16 July 2015 - The Medium id the Message

PROMPT:  I couldn't tell anyone ....

Lynne Kaufman, playwright

Lily, 29, dressed in a lovely dress and carrying a handbag, wanders the stage.
LILY
I don’t know what’s real any more.
Lily stops.  She looks around in fear like someone or something is coming after her.
LILY
I don’t know where I am.
She looks around again.
LILY
7th and Park.
(looking around)
McDonald’s... Subway... Starbucks... Walgreens...
(shaking her head)
Where am I?
Lily looks in her purse and takes out her cell phone.  She looks at it, eyes widening in fear.  She flings it away from her.
Carrie, 27, perky, enters checking her cell phone.
CARRIE
Lily!  There you are!  I’ve been trying to message you.
Carrie comes over to Lily.
LILY
Carrie?
CARRIE
Of course, silly.  Come on, let’s go get lunch.
Carrie takes Lily’s arm and tries to lead Lily off, but Lily pulls her arm from Carrie’s grasp.
CARRIE
What’s wrong?
Lily drifts back from Carrie and slumps to sitting position.
CARRIE
(growing concerned)
Are you all right?
LILY
I couldn’t tell anybody.
CARRIE
Okay... What couldn’t you tell anybody.
LILY
We are all naked.
CARRIE
(looking down at herself)
I’m wearing clothes.
(she nods at Lily)
You’re wearing clothes.
Lily grabs Carrie and draws her close.
LILY
Did you ever read McLuhan?!
CARRIE
(resisting a little)
Who?
LILY
Marshall McLuhan!
CARRIE
He was that medium is the message guy, right?
LILY
Exactly.
CARRIE
Yea, I never understood that shit.  That was way back in the 60’s, wasn’t it?
LILY
(clutching at Carrie who back up)
You’ve read it!  You’ve read Understanding Media!
CARRIE
I had a professor who assigned it in college, but it was so boring...
LILY
Boring!?  Boring!?  It was... was revolutionary!
CARRIE
Didn’t he just talk about television and shit?
LILY
He said that media...
CARRIE
Media?
LILY
Film, television, radio, print, the light bulb!
CARRIE
(dubious, but trying to end the discussion)
Media.
LILY
That media was an extension of our bodies, our minds, our spirits.
CARRIE
So what?
LILY
The internet is an extension of our skin!  An extension of our id!
CARRIE
You’re crazy!
LILY
What drives the internet?!
CARRIE
Porn?
LILY
Exactly!
CARRIE
You don’t have to watch it.  I don’t.
LILY
(looking around conspiratorily)
How do you know that your not out there, naked?!
CARRIE
Because I don’t let my boyfriend take pictures of me... that way... Well, there was that one night...
LILY
We’re all naked on the internet.
CARRIE
He wouldn’t...
LILY
He may have stored them in...
(waving her hands at the sky)
... the cloud.
CARRIE
I know he backs up his computer to...
LILY
You’re out there.  Your body, your name, you social security number, your address, pictures of you when you were a baby.
CARRIE
No!
LILY
(leaning in conspiratorially)
I’m naked on the internet.  I’ve seen the pictures... the videos.
CARRIE
What? Where?
LILY
Revenge porn.  An old boyfriend posted videos we made.
CARRIE
That’s sick!
LILY
It’s inevitable.
CARRIE
I don’t want to be naked on the internet!
LILY
Pull the plug.
CARRIE
What?!
LILY
It’s the only way.
CARRIE
I can’t do that!
LILY
No one can.  Not me, not you... Not Right-wing Christian evangelicals..
CARRIE
But...
LILY
Conservative Muslim husbands and fathers don’t know what their wives or daughters are doing in the secret recesses of the harem, a cell phone camera connected to the world wide web in their pockets.
Silence.
CARRIE
That’s kinda scary.
Silence.
CARRIE
We’re all naked on the internet.
Lily nods.
End of play.

Our Present State of Degeneration*

I'm depressed, so you know what that means...

I'm between projects.  The struggle to create something out of nothing, if you can call a play something, and I do, can be lonely, frustrating, and... depressing.

I finished the play I started this summer and I'm happy with it.  Rewritten and I am pleased.  I also rewrote the first play I ever wrote.  Much, much better.  I think it's a really good play now.

I came back from the writer's retreat with ideas for my next projects.  The rewrite of the above-mentioned old play was first.  Second was an historical screenplay I'd written that I thought I could adapt for the stage.  Been fartin' around with that for a about a month now.  Can't seem to get a handle on it.  I love the pivotal character, but I don't think she's my main character.  Maybe that's my problem.  Maybe she needs to be the main character.  Hmmm.

It's a great weird true story, and the screenplay did well in several contests, but screenplays are so different from plays.  A one line scene - no problem.  A no line scene - no problem.  Travel the world - no problem.  Travel in time - no problem.

I know you can do all this on stage.  I've seen it done.  But modern theater, short of Broadway or Off-Broadway tends to dislike set changes.  Unit set is the coin of the realm.  Certainly we can invite the audience to use their imagination, but there are limits to this.  Too much of the play can be taken up trying to get the audience comfortable and settled in each new imagined setting.  A play becomes slow, forced, or clunky.

Elapsed time can be implied with black outs, but again, making the audience comfortable can take a few seconds.  Do this too many times and the audience will start to have trouble getting comfortable.

And it's not what Artistic Directors want.  I read requests for submissions regularly.  Six or fewer characters and unit set are SOP.

Back to the drawing board... so to speak.

Other things I've been considering:

Marshall McCluhan.  Love his ideas.  The internet is an extension of our id.  The internet has made us all naked, and not just us, the entire planet is naked.  No wonder conservatives the world over are in a dither.

The difference between the movies and the stage - The movies bring the Gods down to earth.  Plays take us into the realm of the Gods.

*Antonin Artaud, The Theater and its Double