Writing like Beethoven, Writing like Mozart

[NOTE: Back before I started this blog with my lovely wife (and co-conspirator,) I posted a little think on www.thefelties.blogspot.com entitled "Writing Like Beethoven, Writing like Mozart." I'm going to repost this here, edited and slightly expanded to better elucidate my meaning.]

Here are a couple of observations on the nature of writing for performance.

MOZART:

Some years ago, I found myself taking a summer course in playwriting from noted playwright Allen Partridge. I was toiling away on what was to become Diving In. We students would turn in our pages each day, and receive his teacherly criticism the next day.

One day, Partridge handed back my pages and he had written in red ink on the top page "Too many notes, Wolfgang!" It was the only note. I queried him and he responded "Watch Amadeus." So I did. Near the beginning of the film, Emperor Joseph II give Mozart some helpful advice:

"My dear young man, don't take it too hard. Your work is ingenious. It's quality work. And there are simply too many notes, that's all. Just cut a few and it will be perfect."

So I took this up with Partridge, and received the best piece of writing advice I've ever been given. Essentially, why use a paragraph when a well wrought phrase would accomplish the same thing? Economy of word leads to greater emotional impact.

The analogy is a bit off, because one should strive to write like Mozart. In Mozart's work, every note is in its proper place. There is nothing superfluous. Or as Mozart retorts to the Emporer:

"Which few did you have in mind, Majesty?"

Of course, he was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and I was just a snot-nosed young playwright. Indeed, Diving In had a few too many "notes." It's a lesson I'm still learning.

BEETHOVEN:

The way I learned it, when Beethoven went deaf, his music went nuts. Musicians complained about the difficulty of performing his music. The notes were too high, too difficult to reach; his passages were far too complex to play with human hands. And yet, the music is beautiful, challenging and nuanced.

Well, I try to write like Beethoven.

Oh, I don't get too ridiculous with the demands I put on a performer. I don't expect them to sprout wings or bleed tapioca pudding.

However, I may write a character who makes an emotional turn "on a dime." I have a certain fondness for repetition in monologues that makes them difficult to memorize. I may even force a performer to say words and relate experiences that are horrible, embarrassing, disgusting, etc. It's only because I respect actors enough to bring my "A" game as a writer.

Mamet does this. Read Oleanna sometime. It's perhaps the most infuriating piece of dramatic literature that I've ever thrown across the room (several times.) The more I read it, the more I grow to appreciate it. It's compelling, subtle, nuanced. It's also two actors with their asses glued to furniture blathering on and on in a repetitious verbal tennis match. On the surface, nothing really seems to happen. I had the good fortune to direct the final scene of the play for an acting class, and I really began to get it: The slow burn, the psychological chess match.

I do try to write like Beethoven and write like Mozart. Because if I'm not going to really put forth the effort, what's the damn point?

Ball's Backwards and Forwards

I recently re-read David Ball's "Technical Manual for Reading Plays" (see link under "Required Reading" to the right.) Great book!

On its face, it is a book about play analysis. In truth, it's a handy guide to what makes good dramatic literature good (not to mention what makes it dramatic.) As such, it is a wonderful source of insight for dramatists, actors, designers . . . anyone who has anything to do with theatre.

"Inspiration without technique -- if it exists at all -- is merely flair."

There is no such thing as "post-production" in theatre. There's no shooting "pick-ups" or saving a play with "creative editing." As a director, once you put a group of actors in front of an audience, all bets are off. They live or die based on the choices you made in the weeks leading up to the debut.

Thus the importance of a director's analysis. On a show like Juana, a sweeping epic that deals with suppressed history and the conspiracy to depose an intelligent, powerful woman, the more I have figured out going into production the better. Ball's approach is action oriented, dealing with what happens in the play rather than what the play means. Meaning evolves from an understanding of action.

"The simultaneous communication of both understanding and emotional experience is the domain of art."

It's a very practical approach to a very practical art form. The bonus for me as a playwright is that re-reading Ball's Backwards and Forwards has helped me crystallize my thoughts on creating dramatic literature.

"If your theater has to take pains to clarify themes for you audience on the lobby walls or the program cover, then you have failed to make the play a working stage piece."

