Post-mortem

This has been a week of processing, decompressing, contemplating, re-living, and thinking … about the reading, how it went (it went great), and also what I need to do next. This is why it was important to have multiple people look at it, and give feedback. What do you get? What needs to be jacked up? Are you getting what I WANT you to get? I have very definite ideas about the arc and feel of the thing. Is that coming across? It’s hard, I know, in a simple reading of a script – but that’s the thing: you should feel the arc already, full production or no. Blocking and sets and costumes and lights will not make up for what is not there in the first place. Who do you think Jack is? (my male character?) And what do you get from Neve? (my female character). I have my own preconceived notions, obviously – these two were created by me – but to just sit back and hear what my friends and family GOT from it, who THEY see these characters as – was wonderful, and I have spent most of the week pretty much just shutting up and listening, taking in what everyone had to say. I haven’t started work again – I am taking the week off, to just let things percolate – but I have taken notes on what I remember from the night, as well as compiling the list of comments in my head from people who were there. This was not about “oh look what I have created” although I am definitely proud of what I have done and there were many truly gratifying moments for me. Hearing the entire place burst into laughter, as one, at some of the funny lines, for example. This is an example of how exhilaration can also go hand in hand with calmness. As in: I heard everyone GUFFAW at one of the lines (one in particular), and felt a burst of electricity shiver through my body, thrilling with ego and excitement that I HAD MADE THEM MAKE THAT SOUND (well, and David and Jen as well, let’s not forget) – but this electricity was immediately followed by a deep sense of calmness, where I nodded to myself in the back, like, “Yup. I can check that off the list. That works.” I had been nervous that it wouldn’t be funny. The piece is pretty bleak, frankly, and it ends on a horrible note by design. But along the way there is much to laugh at, and both Jack and Neve are meant to be funny people, who enjoy being funny FOR each other. That came across. It was a huge relief to me. Huge. I would say that that was my main worry going in. Will people get that this is funny? They did. And it worked in the way I designed it to work. Serious mixed with funny – an ebb and flow. Sudden curves where a conversation takes another tone. Like, oh, we’re laughing, but oh God, now she’s pissed. Is that for real? Also, you think someone is ONE way (Neve is rather snippy and difficult – this is true), but then you see another side of her (she knows how to laugh at herself, she likes to tease) – and you have to factor that in to your assessment of the person. I could feel that working in the script. I was very very happy about that, because it’s a subtle thing, it could be lost. There is more I could do in this arena, definitely.

When the piece ended, Ben (stage directions reader) said, “Blackout. The end” as planned. The whole joint was quiet, nobody knew what to do, so I said from the back, “That’s the end.”

People started clapping but it was so funny because everyone was saying to me afterwards, “What happens next??” As I said in the beginning, this is a work-in-progress, and I didn’t have the entire piece read at the reading – just the two crucial scenes. It COULD end where it does, but I think there is more to come afterwards. But I felt it was a very good sign that everyone was invested enough to want to know what the hell comes next.

Too funny – my dear friend Jackie, sitting at a table up front with my other dear friends Brooke, Liz, and Rachel, was in tears. I said something like, “I have many things planned for Neve …” and Jackie said, hopefully, yet also in an emotional panic, “Happy things?” Hahahaha Uhm, no. I don’t think so.

A beautiful thing happened after the reading. People were clapping, I went up to hug the actors, take a bow – it was a big moment for me – and my friend Brooke, sitting at a nearby table, wearing elbow-length blue gloves, said, “Can we have a Q and A, Sheila??”

I would never have initiated such a thing myself. I thought we all might just retire to the bar in the other room, and maybe talk about it there in an informal way. But Brooke, in her sensitivity, took the moment, and felt that people wanted to talk about things – I don’t know, it was really really good – I am so glad she did that. So I went up and stage, and we had a kind of group discussion about the play, and people asked questions, and gave their responses – and it was good for me to verbalize both what I had been working on, and also what I felt needed to be worked on still. It was just perfect. It’s one of those things, again, where if a GROWNUP had been in charge, they might have said, “We’ll do the reading, and then have a Q and A with the author” – but it just wasn’t something I would have planned myself. It ended up being fantastic, fantastic for me and fantastic for everyone who was there.

Brooke headed up the first question, “How did this project start?” (I love Brooke, God, we have been friends for so long) – and once I started talking, I was fine. I know how to talk about my work. I may get all nervous about making an introductory “welcome to my reading” speech, but you ask me questions about what I was “working on”, and I can blab until the cows come home.

This was the start of the post-mortem process for me, and I remember every single thing that everyone said. This is not about stockpiling compliments, although that is nice as well. We need to know that we have done well, sometimes, that we have succeeded at least in what we set out to do, before we can move forward. That was the #1 reason I set up the reading. Now I can move forward. I can tweak and edit, and I will – but the EVENT is clear. The ESSENCE is clear. I didn’t get one comment that was so out of left-field that it made me think I hadn’t done what I set out to do. So that’s good for me. Good to hear, and to know. I don’t have MAJOR work to do on the characters. I have things I can draw out more clearly, and elements I can either punch up or tamp down – but it seems everyone got these people as they were intended to be gotten. Phew.

