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Underground > Creation >

Play - notes

  
  

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mr insensitive
12:56 / 05.03.02
"There have been whispers of doubt"

Sounds like a goth band.
 
 
mr insensitive
13:01 / 05.03.02
What would you like altered Nick?
 
 
gridley
13:15 / 05.03.02
quote:Originally posted by [monkeys of thoth]:
Reconstituted my last bit of play...tried to integrate the "God gets bigger" thing in a way that's [hopefully] funny, and even a tad symbolic. Plz critique...willing to change/edit as per suggestion.

well.... since you ask for critiques.

I think your last piece just introduces way too many characters to a play that already has way too many characters.

Maybe I'm taking this too seriously, but I can't see an audience following this scene at all. There's too much being thrown onto the stage (and it's not just you monkeys).

Never mind. I'm definitely taking this too seriously...
 
 
The Monkey
13:24 / 05.03.02
hmmm...that would be my own critique, too gridley.

wrote it yesterday in the middle of one those sort of hyper-active whimsy-fests. re-reading, i'd say it's like someone mugged the director of the earlier play and started shorting out stuff at random. i'm not particularly good at structured play[s]...used to [and used to doing] improv.

honestly, i was trying to get rid of God, and leave the option open to the next fellow of what happens with the the Indians and the random family. and explain some of the disruption in the play follow using the same meta- concepts as "the Cameraman"...hence God being composed of two egomaniacal directors [who happen to have a Udo Kier tie-in] in essence highjacking the play. Then we could get back to Bobcat, Udo, and Peter, being their uniquely freak-ass selves.

anyway, i've decided to pull it, because it disrupts continuity and largely feeds off the "insensitive" portions of the plot flow, which will hopefully gets some serious reconstructive surgery done.

speaking of which:

mr. insensitive:
you asked, I'm not Nick, but I'll put in my two cents.

Your initial introduction of God as a character is quite clever, given the "deus ex machina" tie-in. can't say i'm particularly fond of the "stupid injuns" bit, but prior someone added a bit about African cannibals that was in similar vein, but more blatantly ethnocentric. however, the other participants [and having just pulled my bit, i guess i'm now back to being a plain old interloper] have subverted the image of the "film Indian" into something else.

the second bit involving God is a bit much, though. expansion to three times his size and turning bright red aren't very feasible on-stage. furthermore, there's no real point to the "vaporize the Indians bit," nor splatting a frog...it's just a sort of violence and flash. the bong-water thing is similarly out-of-place, and would be hard to communicate to the audience, anyway. Also, just moments ago, the plot-line established God as somehow impotent. Finally, the gladiator thing is technically unfeasible...even costume changes would be far too short-notice given the setup...

I guess I'm wondering what your plans for God are...so help me for invoking Stanislavski, but what is the character's motivation, in your mind? How is this going to loop or link back to the three central characters?

[ 05-03-2002: Message edited by: [monkeys of thoth] ]
 
 
gridley
13:40 / 05.03.02
Argghhh! Thoth, please don't quit! That's not what I was angling at. None of us are expert playwrights. If we were, we wouldn't be screwing around here. Your piece was full of a lot of great wild creativity. I think you just bit off a bigger job than you chew. Please post more, just maybe in smaller sections.

--gridley
 
 
The Monkey
14:04 / 05.03.02
gridley, it's not that i'm dropping out entirely...I just need to rein back a bit. Having just suggested that insensitive ponder how the introduction of "flash" into the milieu affects continuity, I'm obliged to do the same. My bit was over-busy to the point of Monty Python at their occasional un-funniest.
Pending other changes, I'm going to just sit on it, pare it down to a little less "cast of thousands" and see if it has any utility for the future of the play.
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
14:32 / 05.03.02
I'd say we were collectively walking a line between creative madness (necessary) and outright incomprehensibility (hopeless). Since this isn't the 'Holiday' thread, where the idea is to make life more difficult, any post here has to take into account what comes next. How does each post further what's going on? Where is this going thematically and narratively? Is something in keeping with the tone, and if not, is the reason to do it good enough?

Basically, if you're going to make life hell for the next poster, there has to be a very strong reason: it needs to advance the action in some significant way - even if it's setup for something. Incidentally, if it is setup, it's probably wise to let everyone in on the deal...otherwise I can almost guarantee we won't get where you're going.

GOD: an all-powerful being, all-knowing. Obviously, a tough character to work around, and one who can at any time derail the action...or a figure of ridicule...or a structural device...

Too much under one hat unless there's a very clear reason for Him or Her to be there. Any play which features the actual appearance of God on the stage instantly has massive religious/social content OR deals with madness, basically. Otherwise God's appearance is just a throw-away, and it's a bad one because it has too many effects on the cosmology of the world in which the play takes place.

But every character and action has effects and baggage of this kind...what we have to do in putting this thing together is mesh them. Hard enough for one person, more difficult for many. Hence this thread, which should be one where everyone and anyone can post any suggestion, objection, or notion of future events, so that we all know what could be going on.
 
 
mr insensitive
14:47 / 05.03.02
How about if we dress him in ladies clothes?

[ 05-03-2002: Message edited by: Mr insensitive ]
 
 
Ganesh
14:50 / 05.03.02
Why the editing, Andy? Was the original suggestion ("a clown's costume") deemed lacking in potential offensiveness?
 
 
mr insensitive
14:53 / 05.03.02
Did someone just fart?
 
