Tail-wagging Dogs Bite
American Right is a political mystery about a conservative political science professor being interrogated about the disappearance and possible murder of a liberal theater arts professor in a small-town police station. Without giving anything away, the political debate leans heavier in one direction, but by the end of the play, the mystery aspect of the play weighs in and balances the politics in, I believe, a surprisingly human way.
I started the play in the fall of 2008 and finished it in the summer of 2009 and, with the help of my theater friends, was able to stage a reading of the play at the Zalk Theater at Besant Hill School in Ojai in August, 2009. There was a fairly good turn-out and I had an "Anonymous Evaluation" sheet on the back of the one-page program. I intended to include this play in the 2010 Elite Theatre Company season, where I serve as the Artistic Director. As Artistic Director, it is my job to find the plays and directors and create a season of well-balanced theater. So if I was going to include an original play, I wanted to make sure it was ready. I decided I needed to have a staged reading, where I could get some honest, anonymous feedback and then re-write the play before rehearsals begin in March, 2009.
Mind you, there was a fairly good balance of liberals and conservatives in the audience. I know, because the first instruction at the top of the Anonymous Evaluation was this:
I consider myself (circle one):
a. A liberal
b. A conservative
c. An independent
d. I don't know yet
e. A citizen of the universe
f. None of your business
I wanted to know this to help me get an added perspective on the political aspects of the play.
So the staged reading went very well. And I got a stack of Evaluations and didn't read them until I got home that night. I sat down and carefully read each one. Here are some of the comments:
"Too much dialectics...sounded like 2 Yeshiva Rebes debating Torah." - Didn't indicate a-f at all.
"Some of the political rambling was hard to follow...I really liked it." - Liberal.
"Got it all. Well-developed." - Conservative.
"Last act moved a bit slow." - But for the question, How do you think I can make the play more interesting: "Cast me." - Conservative.
"The first thing I want to admit is, I was wrong. I really enjoyed the reading this evening...The play made sense." (From my friend Howard, who said the play was too political.) - Liberal.
"There was nothing I did not like about the play....The piece held my attention every moment. Bravo!" - Conservative.
"Too obviously political irrespective of the point of view." - Independent.
"I began to lose interest about middle of Act II but not for long." - Independent.
"Ending was confusing - took some time to figure it out. Maybe with more action the ending would 'play' clearer." - Liberal.
"It was very easy to understand. I liked how the plot unfolded late." - Liberal.
"It needs a strong edit. The payoff seemed contrived and artificial." - Liberal.
"Loved hearing conservative values. Thanks!" - Conservative.
This process was like going into someone's yard, spotting a big dog wagging its tail, and then holding my hand out to introduce myself and getting bit. Frankly, the feedback only confused me.
There was much more feedback and some of it was enlightening, but most of it was contradictory, prejudicial, or plain useless. Like the comment, "Conservative or Liberal: doesn't play a role in this production." Huh? That was the point of the play: how politics can drive our moral reactions, how political polarity can be bridged by common sense. There is, of course, the mystery running through the story, but this comment baffled me. This same person wanted me to shorten the play (it ran 2 hours; a normal run-time) and wanted more action (it takes place in an interrogation room). What did this person expect? A car chase?
So here it is five months later, two months before I start rehearsals and I haven't re-written the play. I know it needs some work: characters fleshed out; plot simplified; dialectics less distracting; and point of view sharpened. I've procrastinated. Probably because I thought feedback was what I needed to make my play better and now that I have the feedback I realize that it will. And that means I have a lot of work left to do...when I thought I was almost done.
Next time, I'm going to watch out for the dog wagging its tail. Feedback bites.
Kinda sounds like the playwright's version of, "Honey, do these pants make my butt look big?"
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Sounds like the play was very stimulating! Bravo!
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Ovarb!
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