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Breakthrough!

by Devi Bhaduri, playwright

I had a sort of breakthrough on why Rani’s Emeralds didn’t feel quite right to me.  It happened at about 10 pm on the night my revision was due, after unproductive hours of staring at the script.  Braincrash--that’s always a good time…
Anyway, I turned my ghost character Rani invisible to my living character Avni, so that their interaction wouldn’t be as visually jarring.  Before that point, Rani seemed to have the same abilities that a living, 3-D perons would have, and that may have kept the audience from suspending their disbelief.  I’m also hoping this change gives the actors more freedom to play with the scene and have fun blocking it. 
I knew Avni needed a character arc that paralleled Rani’s journey, but didn’t know what Avni’s struggle would be.  Rani, despite her gallows humor, is a tragic character and I needed Avni’s personal struggle to put her at the point of no return, with Avni choosing either the same path or a different path from her cousin.  I feel better about my revision, but don’t think I took Avni’s personal struggle far enough.  I feel like going back and finding a way to traumatize Avni, to make her decision seem more critical, to make it life-or-death.