 
Ganesh
14:54 / 05.03.02
Whatever.
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
15:06 / 05.03.02
Take it outside, children.

Mr. I, that's not a useful suggestion. If you don't want to engage in this discussion, understand that at some point quite soon I'll edit or remove the post myself.

Ganesh...you of all people know better.
 
 
mr insensitive
15:12 / 05.03.02
I changed the play a while back Nick.
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
15:16 / 05.03.02
Not in any substantive way. Talk to me about God. About ideas.

Right now, you've got God basically saying 'we're gonna do this my way'. If that's your authorial voice coming through, prepare to be disappointed.
 
 
mr insensitive
15:19 / 05.03.02
Oh come on. Don't be so humourless.

And please, where are the ideas? Where's the continuity? The play has about as much substance as dioreah in a brown paper bag /cheeky remark /
 
 
Ethan Hawke
15:26 / 05.03.02
Monkeys, I hope you didn't entirely delete your last contribution. I rather liked the part where Bobcat comes waltzing in on the backs of his followers.
 
 
mr insensitive
15:26 / 05.03.02
What I mean is, you can't possibly concede from reading the whole play that there are ideas being maintained from entry to entry, or any kind of characterisation. In fact, the thing that sticks out the most is that everyone's having a laugh. I don't understand where you're coming from.
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
15:27 / 05.03.02
No question, the play is fragmentary. I'd rather it didn't become more so. If you're telling me that you don't have any particular reason for posting the latest stuff, that's fine - but please don't be offended when I take it down.
 
 
The Monkey
15:41 / 05.03.02
todd -

pocketed, not deleted...endeavoring to cut some fat, waiting to see what comes of the prior bits....

insensitive -

the character of God is simply overbearing in his omnipotence, as is. it's like Paul Daniels with an overcompensation complex.
the appearance of God makes a certain sense, given the Bobcat-ate/is-the-Messiah theme, but all of the random actions in the second bit seem to go nowhere other than being very unsubtly attention-grabbing...look at me! look at me! I'm LOUD and SHINY!

the bong-water bit is still tasteless, and pot-jokes in general are still exhausted from the reign of Cheech and Chong. let them sleep...their eyes are still all blood-shotty and stuff.
 
 
gridley
16:38 / 05.03.02
quote:Originally posted by Mr insensitive:
And please, where are the ideas? Where's the continuity? The play has about as much substance as dioreah in a brown paper bag /cheeky remark /

If that’s what you think, then why post on it at all?

And the fact that you’re not seeing any attempt at continuity or theme just proves that you don’t really bother to read any posts except your own…
 
 
mr insensitive
18:17 / 05.03.02
Oh I do.
 
 
grant
19:02 / 05.03.02
The lightning works, the "growing" can work (with good lighting, all things are possible), but I'm really not sure about the bong, and the gladiator stuff definitely won't work where it is.

It could, however, work in the next scene, with a little bit of transitioning. It's certainly one way to get the stage uncluttered with characters. Maybe throw in Bobcat Christ and a few Ben-Hur-style jokes.

But only with the right transitioning.
 
 
grant
19:04 / 05.03.02
I also want to know what the Mother says next... but that's just me.
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
22:31 / 05.03.02
Okay, Mr.I, you're up. Seems the major stumbling blocks are God, Gladiators, and Bongs.

Off you go...
 
 
grant
00:18 / 06.03.02
I should clarify and say the bong itself could be kind of funny; it's the gags about gargling bongwater that's a bit non-functional for me.
 
 
Mr insensitive
08:43 / 06.03.02
Nick, please edit as you see fit, I am too busy.
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
08:43 / 06.03.02
Done.

We now have a courtroom drama, ladies and gents, and the story of the faithful dog. (Hunter comes home to find house in ruins and family dead, dog covered in blood; he kills the dog in revenge, only to find his last child alive, apparently protected to the last by the faithful hound against the wolf which lies dead by the injured child. From which we are to understand that the dog saved the infant from the wolf, rather than any other permutation of the possible events, like dog and wolf striving to defend the family from an incipient child-serial-killer.)

I'd suggest we stay within that format for a while at least...and deal with the characters we already have rather than bring in more. But it's up to you.
 
 
Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?
08:43 / 06.03.02
Just a point of Info - IIRC (and I do), Beddgelert is the name of the place, meaning "grave of Gelert", Gelert being the name of the dog itself after whom the place was named.
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
08:43 / 06.03.02
I stand corrected. And I can't spell in Welsh, either. It is Welsh, isn't it? Come on, Tann, get in here.
 
 
Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?
08:43 / 06.03.02
It is Welsh, although the received wisdom is that the Beddgelert tourist board made it up to provoke a bit of local interest, and that the town is in fact named after a monk called Gelert who carked it sometime in the sixth century. Gelert was the hunting-dog of Llewellyn ap...oh, wank. ap Iorwedd, I think, but I'm not sure.
 
 
Ethan Hawke
11:30 / 06.03.02
Fudge. When I added my last part, I thought ALL of the Indians had been killed and then resurrected, which IIRC had happened in a previous post of either "Lizzy" or Monkey's.

Give me a second to remedy this situation, though I quite like the Indians not being sure if they died or not.
 
 
Captain Zoom
21:44 / 12.04.02
Finally got around to reading this and I wanted to extend a huge pat on the back to all involved. I am really enjoying this play. Hope no one minds my getting in on the action.

So, when does it get staged?

Evil.
 
  

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