Today I started a new play. It’s a strange feeling. I would never compare it to pregnancy (my wife would laugh loud enough for the neighbors), but there is this odd lump in the throat. Not that babies are born from our throats, I know that (believe me!). I’m just saying, there’s something about to be born. I know an “idea” has been brewing, stewing for months, but today I actually sat down, pulled out a new notebook (always a good sign) and said, “Ok. What’s your lead’s name?” Why the hell do we care about this person? Why are they in jeopardy? What’s the opportunity they have today that they didn’t have yesterday (or ever)? What the hell do they want? And what’s in their way? I know it will be a four person play (so eager for a small cast after a year of working on ‘Banished Children of Eve’), and I know it will pivot around a single event. I won’t give it away because, well, perhaps I don’t know what exactly I have to give away, but the lump in the throat is real. And then there is the fear. I only know this as a dad, but there’s no other way to compare a new work (for me) other than the elation at knowing it is finally coming, and then the fear of “Oh God, I have to actually raise this child without screwing it up!” Don’t get ahead of yourself. Slow down. Have a cup of coffee (decaf). Think about what it is your main character wants, and are you willing to give it to them in the long run. Decide what you would do in the first situation you put them in. Then have them do the opposite. And we’re off.

Savage. Brutal. Honest. ‘In-yer-face.’ But a well-made-play? This uncompromising scrutiny of the relationships between characters who are utterly self-absorbed (yet full of understandable longing) is all verbal, rather than visual. Identities are fabricated and dismantled based solely on what they say about about themselves, or what they say about each other. At a time when dramas were supposedly ‘pushing the envelope’ through graphic visuals (very few, by the way, which have earned a life in repertory), this playwright puts the envelope through the paper shredder with a word, a phrase. The sudden turns from intimacy to brutality, from tenderness to deception feel arbitrary and random, but they are perfectly planned and motivated. Because their sex lives more resemble a humiliating game of musical chairs, it is easy to believe there is no forward momentum, only repetition. But the whole play - and each scene - revolves around the beginning and endings of their relationships with each other and with themselves. Compare classical Farce. Compare drama of the Restoration. It’s a near perfect match, only in this play, farce has isolating consequences and there is no hope of restoring identity. Relationships, like everything else, have been commodified. They are merely exchanges. And if that truth were spoon fed to an audience (or in the tradition of late 90s plays, shoved down the throats of an audience), it would be easy to dismiss. But since it is beautifully constructed and based solely on the language, it is less easy to ignore. As Marber himself says, ‘It was always part of the conception of the play that I would write about big ugly emotions contained within some formally beautiful structure: which makes it crueller.’ It also makes it ‘well-made,’ which in my opinion means well made for its particular time period, and after.

What really is the difference between a sonnet and a steak sandwich? And why should we know the difference? In this beautiful play, the cancer-ridden scholar grapples with her transition from researcher to researched, subject to object, reader of text to a text being read. And what a painful transition it is (as many transitions are). Like Prospero, she cannot be in ‘the book’ and in the world at the same time, and she discovers that, perhaps, she made the wrong choice. Or at least, it is now time to go. What makes this play work so effectively is the playwright’s ability to control our distance. Sometimes we are comfortably far away where we can observe, listen, watch, judge. Other times, we are brought forward within an inch of our own lives, sitting right there in the hospital bed. This control, at just the right moments, taking us in and out, not only keeps the play from falling into sentimentality and melodrama, but also secures the wrenching conclusion.  As an audience, we witness our character struggle with the metaphysical question: Where does the true self reside, in the body or the mind? And in the end, she (and hopefully we) will recognize it is not the metaphysical that will provide the answer, but the physical. It is answered in that simple, kind, sharing of the popsicle between nurse and patient that matters more than poetry. And serves as a reminder that no one on their death bed thinks, “If I had only sent more emails. Spent more time in the office. Written more blogs.” Death be not proud.  Life neither.

There’s an old writing exercise that goes something like this: Character A loves Character B. Character B loves Character C. And Character C loves himself. I always thought this forced triangle would result in an unsustainable, artificial play. Not so in this case. Matt (the professional dreamer) loves Christina (the professional lover) who loves Davis (the professional narcissist). But Rapp is the true professional. He reveals information so indirectly you often forget that it is information. The result being you feel like you’ve always known this or that about these characters your are only now meeting. He also shows no fear and allows his characters “to go there,” if you know what I mean. And none of it feels cheap because it is all so private, so “It’s my last chance, what have I got to lose ‘cept myself, which is hardly worth holding on to.” While there is some satisfaction that justice does (or at least eventually will) prevail in the end, the most satisfying aspect of this play is that it matches its own description of Amsterdam: “Totally familiar and dreamlike at the same time.”

Ok. I admit it. I drink too much. Coffee, that is. But I’m okay with that. And I’m not as bad as I used to be. In graduate school in Chicago (when I thought I wanted to be an archaeologist but discovered I was a playwright) I could easily have three pots a day. According to the markings on the carafe, yes, that 36 cups. But c’mon. How small are the mugs Mr. Coffee uses to measure? And can you blame me? It was cold. And I am from Los Angeles. Today I have about four cups in the morning, then maybe two during the day. Does it make me a better playwright? Yes. I believe it does. Why? Not because of the caffeine. Not  because of the aura or the taste or the bitterness.  Not because, as Balzac (”Ha ha!  He said Balzac!”) writes in The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee: “Ideas quick-march into motion like battalions of a grand army to its legendary fighting ground, and the battle rages. Memories charge in, bright flags on high; the cavalry of metaphor deploys with a magnificent gallop; the artillery of logic rushes up with clattering wagons and cartridges; on imagination’s orders, sharpshooters sight and fire; forms and shapes and characters rear up; the paper is spread with ink - for the nightly labor begins and ends with torrents of this black water, as a battle opens and concludes with black powder.”  I drink coffee because it forces me to sip, rather than gulp.  To listen, rather than speak.  To slow down rather than hurry up.  And as a playwright, constantly engaging in imaginary conversations or eavesdropping on hypothetical situations, I need a reminder to slow down, to listen, to savor.  It keeps me warm.  And it keeps me company.

How can a ‘two-hander’ be so thrilling, so savage, so compelling and controversial and engaging and dramatic? How can two characters, a desk, a bench, and a phone inflame such audience response? Simple. Mamet makes us fill in the blanks. His famous pauses are not just for show, nor is his indirect dialogue. He forces us to project our own meaning into the situation, onto the characters, thus colluding us in this unravelling of identities. We insert ourselves and our own assumptions. We cannot remain objective or at a distance because we too are (mis)interpreting their words. And this is not a play about who is right and who is wrong. They are both right. It is a play about who has the power, and how does one hold on to it. And how does one hold on to oneself in a world where power, not meaning, defines who one really is? John and Carol are both to blame for their own destruction because their righteousness in asserting their self-identity is unrelenting, unforgiving.  On the surface, yes, it is a play about sexual harassment, gender politics, higher education, etc.  But the real core of this tragedy is watching two people who — rather than being who they think they really are — discover that they are exactly who others think them to be.