Burn Out

A couple of people tried to warn me that my schedule was a bit too much. I didn't want to listen. I just wanted to have the work done, I wanted to make this summer a summer full of writing and not waste any time. But ten hours of writing a day is way too much. I'd think that two to four hours a day of writing is about right. There were days when I was working on "Holy Schmidt!" for eight hours a day. BUT that was rewrites! Right now I'm generating new work, new pages and that's rough. Once something is out there on the page, you can start to see what it is, play around with it, get into the material and knead it. Right now, it's trying to expel pages from thoughts and that's just plain hard, man. I have written about 13 or so pages for "Hades & Persephone," rewrote 2 scenes for "The Conquest of Don Pedro," globbed together an opening monologue for "All Grace," and written two "bake-off" scenes for the Chris Leyva and Sarah Hammond Bake-Off Extravaganza. These two scenes are insanely different from anything I've written. Well, perhaps not, but everything I write these days seems different and disconnected to me. The first scene was a man and a woman together, the man was calling each of the woman's body parts by name. I wasn't sure what I was doing with that scene, but it made sense while I was writing it. The second was based on a painting I ran across in my search through modern sacred art: "The Last Supper" by Harald Duwe. It shows twelve men from the seventies, bad clothes and hair all around, crowding around a table that has a severed hand, foot, heart, and Jesus' head on a plate. Glasses are filled with blood. It's a dingy display. It rips out the "metaphor" of the Last Supper to its direct meaning: eating the body of Christ. I found myself called by this painting to write a play about it. Not a long play because the subject matter wouldn't hold up (a hard lesson to learn), but a play. The painting was created in 1978, so by use of the internet, I learned that Holy Thursday of 1978 was March 23. Then, I went to the NY Times archives, got the Times from March 23, 1978 and read through as many articles that spoke to me, taking notes, and doing quick research. It took about an hour. Then I started writing. Now, I wondered, how can I have a conversation going between 12 different people? Impossible. As I started writing the scene, I put four people in a single conversation, but wanted to move on to another topic altogether. I realized that all I would have to do is have different conversations going in different parts of the room. So, I divided up the room into pieces. Four people "At the TV," four people "At the Table," three people "At the Window," and one person "In the Corner." I'm actually very satisfied with the completeness of this ten minute play. It doesn't feel like it's leading to something or missing anything. It feels like it is what it is. So, if anything, I'll have written many ten minute plays this summer.

Even with all my productivity, I feel like a failure already. Since I was burned out, it shot me into this tail spin and I can't find the scenes in my head. It's especially frustrating with "All Grace" because I've barely sketched together an opening monologue and a brief outline of scenes I want to write. I just don't feel as though I know enough to start writing. What's going on in the art scene? What were the childhoods like for these characters (people)? I want to be true to the people, but there is no information. I have to make things up, I know I have to make things up, but I always need some sense of foundation. Whether it's information or emotion... I usually pull and steal from my own experience and that's fine usually, but I want this play to be a bit more epic than my little problems and questioning. I suppose if I'm honest with myself and my writing, the epic will breach the surface of the mundane. Maybe I should just write craziness and see where it gets me. Just write, damnit! This play needs to get written! I want a first draft by the end of the summer because I know that if I can just write it, it just might be the best play I've written so far.

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I've realized that part of my burn out is coming from the journey this summer being one-sided. So much writing, no refilling of the reserves. I've decided, therefore, to read more plays. At least one a day. My friend Andy bought me 82 plays for $30 at a used bookstore in Jersey. I still need to pay him back. Eighty two plays. How many days left in the summer? Two months? 60 days or so? One play a day? Sixty plays? Not bad. I need to find discipline that replenishes and energizes and does more than exhaust and enervate.