On To The Next
The Great Canadian Theatre company is accepting application's for their playwriting workshop and I've decided to apply. If accepted, I'll have the opportunity to develop a script under the guidance of Canadian playwright and dramaturg, Arthur Milner. I believe they only accept eight artists into the program, so I'm going to do my damndest to make sure my application is a bright and shiny as possible.
The script I want to work on next is going to be a challenge. I want to write about the sudden death of a young Jewish man and how that event precipitates a reconciliation between his estranged mother and his (non-Jewish) widow. That's the 5-cent summary. I have pages of notes about structure, character beats, plot points, etc. But in essence I want to right a drama but interspersed with dark humour. Ultimately I want to explore the concept of endings-as-beginnings. People, places, everything comes to an end. I think it's right and necessary that we grieve those losses. But I also think those losses are right and ultimately necessary, so that new life and new possibilities can be born.
It's something I've been thinking about a lot in recent years. I'm watching my parents age and though I hope they both live for a good long time, it's impossible to escape the reality that they are going to die. And I've realized how hard it is for me to accept that. Death is the only experience other than birth that is universally, unexceptionally human. And yet I can't accept it. Isn't that fucked up? I think of a line in (of all things) Buffy the Vampire Slayer about humans and death "they know [death] is coming and yet every single one of them is surprised when it happens to them".
It's probably naive to think that writing a play will do anything to help me face my aversion to grief. Not to mention that I don't really know what it's like. I mean, I've had losses and mourning, but not related to death. My grandparents died, but neither death represented a really significant loss for me. So much for write what you know.
Nonetheless, this is the story I feel compelled to tell. I see a lot of research, rewrites and discarded drafts in my future. And if I am lucky enough to be accepted in to this program, maybe it will be exactly the sort of environment I need to rise to the challenge I think this script will present.
And now...back to the application.
The script I want to work on next is going to be a challenge. I want to write about the sudden death of a young Jewish man and how that event precipitates a reconciliation between his estranged mother and his (non-Jewish) widow. That's the 5-cent summary. I have pages of notes about structure, character beats, plot points, etc. But in essence I want to right a drama but interspersed with dark humour. Ultimately I want to explore the concept of endings-as-beginnings. People, places, everything comes to an end. I think it's right and necessary that we grieve those losses. But I also think those losses are right and ultimately necessary, so that new life and new possibilities can be born.
It's something I've been thinking about a lot in recent years. I'm watching my parents age and though I hope they both live for a good long time, it's impossible to escape the reality that they are going to die. And I've realized how hard it is for me to accept that. Death is the only experience other than birth that is universally, unexceptionally human. And yet I can't accept it. Isn't that fucked up? I think of a line in (of all things) Buffy the Vampire Slayer about humans and death "they know [death] is coming and yet every single one of them is surprised when it happens to them".
It's probably naive to think that writing a play will do anything to help me face my aversion to grief. Not to mention that I don't really know what it's like. I mean, I've had losses and mourning, but not related to death. My grandparents died, but neither death represented a really significant loss for me. So much for write what you know.
Nonetheless, this is the story I feel compelled to tell. I see a lot of research, rewrites and discarded drafts in my future. And if I am lucky enough to be accepted in to this program, maybe it will be exactly the sort of environment I need to rise to the challenge I think this script will present.
And now...back to the application.