A Fruitful Process

Written by M.E.H. Lewis, playwright participating in the INCUBATOR Series with Infusion Theater.

This has been a wonderful and fruitful process. I discovered things about the play that were completely hidden from me before, things that excite me. Right now I’m really enjoying the direction the play is taking, a richer and more complex direction, less realistic and linear. Without access to actors and rehearsal space, I don’t think I would have discovered this.

And it’s a fairly difficult direction. The number of characters on stage and the layered tonal effect of the dialogue are difficult to present clearly on the page. Being able to work with Mitch and the cast has helped me figure out which parts work and how to explain this vision. I’m continuing to work with this terrific group to expand and hone the play, and I’m eager to see where it takes me.

I’m grateful to the DCA and InFusion Theatre for this remarkable opportunity.

Clamoring voices

Written by M.E.H. Lewis

Writing is such a strange process. It’s really a process of discovery more than creation. I suppose that’s an old idea, like Michelangelo discovering the angel in the marble and setting him free. But it’s still strange. I thought I knew the story I was writing and only needed to fill in the details, but as I write, the story keeps shifting, expanding, metamorphosing. The small Vietnamese town where the story is set keeps growing and becoming more defined, and the residents of the town are clamoring at me, demanding my attention, commanding me to put them on paper. Three Wise Women, the Coffin Maker, the Body Finder, He Who Sees Ghosts. They’re shoving their way forward and they won’t be silent. Part of me, the part that has deadlines and needs to clean the house, part of me is annoyed. But honestly, I love it. I love these characters. They’re fascinating company. They tell great stories. I can sweep the floor another day, because for now I’d rather hear these stories and figure out where they’re taking this play I’m (supposedly) writing.

I have to go now—there’s a story I need to hear.

Getting the ghosts on their feet

Written by M.E.H. Lewis

Last night, for the first time, we started putting the play on its feet. This is a fairly tricky play, with a lot of movement. The “ghosts” in the play have to morph into a variety of different characters, keep the story line clear, and be convincingly scary. It’s not an easy job. Last night we started staging the first scene. This is a scene with no dialogue—just Isabelle, one of the main characters, trying to make dinner as she is plagued by ghosts. Callie, Cara and May Lee did a fantastic job! It was genuinely scary and moving to watch. This is something I love about theatre—the way makeshift props and bare stages magically transform. It’s an alchemy that just doesn’t happen in any other art form, and it takes me right back to the sacred, ritual roots of theatre.

It’s very interesting working with actors and a director in this way, working on a brand new, unwritten play. To be honest, I was more than a little nervous about it. Writing is such a mysterious and delicate process, and it takes almost nothing to whither a new play. But I trusted Mitch, and I’m glad I did. The play is opening up in all sorts of interesting ways. Last night we tried out a brand new scene, one with more ghosts, working toward a fluidity of voice and a more plastic use of space. I want there to be a layered, almost choral quality to the voices in some of the scenes, reinforcing the idea that these ghosts (of violence, of war, of the past) are always around us. It sounded surprisingly good to me (I LOVE working with good actors!). It’s really fun to work toward a less linear, less realistic play. The trick will be to make sure that the story line doesn’t get lost in the complexity of the presentation.

I’ve attached a few photos of last night’s rehearsal. My favorite is Callie in blurry mid-flight as a ghost.

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The genisis of “Hungry Ghosts”

Written by M.E.H. Lewis

I was asked to write about the genesis of my play, Hungry Ghosts, which is being developed by Infusion Theatre as part of DCA Theater’s INCUBATOR series. I never really know how to answer that question.

Well, here’s the easy answer. The idea first caught me when I read a wonderful essay in the New Yorker, titled “Across the River Styx.” (You can read part of this essay online .) I was fascinated by the incredible scale and near impossibility of these missions to retrieve lost soldiers, especially in Vietnam where the acid content of the soil decays bone in about thirty years (I did the math, just like you are).

So reading that essay was definitely the “ooh” moment, but it doesn’t explain why this idea stuck with me for four years, nagged at me, metamorphosed into the complex and difficult play it’s becoming. A general answer is that the stories choose me. I have always felt that, that I’m a vehicle, and often an unlikely one, for stories that demand telling and choose me to tell them. And these stories are very demanding. They don’t leave me alone. They nag and claw and harass.

And why these stories, why this particular story? I don’t know, but I have noticed some patterns, and certain themes—death, ghosts, searching for lost children or parents, etc. Another thing I’ve noticed is that I’m driven to write about things that horrify and scare me. And I don’t mean that lightly. I routinely have terrible nightmares and anxiety attacks produced by the research I do for plays. When I wrote Burying the Bones, a play about a South African torturer, the stress got so bad that my hair actually started falling out. This may seem like nothing but the fancies of a neurotic writer, but when I write a play, I live in that world and with those characters. They’re very real to me—if they weren’t, I wouldn’t be able to write it. And when I try to stick to the shallower end, the writing suffers. It just doesn’t work. It’s an odd relationship, being drawn to the things I fear most, forcing myself to live with them, even learn to love them. I’m sure a psychiatrist would have plenty to say about it.

So here I am, writing a ghost story. Like many people, I’ve always loved ghost stories, and I’ve always been scared by them. When I started this play three weeks ago, I was at a writers’ retreat, staying in a lovely old mansion on the prairie. A lovely, old, creaky, sighing mansion, surrounded by acres of empty prairie, howling coyotes, hooting owls, branches scratching on the window, floorboards groaning, doors banging open in the middle of the night. And then I came home to my creaky, sighing old Evanston house complete with its own shadows and groans and scrapes. And here I am, conjuring ghosts. Thank God for Tylenol PM.

Just Finished Act One

Written by Walt McGough

And boy are my arms tired. No, really. I think I need to re-evaluate my posture. In other news, coffee is great but you can’t turn it off, even when it’s 3:00am and you’re ready to sleep. Curses.

Workshop tonight; looking forward to hearing the new changes and ironing out some of the kinks that are bound to be there. Hopefully it’ll at least be intelligible.