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Final thoughts from Steve

Posted by DCA Theater on February 6, 2009 in January-June 2009 Season, INCUBATOR Series: Black Sheep Productions

by Steve Spencer, playwright

The Incubator series is over.  I miss it.

Man, there’s such a fine line between collaboration and being told you’re wrong.  I walked into this process with a play with no ending.  Oh, it had an ending in the sense that it would eventually crawl to a finish and die in the laps of the audience, but not an ending that worked.  And the twenty pages leading up to it didn’t help matters.  The characters did things for no reason.  There was nothing at stake.  The jokes sucked.  Nothing worked.  I knew it.  Everyone knew it.  But we politely decided not to talk about it.  We jumped into Act I and had so much fun that we easily ignored the unbearable truth:  we had no ending.

Soon, the fun was done.  It was a black day when we finally got around to discussing what everyone knew.  We read Act II.  It was painful.  Suddenly these hilarious actors were revealed as the demons of common sense that they were.  They wanted to know why?  Why would we do this?  Why would we not ____?  Why are you here?  Why?

The other big truth nobody wanted to talk about is that I didn’t know why.  I can’t speak for any other writers, but I have no idea what I’m trying to say.  That’s why it takes so many words.

So.  We collaborated.  Meaning I took everything everyone said as a personal attack and wanted to pack up my pencil and commence drinking.  I took it badly.  Maybe not on the outside, but inside I was mentally poisoning these people.  Then something interesting happened.  I found that the more I was willing to listen to everyone’s ideas, the less homicidal I became.  There seems to be an inverse relationship between personal insecurity and collaboration.  Who knew?  I didn’t.

We worked.  We talked.  We worked and worked and talked about the work and talking.  It was hard.  It was great.

Finally, it was time to present what we had to a bunch of strangers.  I usually don’t like this.  I don’t mind people seeing my plays, but I hate the talk-back.  I hate it.  I’ve had a few of them, and they make me want to...hurt people.  The people at the talk-back. 

The play began.  The actors were great, of course.  After only three weeks with the play they were fully committed.  They were funny.  They made me sad.  The audience laughed.  And laughed.  It felt good.  The play looked and sounded like an actual play.

Then the final scene began.  You know what?  Guess.  All that homicidal energy was for not.  The work that all of these lovely people did paid off.  The audience responded as if it was good.  It was.  No thanks to me.

As the lights came up and I prepared for the talk-back, I tried to remember the inverse relationship.  The cast filed in and sat on stage.  I tried to remember how right they were.  So I listened to the audience.  They had some pretty good ideas.  They didn’t like or understand everything (DAMN IT), but they for the most part were excited to talk about it.  For twenty minutes or so, I actually listened to people. 

So.  The Incubator series is over.  I miss it.  I miss talking to the actors.  I miss being told I’m wrong, swallowing my hatred, and facing the fact that I’m wrong.  I miss how fun it was to sit with the audience and talk to them.  I wish I could report that I will listen to others with an open mind from now on.  This is not true.  But I’ll try to during the next few weeks. 

Thanks DCA.  On to production.