Impostor

I just read a play I loved. And that never happens. Like most writers, I'm probably so competitive that whenever I read a play (not for fun or by a friend whom I love with all of my heart) I usually think, "I'm not going to like this." But the truth is, I love when things surprise me and I stop thinking with my critical eye and I start enjoying. I want to read great plays. But I assume that if I pick up a play to do coverage on, I'm not going to love it.

But this isn't a post about my love of plays or my surprise at loving this play. For some reason, reading about this playwright and about this play made me think about what his other plays might be like. I wanted to know if this play was indicative of his other writing. Then I thought about a conversation I had with a writer about five years ago about living in LA and being a playwright. He seemed to think I was silly for living in LA if I wanted to write plays. This writer had been living in LA for a long time and then moved to New York, where things had started to take off for him and all of a sudden he was a New Yorker. He also said something to me that struck me as so cynical. He said that he finally became successful when he finally wrote the play that he knew everyone wanted him to write. He felt people saw him as a certain type of writer and when he wrote to that, doors opened up to him. At the time, I thought this was really cynical advice and kind of the opinion of a know it all.

I think I thought of that writer because when I read this play and started investigating this playwright's work, I wanted to know if this is the kind of writer he is. And if this was a play he wrote out of being himself from a conscious or subconscious level. I'm not sure this play that I loved was about this guy's life. But it felt like it came from an honest place. And it was adventurous (at least by commercial standards) in its structure, which I always respond to. I love plays that are structured in a way that feels congruous with the story its telling. I try to do that in my own writing. So when it's accomplished like that, it just seems amazing to me.

Right now I'm writing a play that feels like it really comes from me. I'm a character in it, although I will never play myself because I'm not an actor and it would defeat the purpose of the metatheatrical ideas of putting myself as a character in my play. This play is not like the last play I wrote. I don't like to write the same play over and over again. I know writers who return to the same themes or to the same region when they write their plays. I don't think I could ever do that. Part of that is because I never really identified with one thing growing up. I didn't really identify culturally. I was a poor, brown kid at private schools. I felt like I was many fractured things instead of one coherent thing, so maybe that's why I always explore something else or something different from play to play.

But I wonder about other writers. Where do they write from? What's authentic to them? Is this play just well-written or does it hold some truth to who they are? I'm interested in that sort of stuff.

Anyway, I was listening to a recent interview with that writer who gave me all of that cynical advice years ago. And he sounded happy. He sounded like he was writing stuff that had meaning to him. He was living back in LA and seemed happy to be doing theatre in LA. I'm not a believer in holding someone hostage to a time in their lives. But I wondered if the person being interviewed was an authentic version of this guy or if the person I met years ago was the more authentic part of him. I might never know. I'm not sure it's important that I know which version was more authentic. But he sounded good on the radio.

I am grateful for friendships.
I am grateful to have quiet places to write.
I am grateful to friends I don't have to explain myself to.
I am grateful for distractions.
I am grateful that I get to teach next month for twelve weeks.
I am grateful for more fun in my life.