wouldn’t look at me. Finally someone said “Yeah. It works. But it’s really mean.”

"It works." So it's not just me. Now...Is it logical? Does it seem inevitable?

Someone else: “It wasn't until we read it aloud that I saw how powerful it was.”

“Powerful.” There’s a good word. Okay, let's keep going. I'll take Critical Observations for $600, Alex.

Next: “But.” Pause. “I didn’t see it that way. It could be seen as a compassionate thing to do.”

Silence.

Insert wide-eyed, head-shaking emoji here. I looked at the director, my eyebrows slamming against the dropped ceiling. She just looked back: Shut up. Let them talk.

“Next” went on: “Think about it.” And proceeded to outline a line of reasoning that would never have occurred to me in ten years, but got us all thinking. And them talking again.

It very well could make sense. A director with a different turn of psyche could feel the same. After all, one of my actors just did and the rest agreed it could be interpreted that way. If they'll give it legitimacy, so will an audience. 

If anything, it could be at least as dramatic and shocking as my original intent. I could be tempted to leave it as actor’s choice how to play it.

But I haven't decided that yet.

Notes from the "Viking Suicides" Workshop, Part 1

We’re having the first workshop rehearsal for my new play, The Viking Suicides. Two of the cast members have been through this process with me before, so they know what to expect. They know I want to hear everything they're thinking, and that I’ll hear all suggestions without comment and later decide what to do. They are comfortable with me and the process.

The other five actors are new to me. Of these five:

I had seen three of them on stage at least twice and have enough confidence in their stage abilities to want them (and their analytical brains) at the table.

One actor I had seen only once, but she definitely impressed me with her stage work. She also came enthusiastically recommended by two trusted professional friends.

The last had given a great audition.

None of these five had ever been at a table where the script was discussed with the playwright sitting right there.

So you actually want us to say--out loud--whatever we think about your baby? Really?

My answer is always the same: Yes, please

And I'll show you why in a minute.

Seven actors around a table. Some know each other, some don't. All thinking about four things: Making intelligent critical remarks about the script; Wondering if they'll be able to work productively with each other; Will their acting interpretation be good enough/will they give the director and playwright what they want; and Is the playwright a prima donna?

First thing is the intro. The director/dramaturg explains the process. Everyone nods. Then I explain that I am not a prima donna and open to hearing all thoughts, brilliant or otherwise. Everyone nods again. Then the bullshit is over and the script is read.

Note #1: The actor playing M approaches me early in the session and asks what I have in mind for her character. I turn the same question back onto her. I want to know (a) has she really read the script, and (b) what is her impression of her character? She has indeed read the script. She tells me that she has two different ideas about playing M but is not sure which one will fly. The director and I tell her to run with the one she likes best and we’ll see. When I first hear her tone and accent, I think “Omigod. I’m in Bob’s Burgers.” But with this completely unexpected choice, she finds the opps for the humor and pathos all through the script. Three minutes later she and the actor playing W are kicking and clicking, catching each other’s rhythm and finding ways to make it work. The signs are all there: accidentally stepping on each other’s lines to keep a rapid rhythm going, harsh snaps followed by meek retreats. They’re into it. They’re acting.

The actor playing S is a long-time professional actor whom I’ve seen in several productions. Out everyone at this table, she has the most acting experience by far and has a stellar rep. Our production Venn diagrams have never overlapped. It’s a little daunting having her here.

She picks an interpretation and continues to develop and play with it all through her scene. Pretty soon she arrives at her “First Identity” (my term for the first attempt at characterization that an actor presents in rehearsal, one that almost always requires adjustment and refinement). She and W and M play the scene almost effortlessly, getting into playing with and against each other.

One of the things I love most about early rehearsals is exactly what these three (and soon all of the actors) are doing: playing with actor-y things. I get to see and hear the result of the different thoughts and instincts they’re moving through. Which in turn tells me more about these characters I’d created in my head.

(Note #2: I created the characters two years previously and have been living with only my idea of who they are and how they sound and what they are like at toga parties ever since. I know these entities extremely well. Seeing other people manifesting them is a shock because they are no longer my mind’s eye incarnation but suddenly much different.)

I make a few notes about word changes (With this intonation this word would be better. With this attitude, this word is more appropriate).

After 90 minutes we finish the reading. The director starts the discussion with a couple of easy questions to get people talking. People answer, somewhat tentatively. More things are then said, and shyness starts to go away. More observations and discoveries follow, without any tentatives at all. Dynamics are explored. Purposes, needs, wants, decisions are suggested. What’s mostly left out of the discussion are the politics and themes; they are discussed, but only as secondary topics or as supporting evidence for the characters’ actions. One actor asked “Well isn’t the theme of this ‘power’?” Others replied accountability, feminism, racism. Then that was dropped and they went back to discussing various choices made by characters through the play.