I feel better armed, going into my director's analysis. I really can't recommend this book enough!

Micro Hysteria

Marketing guru and unknowing theatrical genius Seth Godin coined a new term last month -- "micro hysteria."

Far better to obsess about owning the micro audience, at least for a moment, than to waste your energy trying to be everything to everyone.

It's a sentiment that is at least as old as Aesop: "If you try to please everyone, you'll wind up pleasing no one." Seth is taking a moldy old law "everyone" knows and turning it into an active rule of thumb with micro hysteria: "Go after the niche."

To find packets of the population that interact with each other and create [micro hysteria].

In the theatre, the problem of promotion is how to fill seats. The most common form of promotion out here in Los Angeles is the color postcard, stacks of which litter cafe counters and theatre lobbies and laundromats all over town. This is stupid promotion, equivalent to a street preacher yelling at passersby from a megaphone. There's no connection, no conversation.

Well, no surprise. There's no audience, just random strangers.

In a town as fractured and spread out as Los Angeles is (and here I mean the whole of Los Angeles County taken as one megalopolis) random shouting is lost among the din of all the other random shouting going on. The theatres that thrive seem to have a strong subscriber base, or at least dedicated regulars. The community is there, it just needs to be nurtured.

Food for thought.

Proverbs of Theatrical Hell
(with a wink to William Blake)

Timidity is the death of theatre.

Life in art and art in life are one.

The audience is judge, jury, executioner, and unindicted co-conspirator.

A personal statement crumbles mountains.

A self-indulgent statement brings laughter and derision.

A blind man hearing color is art.

A deaf man seeing music is art.

Fire of passion heals.

An actor on stage is more honest than an actor in the house.

Tragedy is primer.

Comedy is relief.

Conviction is godliness.

Lazy playwright, lousy playwright.

Acting is total awareness and no awareness.

"Enough! Or Too Much!"

Mad Theatrics Journal

"... [creating theatre] is not just a question of wooing an audience. It is an even harder matter of creating works that evoke in audiences an undeniable hunger and thirst."

--Peter Brook, The Empty Space

The MAD THEATRICS JOURNAL is accepting submissions for our premiere issue!

I should probably post some sort of submission guidelines, but this first issue is going to be very loose. There is no theme. Anything goes!

We are looking for the following types of material:

• Short plays
• Theatre theory/history
• Reviews
• "How to" articles
• Humor/satire

This ezine shall be published in PDF format, with no support for hypertext. I, Andrew Moore, shall be the dictator-in-chief. Submissions can be sent to me at dalmotion@sbcglobal.net. If you have any questions, shoot me an e-mail or comment below.

I am pleased to announce that I (Andrew) have joined Write Act Rep!

Later this year I will be workshopping Torrid Affaire for the company. I will also be designing and overseeing the construction of a full cast of puppets for an exciting period epic.

The theatre has always been square zero for me. My home. When Pamela and I produced Torrid Affaire last year it just felt right. Sitting in the darkened house, making notes during rehearsal, coming down to the line . . . I actually felt relaxed. That's just crazy.

I wanted more of that feeling of -- dare I say "completeness?" -- so I had planned on self-producing Sonny this year. And then Pamela joined Write Act. I tagged along to work calls, took in a few shows, and just fell in love with the whole thing. The facility is capacious yet cozy, and the people are dedicated and so very talented. The concern I felt about taking on (again) the awesome task of self-production eased off. There was no longer any need to "go it alone."

I've found my group!

Here's an Idea ...

I was reading over Andrew Rhodes' great comment to a recent post, when the thought occurred ... why not do a quarterly "Mad Theatrics" journal/magazine? An e-zine about theatre from the trenches? Sort of a bruised-knuckle, roar-of-the-greasepaint/smell-of-the-crowd take on "American Theater Magazine." The content would be assembled from general submissions from whoever wants to submit. Articles can be written by theatre professionals or theatre fans. We can print reviews, theory, short play scripts, etc. And the whole thing is a free download available seasonally.

The editorial board shall consist of me (for right now.) If this thing turns into something interesting, maybe I'll expand the board and get more sophisticated, but for now it'll just be a Rough Theatre e-zine lorded over tyrannically by me.

Thoughts?