Where are the great new plays?
I don’t care how much money you throw at a production. You can build the most phenomenal sets; employ the most talented actors and singers and dancers; hook the most riveting director; and hire the most buzz-hungry publicist and marketers. But if the script sucks, the play is going to suck.
Let me give you just one example: the current Broadway production of Pal Joey. With a script “updated” by a very modern playwright, this hearty story has been eviscerated. Gutted. Ruined. The sets are brilliant, the costumes are fabulous, the talent–oh my God–up there on stage. But we don’t care one whit about the central character. Joey. Who, if you saw the 1957 movie with Frank Sinatra, based on the 1940 musical comedy, based on the novel by John O’Hara, was a guy with unbelievable charm and a soul-deep problem. To have unbelievable charm and a soul-deep problem, a character has to be well-written, folks!
Joey as currently written starts out a cad– and ends up a cad. In the original, he made several life-defining choices; what we call in teacherland, “turning points.” Now, he doesn’t make a single decision. He doesn’t learn, realize, or get opened by anything. From start to finish, he is just annoying. And he doesn’t even get to sing, “That’s Why the Lady is a Tramp.” Don’t blame Matthew Risch. Frank Sinatra couldn’t make this work. Oh I can go on and on about the foolhardy, incomprehensible, stupid things that have been done to the script, as if the writer had been hired to destroy the story–
That’s why, when the curtain falls, you have that (Yawn) what-did-I-just-pay-for? feeling. But that’s a feeling many audience members have come to accept.
Why do current scripts resemble houses torn apart by a tornado? Because writers are not taught to write. Writers are not taught to write. Writers are not taught to write. Why have I repeated this three times? Because it is just pathetic, the amount of coddling, pandering, patronizing and cheating that goes on in writing courses today. They are all about–and this is a direct quote from one writing teacher’s materials–being “really supportive and coaxing writers to let their creativity flow and not be scared to make mistakes on their way.”
Sounds good. Who doesn’t want a teacher who is really supportive? And don’t we all need to make mistakes? And isn’t writing all about being creative? And isn’t our creativity beautiful?
Stop that creativity! Yes I say: Stop it! Now build a framework! Construct a story! Cut! Organize! Select! And while you’re doing it, be afraid, very very afraid, of making mistakes that you do not need to make!
I see students come into my writing classes who have taken four, five, six–years of–writing classes. And spent bankrolls of money. And they do not know the most basic things. Even worse, they don’t believe that there are any basic things. Students have asked me to rename my Truths of Story…Guidelines of Story.
And this is where the “cheating” part comes in. Students who believe only in “guidelines” are being cheated (in I’m sure a well-meaning way) by their writing teachers. Teachers don’t want to exploit you. But they do need your money. If I stop coddling you, welcoming your uncensored creativity–if I insist that you discipline your writing, learn craft, master structure and character and tone–you may stop taking my classes.
It is hard to write well.
And this is why there are no great new plays. Playwrights today are writing little of lasting value. Plays are closing. There’s not enough money any more to keep open plays that exist because they are revivals of revivals; fabulous, ironic, or safe. For theater, the great recession is like the great comet: It burns away the dross. In the open space that is left, I hope a great new play or two will emerge. But first, they need to be written.
