The Group Written Play and How the Hell Do you Do That?
The (edward) Hopper Project follows in a long line of WNEP Theater productions that employ a fairly difficult technique known as the "group written project." In the past, we've been incredibly successful with this sort of thing from
The Armageddon Radio Hour to
The Mysteries of Harris Burdick to
The Lost Weekend. The process can either develop into an evening of short pieces written around a theme or, the more difficult route, a play that sounds like it has one voice but is culled from the work of many voices. I like to refer to the work required to create the second type "funneling perspectives."
For
...Hopper... I'm coming in late to the game. Jen (our former Artistic Director) initiated the project and had numerous writing meetings working with ten-twelve writers who all wrote short scenes inspired by specific paintings by Edward Hopper. I was not a part of these workshops and was not privy to a lot of the development of pieces - likewise, Jen did not leave us a completed script when she moved on, so it became incumbant upon me to figure out to make this thing a cohesive whole.
Personally, I prefer the "one voice" semi-narrative form, so that's been my approach. As with all of our group written projects, there are a couple of basic concepts that it is assumed (uh-oh) that we will abide by:
1. It is a group written project which means that no one writer is more important than another.
2. Once a scene has been submitted, it is the assigned Head Writer's (or Director's, in the case of ...Hopper...) responsibility to weave the pieces submitted into a cohesive play.
3. Once a scene is submitted, it is the assigned Head Writer's (or Director's, in the case of ...Hopper...) prerogative to edit things to assist in creating the whole play.
The first step is to read and re-read all the submitted pieces. Figuring out tone and length and theme and all that. And while reading and re-reading, stepping back and trying to find connections between all these pieces to stitch them together into a structured quilt of words that A) create a narrative whole and B) ultimately sound like the same voice.
Step two involves making some decisions. What is the play about? How will it be staged? Is there a strong abstract element or a more concrete world being created? Will it be a small-ish cast in multiple roles or a large cast in less scenes per actor? What is the desired experience for the audience?
And then I kill babies. "Killing babies" means I have to begin editing things to more accurately reflect the answers to the questions in the second phase. And the editing step gets a bit hairy because I'm cutting into the work of the writers. Rather than simply take the pieces they've written (which were written as complete pieces) and insert them into a running order, I start snipping and trimming, losing what has now, in the face of the bigger picture, become extraneous or problematic. It can't be a negotiation - anything less becomes art by committee and committees are like creative cul de sacs.
Sometimes, when writer ego and director ego are in sync, the process is smooth. One writer for
...Hopper... wrote a great little scene but in the practicalities of the overall play, I could only use the dialogue between the characters (he had written an incredible image collage to be played out onstage during the dialogue but I couldn't use it.) The writer listened to my suggestion and immediately agreed. Another writer had the ending (perhaps the last full page) of her scene eliminated entirely. She argued with me about the edit. I finally told her that instead of debating with me on it, re-write it in such a way that it becomes clear to me that it fits and is necessary. She did and we kept her ending. She made it work in the context of the Big Picture.
It's all about taking the perspectives of ten writers and funneling it down into one unifying perspective (mine) and creating a collaborative play.
Sometimes this process breaks down a bit and fast adjustments need to be made.
This past weekend, one of the writers decided that an edit was simply unacceptable. She asked me why I edited her ending page. I explained why. She said she preferred it the way it was. I explained the same thing to her as I did the other writers - re-write the ending and make it work in the context of the rest of the script. She refused. She had worked on the piece for a long time and was done with it and mentioned that she would rather pull it from the show entirely than acquiesce to my edit.
Now - anyone who has known and worked with me will tell you that throwing an ultimatum my way is pretty much a waste of time. I've had actors threaten to quit shows and they are fired before their lips dry upon saying it. It isn't that I'm inflexible or necessarily authoritarian. It's just how I roll. I figure, don't back the Irishman in a corner.
I gave her the options:
"1. If you are unwilling to take another stab at the ending of the scene to make it work for me in the context of this piece, I'm leaving it as I edited it.
2. If that is unacceptable, then we'll pull it from the play and I'll replace it with something else. Which I think is a shame because I've already cast the roles and I rather like the scene.
or
3. You can take another stab at the ending to make it work. If this is the direction things go, we can talk about it tomorrow but I'll need the re-write by Wednesday at the latest.
The choice is pretty much yours to make but I'll need a decision by tomorrow afternoon because time has run out at this point."
So she pulled the piece. The other writers decided it was important to convince her otherwise - they invited her to the next meeting discussing the project and over the course of the discussion I became increasingly angry as it seemed that she was relying on a sense of artistic integrity that, to me, felt both misplaced and shortsighted given the timing of things. Finally, after what was what one of them described as "...about as much fun as a vasectomy" I blew my stack. I felt that she and I had decided the issue the day before and this relentless grinding away in effort to change her mind was a waste of time and energy.
I don't resent her choice - she wrote it and it is hers to pull. That said, it violated the assumed (eek) rules of the road and put me in a position that if she had decided to re-write it and wasn't happy with, say, how the actor was playing the character, she might decide to pull the piece mid-rehearsals and create more unnecessary drama. While I liked the piece (with the edit) I'm ultimately glad she pulled it when she did. And honestly, in eighteen years of doing it this way, this is the first time I'd ever been confronted with this situation.
Now the other writers are all taking a stab at writing a brand new scene specifically for the actors already cast in the scene.
All of this water being under the bridge, I can say that the script we have is excellent - the individual writing is top notch and it feels like the work of one voice.
Here's a question: how does this process (and the ensuing difficulties presented by it) sound to you? Is this a process you'd submit to or would you instead fight to avoid any editing by a director? I know that
Oobleck works without a director and that other groups work with co-directors and some, like
the Mammals, have an all-inclusive Writer/Director/Producer.
What do you think?
Stumble It!
