First of all - I'm not exaggerating - It had half the audience very excited. They loved it! it was a first draft, but most of the actors and a number of the audience members talked about what they loved about it, how they could see the conflict and the magic in it, lots of great positive stuff. There were tears, excitement, and high energy - over a first draft.
Then there was the other section. Absolutely horrified. All playwrights.
In feedback: One of the directors in town asked me a dry, very academic question. I wasn't quite sure what he meant me to answer. I ended up telling him, I'm sorry, but I have no playwrighting education, I wasn't sure what he was looking for.
Basically he said what he was looking for I don't have. He said there was no plot, no conflict, nothing in the play that made it a play. it was just a boring lecture. I listened to him go off on me for five minutes. Then the artistic director, who had been suddenly having all sorts of conflicts with the schedule after I submitted the play for my reading, and tried to talk me out of doing it, acted like the entire night had been a complete disaster. I stand there looking at her thinking: what hot spot did I hit with this?
The play is Shakespeare's Eyes. It's about a playwright who is horrified to discover that an artist has re-written the writer's play, someone that the playwright does not know - or is there something that has been forgotten? Almost the entire play is the argument between the artist and the playwright (no conflict?). There is a lesson in it: it talks about Shakespeare and his love for William Herbert. But most of it is clear, some of it funny, and done right it's not boring. Was someone uncomfortable about this information? Was it that Will was bi? This is NOT news...but who'd be put off by it?
I know one person was - the reincarnation of William Herbert was in this audience, and squirming. No, he doesn't realize yet, I have actually tried to tell him and he won't hear it. The play deflated him terribly, a reaction I was sorry to see. But he won't tell me what was going on with him.
In the meantime - I get praised for a few days. Except by the artistic director, who finally gets around to telling me the play was just terrible.
That rotten smell from the state of Denmark, as Hamlet once pointed out, has been raised again.
Did I tell you that the artistic director didn't actually watch the play?
What lesson am I getting from all this?
That time and attitudes repeat themselves. It's the same flak I used to get as Will. In fact, the whole night was "deja vu all over again..."
