Transcribed

"Writing began with the effort to record speech. All writing is an attempt to fix intangibles--thought, speech, what the eye observes--fixed on clay tablets, in stone, on paper. Writers capture. We playwrights on the other hand write or rather 'wright' to set these free again. Not inscribing, not de-scribing but...exscribing (?)...'W-R-I-G-H-T,' that archaism, because it's something we do, cruder, something one does with one's mitts, one's paws. To claw words up...!"

-- Happy, in Tony Kushner's Reverse Transcription

--

Been plowing through ten-minute plays lately. They are basically shortened one-acts, and one-acts are basically shortened plays. But shortened is perhaps too simple a term. They are condensed plays, like canned soups, and if diluted with the water of a two-hour play could fill more space and time. They are cranberries at the bottom of yogurt cups. They are smaller chunks of bigger moments, lifted from unwritten plays as sort of vignettes. That's it. A vignette on the stage. That's a ten-minute play.

Anyways. I've been reading them. Scouring as well as savoring, mostly searching for monologues for American or ethnic males, from mid-teen to early 20s. Time to reign it in, to aim at types.

Tomorrow, I audition for my employer, the Children's Theatre of Cincinnati. The job is for next year's traveling season, which has kept me fed and warm so far. But if I stayed in Cincinnati another year I would want to do some mainstage work, which would free up my days for "real" jobs, and a decent amount of my nights, too, perhaps for other theatre work. I want to move to Chicago, have wanted to for at least a year, but no sense burning the bridges here just because I'm sick of crossing them.

Sick is the wrong word, too. I have lived, says the dying old man; I have acted. Not that I'm a dying old man--thankfully, I have escaped the jading effects of professional acting. And shit, I'm only twenty-two. If I'm jaded already, it's time to work in the sweaty asshole of a restaurant kitchen again, forcing graciousness back into this thick, numbed skull. No, I am simply considering options, looking at the opportunities and the opportunity costs, wondering where my supply and demand curves cross, floating behind graph-paper bars between X and Y.

Speaking of crossing bridges, though, if I stayed another year, I'd also move to Kentucky. Things are cheaper and more interesting across the way, and let's face it, the view of the Cincinnati skyline is prettier than the muddy washes of Newport. (The grass might be greener there, too.)

--

So my audition tomorrow. I'm using a piece called "The Remenant" by Billy Collins, which I first heard on a Garrison Keillor collection called English Majors. It's just a nonrhyming short poem, quirky and poignant, and I'm hoping it makes a funny monologue. I've cut it down to a minute or so; with a forty-five second selection from the same song I used in Chicago, I'm certain this one's a winner. Especially if I start on all fours, like a dog, and through the strength of poetry rise in heavenly defiance. Love it.

--

Walked to Kroger today, sauntered through aisles and carried my stores home in a backpack. Five cans of vegetable broth, two cans of crushed tomato, some cheese, broccoli, peas and spinach, and some purple gloves for a Valentine's present.

There are five squashes in the kitchen basket, waiting for me to stab, slice and pry them open, scooping out their seedy innard gourd bellies with the biggest spoon I can find. I may have to bake them a little before I can peel them; apparently taking the skin off a squash is harder than being a dog.

--

Started writing a play, too, about my high-school drama teacher, and the drama (indeed!) that ensued shortly after I graduated and came to Hillsdale, a place where I was determined I would never again walk the stage.

Funny though: The rough script that came out of my head is about ten minutes long. You are what you eat, and you write what you read.

Back to vignettes.