My dear friend Beth Henley gave me the best advice about staged readings. “Invite friends. Read the play. Pour the wine.” It’s so easy to get stuck in what I (dis)like to call Playwright’s Purgatory. That is, permanent development. You get reading after reading of your play, but no production. And to make matters worse, you suffer through talk-backs that are not only useless, but quite damaging. I have made point of refusing to participate in talk-backs at a reading. This is not “Dancing with the Stars” or “American Idol” or any other variety show that allows audience voting. And even then, they are voting on a so-called finished product. It seems to me that audiences expect to have their say even before a play is produced. If that’s the case, they how does anything ever get produced? It’s one thing to hear a draft before an audience, but quite another to solicit feedback (or be forced into feedback) while still in the act act of writing. It makes no sense, and only leads to frustration. Talk-backs are for Q&A sessions after a production, not “let me tell you how I would write the play” torture after a reading. So, last night, I had the best reading of my career so far. Private home. Private guest list. No more than 25 people in attendance. A mishmash of furniture. Bread and cheese and a lovely spread of light dinner. Spectacularly talented actors. A remarkable and rare director. A gracious hostess. And all in a large living room. Having had important readings in major venues, I can tell you, this was by far the most productive and enlightening step in the development of a new play that I have ever had. The night was about the play, not the playwright. The night was about the characters, not the audience. The night was about the possibility of production, not the end-road of a reading. It was not stacked with sycophants. They were smart, talented, experienced, and honest listeners. But don’t get me wrong. They were opinionated and passionate. Point is, rather than offering an opportunity to grandstand, we finished the reading then socialized. I (the playwright) and the director, merely moved from conversation to conversation. Listening. Asking. Listening. Answering. Listening. No one had a ‘turn at mike.’ And it was the most productive, exhilarating, enjoyable reading of my life. So, for those of you fellow playwrights out there struggling to get readings done at theatres, or those of you who feel stuck in Playwright Purgatory, try this: Invite friends. Read the play. Pour the wine. It might be as simple as a dinner party. With your words.

Often everyone’s first classroom introduction to drama, and the reason so many then turn away. Why is it taught so often and so poorly? It is not about “man being a puppet in the hands of the gods” or there being “no free will.” It is not a moral lesson against pride. It is not an attempt to answer the question “Who am I?” but rather a desperate inquiry into the uglier question “Why am I?” We often think of Oedipus’ hubris as trying to solve the riddle of himself without the help of others or the gods, but he knows who he is. He says so within the first ten lines: “I am Oedipus.” Now, just because he learns the truth of his past does not change who he is, but rather, why he is who he is. And his true arrogance is actually quite noble. He says to his suffering people, “I am ready to help, I’ll do anything.” That is where the tragedy begins. In truth, it is often our best qualities (helping, listening, loving) that get us into the most trouble, and our worst qualities (insert yours here) that save you in the end. If only Oedipus had a good defense attorney, because the reasonable doubt is right there in the text. Over and over again, the story of Laius’ death reveals “a whole band, not single-handed, cut King Lauis down.” Over and over again, the reports say he was killed by “robbers” or “thieves” or “bandits.” All in the plural. Yet over and over again, Oedipus puts it into the singular: “robber, thief, bandit.” He knows he was alone, on his own when he killed that man where the three roads meet. Yet he also knows a good king must sacrifice himself for his people. Whether he really killed his own father, and as a result married his own mother, is cast into doubt. And ironically, that is of little real interest. What matters here is that this lone individual, in his attempt to figure out why he is who he is, learns that such inquiry always comes at a great cost. His true strength is pursuing that answer regardless of the expense, finding the truth, enduring it once found, and accepting the responsibility for all of his actions — both unthinkable and innocent. It is a great testament to the human intellect to discover happiness is built upon an illusion, and to go on living with — and in spite of — this knowledge.

If there is one thing Reza does well (and she does many things well when it comes to playwriting) is she cuts right to the chase without it feeling cheap, melodramatic, or false.  The question I constantly ask myself with this play is, “How does the playwright get us from A to Z so quickly?”  How do we go from “Those tulips are gorgeous” to “Children consume and fracture our lives.  Children drag us towards disaster, it’s unavoidable.”  I think the answer is simple.  ”What did you mean by that?”  That question, asked by one character to another, cuts right to the heart of whatever matter is at hand; whatever dialogue is being inferred but sublimated.  ”What did you mean by that?” doesn’t let the questioned character get away with passive/aggressive or flippant remarks.  Moreover, their response often merits a “What’s that supposed to mean?!”  In other words, some playwrights reveal a character’s truth very slowly, like undressing someone in fifteen layers of winter coats.  Reza, on the other hand, allows her character to flay one another like at a cat-skinning party.  For her, “What did you mean by that?” really states “I know exactly what you meant by that and I won’t pretend I don’t.”  For example, this exchange: “Gingerbread, delicious . . . Well, at least all this has given us a new recipe.” “I’d have preferred it if it hadn’t cost my son two teeth.”  ”Of course, that’s what I meant.”  ”Strange way of expressing it.”  It’s all quite civilized, and fairly simple.  She won’t let her characters off the hook they’re hanging themselves on.  Why?  ”You’re far more authentic when you’re showing yourself in a horrible light.”  Audiences want to see characters squirm in this horrible light because, like them, we more often than not know exactly what we mean when we say it.  We just hope the other person doesn’t make us prove it.

“Tartuffe must be approved, or all plays condemned.”  So wrote Moliere after years of the King denying production for fear of religious, political, and cultural backlash.  Why?  Because if drama is a mirror, the image being reflected was hypocritical, corrupt, and too close for courtly comfort.  But this play is about more than religious attack.  It is about reflection.  Each character is a mirror of a particular type.  The shrewish mother in law.  The cuckolded husband.  The adulterous wife.  The saucy maid.  The young lovers.  The hypocrite.  Yet each has a self-awareness that their identity depends upon the identities of others.  Each knows they are playing a part.  Each knows the part the other must play.  And each must play their role even if they wish to play against their type.  The only way Elmire can prove Tartuffe’s hypocrisy is to play the role of adulterous wife.  The only way Mariane and Valere can earn permission to marry is to play the role of quarrelsome lovers.  The rules of comedy call for it.  Moliere, however, has his cake and eats it too.  On the one hand, this is a brilliantly constructed comedy, adhering to the rules at every predictable turn.  On the other hand, it is a savage retaliation, not only on the religious group protesting the content of the play, but on the King himself for being so swayed.  In order for a mirror to reflect, it needs the light of the sun.  And in order for these characters’ identities to reflect the truth (however unseemly), they need the light of the Sun King.  All light emanates from him, and all identity depends upon it.  If, however, he is swayed, then all identity shifts throughout the court.  So in the end, what appears to be a lengthy and self-aware ode to the King’s power to force a happy ending is also a warning.  Moliere will not hesitate to turn the mirror on the King himself.  But playwright beware.   As Moliere writes himself, ”We easily endure reprimands, but not being laughed at.  We want to be wicked, but not ridiculous.”

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.