Taking The Rules for Granted

Urban Samurai Artistic Director Matt Greseth gave me a lot of really good advice at our first script meeting for "Leave". I took those notes with me to the Great Plains Theatre Conference and poured over them any spare moment I got. They're pretty much embedded in my brain at this point. As I go through the script again to rebuild it, scene by scene, those are the guideposts I keep looping back to.

Some of it was practical advice, from the standpoint of an audience member who had never seen or read the play before, hadn't been part of any of its development, wouldn't take anything for granted. What confused him would confuse an audience member encountering the play for the first time.

There's a scene toward the beginning where Seth, the Marine, and his civilian husband Nicholas exchange letters in code. Seth's mother, Anne, is copying Nicholas' letter over in a woman's handwriting, so as not to arouse suspicion. The letter she writes, and reads, is in code. The conversation between Seth and Nicholas is the meaning hidden behind the code.

But as the scene was written, the audience might have a hard time following along. They don't know the rules of the play yet, or the rules aren't yet clear. I was taking those rules for granted. I know that Seth is overseas, and Nicholas waits back home, and that they aren't really having that conversation directly in the same space. But how is anyone else supposed to know that? I was so concerned with making sure that I established a connection between the two men, that I forgot it was also important to establish the distance between them, and their separation.

And if the audience is spending their time, even a tiny fraction of time, trying to figure out what the hell is going on in terms of structure, they'll miss what's going on in terms of story and character and content. Which would be bad, and a missed opportunity. You want to enter into a contract with your audience, to bring them along on the story - not to spoonfeed them, but also not to leave them behind.

Now Nicholas and Seth still get to be onstage together, but they don't get to see each other. Matt suggested maybe Nicholas was looking at a photo album with pictures of Seth, since Nicholas references pictures later, and a photograph of Nicholas is all that Seth can keep with him to remind him of the man he loves (though even that he needs to lie about). They are together, but separate. The letter Anne is working on seems like more of a vital link between them.

We still get a lot of the same information - the day of their first kiss that became the marker for their anniversary, the strength of the bond between them - but we also get the distance. We know that something is missing, and that something major will need to happen to bring them back together in the same place. The timetable and demands of combat don't allow for regular weekends, or dependable vacation time.

How will they each have changed by the time they see one another again? How long can the situation as it stands continue?

Hopefully we get a window into what's at risk, and what's worth fighting for, and the cost of that personal battle. And the odds of losing it.