I also loved, frankly, seeing my friends talk to EACH OTHER about this.

This will only be really clear if you have read or heard the script, but suffice it to say, they are referencing a specific moment, and it just makes me laugh every time I think about it.

Brooke: Sheila, where does the play take place?
Me: I actually haven’t decided.
Liz: I assumed Chicago.
Me: I’m not sure about that. I know Jack has moved away – but Neve has remained.
Jackie: (chiming in) Wherever they live, it will have to sustain cantaloupes.

And the way Jackie said it, clutching her handkerchief (“Happy things??” she asked me hopefully), tears in her eyes, but still making her point that wherever Neve lives, the soil needs to sustain cantaloupes.

I love my friends. It was also awesome to hear them making connections or making sense of things that I hadn’t even thought of. THIS is the gold of the post-mortem period.

Brooke said to me later, “I was quite surprised and interested to see Neve doing yoga.”

I hadn’t even thought of it. I had just wanted to give her a solitary activity that WASN’T reading. I wanted her to be consumed with her activity, and not stop what she is doing when Jack comes in the room. So I chose yoga. It was pretty much on that level of decision.

But Brooke was very interested in that element. “I know that some people use yoga to relax, to decompress – and that tells me that maybe Neve KNOWS she is a stress-ball, KNOWS that she needs it – I really liked that.”

I really liked that she had taken something that was unconscious on my part and made it into a character thing. A NEED, as opposed to just a bit of stage business.

There were many many comments like that, and it was great to just sit back and absorb it all. There’s more for me to think about, and I’ll still be writing about it, but for now … let the post-mortem continue.

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17 Responses to Post-mortem

  1. David says:

    I loved Rachel’s response of fierce protectiveness of Jack, like, he needs to get away from her, he’s in over his head, he’s in danger. That surprised me.

  2. David says:

    At one point, me, you, Jackie, Brooke and Liz were standing together and I thought, “Wow, 25 years later, look at us.” Lot of water under that bridge, lot of stories…look at us.

  3. red says:

    David – Rachel’s response of protectiveness towards jack was so illuminating for me, and one of the things that I hadn’t consciously set out to create. That was fascinating to me, and spot ON, I think.

    I was glad to hear, too, that a lot of people turned on Neve at pretty much the same moment … Brooke said a couple of things along those lines. Again, it just gives me confidence that I’m on the right track.

    And I KNOW, about all of us standing there together. Holy shitballs – we’ve been friends a long long time.

  4. jackie says:

    What an intense night. What an intense script. And I did love the humor in it. And such topnotch actors to live your words.
    Please tell Jenn, what a fine actress I think she is. What a face. Brava Sheila. It was just so wonderful.

  5. jackie says:

    oh, and tears wise, I was fine until the “black wave”. I totally didn’t see that coming.

  6. red says:

    Jackie – I’m glad to hear you didn’t see it coming!

    It meant the world to me to have you comment and respond – it does me so much good to hear ALL of it.

  7. Therese says:

    What a wonderful night all around. Sheila, it’s an intense, funny, totally engaging story, and the actors did such a great job bringing your words to life. And hahaha – “It will have to sustain cantaloupes.”

    Nice to meet some of the posse, too.

  8. Brooke says:

    I want to hear it again! When is the next reading?
    I have been thinking and thinking about it. It has really stuck with me. Why are they drawn to each other? What need are they fulfilling for each other?
    I loved sitting there with some of my dearest friends. I really miss that. Whenever I am around my old friends I am reminded of who I am. And you are all so extremely talented. It blows me away. I feel so lucky to have been at the reading and lucky to have you in my life.
    xoxx

  9. DBW says:

    Well…pathetically, painfully jealous. But, elated for you.

  10. DBW says:

    And I meant of the audience, not of you–although, there’s some of that, too.

  11. tracey says:

    Sheila, your friends are wonderful. What an amazing night for you.

  12. Dave E. says:

    Haha, I get DBW’s perspective. Congrats on a successful and energizing reading. I love that it led to a spontaneous Q and A. Great sign.

  13. Kate says:

    Sheila, this is all just wonderful. I am so happy for you!!!!! xo

  14. Ann Marie says:

    Wow, I wish I could have been there. I’m so thrilled that you got what you needed to move to the next step.

    This: Wherever they live, it will have to sustain cantaloupes.

    KILLS me. U say Drak.

  15. red says:

    ahhhhhhh!!!!! dying!!!!!

    es no e!

  16. Ann Marie says:

    What’s *really* crazy? I was NOT there when this was spoken, and yet have internalized it completely. Sometimes, at random moments, I say this out loud (in a very tired, “I’ve lived through communism” way) and no one knows why.

  17. red says:

    “very tired ‘I’ve lived through communism’ way”

    You’re killing me!!!

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