Wild Weekend

I had today off for George Washington's birthday. I spent this long weekend, starting Friday night, rewriting my play, especially the last 15 pages, the final scene where the pace and impact seemed to flag during our public reading. My wife has been out of town, so I had plenty of time to myself to write. I also took a yoga class each morning. I find it helps settle my mind for writing.

That's a photo from the discussion after the reading, with the actors, me, and the director, 6 days ago.

A number of people I trust thought the final scene alone was weak. But some people were not bothered by it at all. One very analytical friend actually thought the final scene was great, and listed the reasons she liked it, particularly the fact that it explained everything so clearly. So I decided to find what was weak and keep what was strong.

I tore the scene up into sub-scenes, considered reordering them, wrote a lot of new lines, sharpened a lot of existing lines, and got a better sense of what was motivating the 2 characters in the scene.

I think I've done it. It has the same basic skeleton, but I think it has a driving sense of purpose and clash of wills now. And it certainly has a more startling and bold way of achieving resolution. Startling but sufficiently prepared for, I believe.

There's a David Mamet dictum to the effect that the play isn't over till the Truth comes out - then it's over. I think I've done a better job of meeting that standard.

I'm hoping this is the last MAJOR surgery before production. Well we'll see. It's been through a lot. It's had 15 serious revisions since I first wrote "end of play" in the script back in July 2010. As with my first play, the last scene has proved to be the most re-worked.

Bringing out the truth is hard,
leaves me feeling battle-scarred.