CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR
by Julie Jensen
This story is rather short, really, and it has an easy
answer, an easy way to avoid the dubious outcome I am
going to describe.
I had a play that had had only a couple
of readings, and those were distinctly in-house, among
my friends
and students. The play was good, but weird and a bit
incendiary. I knew both things about the play. But
I thought I could get away with it. I would not be burned.
I was too old, too smart.
I also knew that because I’d
had a recent hit at a friendly theatre, this play was
right for them.
Sure enough, my dream came true. That
friendly theatre decided to do the play and with the
same director I’d
worked with before. I couldn’t have been more
pleased. Who was it that warned, “Be careful
what you wish for....”?
Rehearsals began, and
I could tell right away that we were in some trouble.
The director kept squirming
away
from the point of the play, and the producer couldn’t
believe that the incendiary stuff was really in the
play. I began to have second thoughts myself. Maybe
this play
was too “out there”…
After the first
rehearsal, the director started to make suggestions
about rewrites, new scenes. She
even had
some suggested lines. I knew this was problematic.
And yet I felt the pressure. I also suffered from
a lack
of experience with this play. I knew less about it
than I’d known about other work of mine. I
took her advice, put in the new scenes, even used
her lines. And
off they went with a play that was rather more patchwork
than anything else.
I heard it a few times; it always
made me squirm. But everyone assured me it was better,
much better.
I carefully
recited all my available stories of playwrights who
refused to take development advice. Besides, I trusted
this theatre,
this director and also the cast. So I went away for
a couple of weeks while they struggled with it, got
it
in shape. In the meantime, I tried not to think about
the play. I tried to have faith.
Fast forward to opening.
Dear lord, it was awful. All the stitching showed.
You could tell someone
had been
messing with that play. Every change stuck out.
I sat with a friend of mine. After every change, she’d
nudge me and say, “Did you write that?” I’d
shake my head, and we’d wait for the next
one. She found them all.
And I’ll tell you
the problem. It wasn’t
the director, the producer, or even me. The problem
was that I hadn’t had enough development
work on the play. I didn’t know it well enough
to argue for it. And so I didn’t. Sad to
say, it was a giant mess because I’d not
defended it. I had been too timid to stand up for
it. I hadn’t heard it enough
in the mouths of other people. I didn’t have
enough experience with the play.
After the run,
I fixed the play, unstitched those scenes and that
wording and sent it out. It got
several more
productions, all of which made sense and actually
worked. Too bad I’d been in such a hurry
to follow that one success with another. Too bad,
indeed. Ultimately
I paid. So did the play, the director, and the
producer. We all paid. No one’s fault really,
except my rush to production. |