It’s a great thing when the actors discuss the characters themselves, and their actions—not the play’s themes. That tells me I have a story about people. Themes are a director’s purview; that and things like mood, style, color, etc. (and they’re the purview of grad school theses and all that stuff).

During the post-reading conversation the actors soon all seemed to largely forget about me at the end of the table. This is what happens when the playwright actually shuts up. I am by nature a passive and reticent person, but even so, this is always hard.

But to not shut up would be counterproductive as hell. If Mommy starts responding to every comment made about Little Junior, the creative process gets shot right in the heart. But once you as the playwright actually listen, it becomes fascinating. You don’t have to take every suggestion, or even any of them. But you should consider them. They should inform your decisions about how and what to revise, if anything, to make your play as great as it can be. And remember: playwrights are under no obligation whatsoever to accept any critique.

Just Mull. And Enjoy It.

It's called Writer's Block, that agonizing period fraught with insecurity when the creative river dries up. Writer's Block: when you need the words to come trotting out like frisky thoroughbreds, but they remain stubbornly mulish, refusing to leave the barn. (A barn you can't enter, by the way, not even to get a glimpse of them in their stalls, effectively stalling your work.)

I'm going to go out on a limb here and venture a guess that we've all had this experience. We're told it's not fun. It's distressing. Oh my, how good would it be if the lines just paraded out proudly as they should, in a constant cavalcade, all dressed up and looking spiffy.

It does happen. I have several 10-minute pieces and a few 2-minute monologues that just flooshed out of the vomitorium smack onto the page. Such a glorious rush. However, my pride rests on my glacially expanding canon of full-lengths (that subject, the merits of short plays vs longer ones, in another blog, farther upstream. Probably followed by “The Supreme Annoyance of 'Multiple Metaphor Pileup' in Essay Writing”).

Anyway, I digress. The creative standstill does happen. Perhaps more often than we'd like. But I take serious issue with the moniker “Writer's Block.” It’s negative. It plants the idea in every writer’s head that Something Is Wrong!—something bad that screams out to be fixed.

The term “Writer's Block” is, as Gandhi used to say, B.S. This lull in our usual flow of typing is not something to worry about. Maybe we're just tired. Maybe we had too much to eat last night. Maybe too much on our minds.

Relax, it's okay.

In my normal writing process there are periods where I sit and think about my current scribbling, sometimes for hours or days at a time. Weeks, even. It's part of the way I write. My mind goes off into the ether and I'm beyond reach. I don’t even experience concrete thoughts or specific ideas. I feel like a whale shark, mouth agape, gently trolling for krill. I’m lucky to have friends and family who recognize the thousand-yard stare and take turns feeding and dressing me. I'm betting there are a few of you out there who experience similar episodes.

I accept this as a natural part of creativity. I expect it. I enjoy it. I consider it work, as equal a part of the writing process as the frenetic mistyping that thunders out when The Big Reveal finally hits. It's like great sex: a slow, thoughtful beginning, a journey of sensual exploration and discovery that gradually builds up to a fevered climax of gushing words. And this happens several times in every full-length creation.

Let’s call this languid synaptic search Mulling. Mulling is an activity where the imagination goes in search of those magic moments that not just advance the text, but glorify it. Mulls, like whale sharks, troll for those creative krill, Epiphanies. In that massive sea of ether, each Mull needs to find its appropriate Epiphany. Because there is only one Epiphany for each of the writer’s different Mulls.

There will be false alarms along the way, connections that look exciting, promising, and juicy, yet turn out to be disappointing when the resulting sploosh of typing at last breathily subsides and the Epiphany looks around at your apartment and talks about redecorating. Alas, we must change our phone number once again and begin searching anew.

But I never worry. Ever. Because in my experience, nearly every questing Mull has found its mate. It's a zen-like journey—and it's always been worth it. I sit back, relax, and go Mulling merrily along, roaming the ether for that special Epiphany. It's a lovely landscape, and I always find equal amounts of joy in the peregrination and in the anticipation of consummation.

And frequently I find things I never imagined.  Because Mullination by nature largely involves aimless wandering, it sometimes runs into ideas, phrases and words that take me to areas I hadn't previously considered. Each one expands my landscape of possibility, and almost always the work in question benefits tremendously.

I say screw The Block. Deny the disquietude, forswear the fantods, and Get Your Mull On. Big time.