Alien nation an interview with the playwright Essay Example For Students

Alien nation: an interview with the playwright Essay No, its not. Well, not really. I think it has more to do with greatness and costume, actually. You could look at Lincoln and see him as the sum of his outfit. You know, his beard (actually he had lots of different kinds of beards) and his hat, coat, vest and shoes. What inspired you to write this play? I wanted to write about a hole. You can riff on that word, you can think about that word and what it means and where it takes you (or where it took me, anyway). You think of h-o-l-e and then w-h-o-l-e and then black hole, and then you think of time and space, and when you think of time and space you think of history, and suddenly all these things are swirling around and things start attaching themselves to each other and suddently you have two characters sitting in a hole digging and a guy who looks like Abraham Lincoln appears. And, Wow, thats interesting. What is the significance of the John Locke quote? Putting it at the beginning of the play and also in the program notes may encourage people to think about the idea of America in addition to the actual day-to-day reality of America. In the beginning all the world was America. All the world was an uncharted place, a blank slate, and since that beginning everyones been filling it with tshatshkes, which we who come next receive and must do something with. In an interview a few years ago you said that people not from the dominant culture are the people who can challenge the form of things Well, everybody can. There are people who challenge the form who are trying to make a splash, you know. And if you want to be weird, I suppose thats one reason to do things that are nontraditional. But if you feel that the traditional shape of things doesnt accommodate what you are doing, then its a more organic and natural process. Suddenly you find yourself doing something else. So yeah, a person from a nondominant whatevera person like memight realize that more quickly. But theres a tradition of white guyswhite, weird, cool, straight guysdoing that. Like Sam Shepards early stuff. Obviously the well-made play wasnt suiting him at all. Do you think the same thing is true if you look at history, as you do in this play, that youre going to maybe look at it differently If youre from If youre from a nondominant If youre from Mars? I think thats the word we should use, Mars. Capital MARS or maybe a lowercase m to stand for that thing. The other. The alien. I take issue with history because it doesnt serve meit doesnt serve me because there isnt enough of it. In this play, I am simply asking, Where is history?, because I dont see it. I dont see any history out there, so Ive made some up. Well, in the play its a theme park. Right, its a theme park and the characters pass by and they wave. Thats what it is to me. I can get more out of history if I joke with it than if I shake my finger at it and stomp my feet. The approach you take toward your subject really determines what youre going to get. So I say to history, Anything you want. Its okay, you can laugh. Do you see any kind of change in your playwriting since you started? Yeah, yeah. The subjects have changed. But there are some things that are similar. I tend to still be interested in musical forms because they offer greater, infinite, incredible possibilitieswhereas traditional dramatic forms are not as interesting. Or, to say it a different way, traditional dramatic forms are, I think, more interesting when they are informed by music. Thats what Ive been interested in for years. This is my 11th year writing plays.. .u4079ec0e7ed5bfa9969ee286e74bad8e , .u4079ec0e7ed5bfa9969ee286e74bad8e .postImageUrl , .u4079ec0e7ed5bfa9969ee286e74bad8e .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .u4079ec0e7ed5bfa9969ee286e74bad8e , .u4079ec0e7ed5bfa9969ee286e74bad8e:hover , .u4079ec0e7ed5bfa9969ee286e74bad8e:visited , .u4079ec0e7ed5bfa9969ee286e74bad8e:active { border:0!important; } .u4079ec0e7ed5bfa9969ee286e74bad8e .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .u4079ec0e7ed5bfa9969ee286e74bad8e { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .u4079ec0e7ed5bfa9969ee286e74bad8e:active , .u4079ec0e7ed5bfa9969ee286e74bad8e:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .u4079ec0e7ed5bfa9969ee286e74bad8e .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .u4079ec0e7ed5bfa9969ee286e74bad8e .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .u4079ec0e7ed5bfa9969ee286e74bad8e .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .u4079ec0e7ed5bfa9969ee286e74bad8e .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .u4079ec0e7ed5bfa9969ee286e74bad8e:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .u4079ec0e7ed5bfa9969ee286e74bad8e .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .u4079ec0e7ed5bfa9969ee286e74bad8e .u4079ec0e7ed5bfa9969ee286e74bad8e-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .u4079ec0e7ed5bfa9969ee286e74bad8e:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: Presented in the play EssayAnd youre how old? Im old enough to be writing plays. But I think Ive gotten better. And I still like putting footnotes on plays. I associate footnotes with a kind of academic writing. But I love them, theyre so great! Its not like, so youll understand this play you have to read this line. Most of them are totally made up and ridiculous. One of them talks about some of the Foundling Fathers unpublished works. One of them talks about what Mary Todd might have said on the night her husband died. Its playing, again, with the form and the idea of a footnote. But you havent asked me about those extra character names in the text. You did that on purpose? The word pause does not equal LINCOLN. BOOTH. LINCOLN. BOOTH. It doesnt. Imagine, you go down the page and you read LINCOLN. BOOTH. LINCOLN. BOOTH. LINCOLN. BOOTH. LINCOLN. BOOTH. Thus to the tyrants. Its very different if you read Long Pause. Thus to the tyrants. Long pausewhat is that? Its garbage, you know what I mean? So whats the difference between a Rest and seeing the characters name? Well, Rest is actually a great word. Its musical. And having the word rest over and over and over to indicate every single place where the character takes a little break in between paragraphs of speech is perfect. See, the words I write down on the page are the words that I want you to take inside your head. Every word you put in a play should be like this guy (picking up a volume of Joyce). Playwrights should get tough and write literature instead of just writing a show. You shouldnt just plop some language together and get people to cry. It should be literature, a show and some sort of historical documentwhich is what a play is. Why not do all three?