TIO PEPE is the second professional production of one of my plays. The first was two years ago with the World Premiere of THE WHIPPING MAN at Luna Stage. I have learned a lot about my craft in the last two years. Perhaps the most important lesson I have learned is when to step back and let the professionals do their work, which is exactly what I’ve done this week.
There comes a time in the life of a new play when the playwright is the most useless person in the room. You’ve spent the first few rehearsals at the table with the actors. You’ve imparted all the wisdom you can dispense about the characters and the play. You’ve watched them stage it and made rewrites and cuts throughout. Then you get to the place we’re at now: when the actors, the director, the designers take what you’ve been working on for two and a half years and make it their own. Your job is finished. It’s their turn to figure out the play.
The old adage that the two things you don’t want to ever watch being made are laws and sausages could be amended to include “first productions of a new play,” particularly if you are the person who wrote that play. Actors are going to struggle with lines, paraphrase like they wrote it themselves, make mistakes, make more mistakes, get frustrated. It’s what I call “The Uglies” and every play goes through it, from a new piece to a 400 year-old play.
The Uglies are not a sign of a production in trouble. Indeed, they are actually a sign that a production is healthy. It means that people are wrestling with the text and the characters. They are taking it seriously. It isn’t an unfortunate part of the process, it is the process. It is also, however, not something you should witness if you wrote the play in question. As the playwright, you are not so much interested in the process, mainly because your process is largely over. You’re ready for the result, for the party. It is been sitting in your brain for a long time and they’ve only recently been introduced to it. In almost every way, their job is infinitely harder than yours. You have as much time as you want to take to create this play and you only share it when you’re good and ready. They, on the other hand, are discovering it under the gun, with a clock ticking incessantly in the background. That any team can find it at all is a testament to their talents.
It’s at this point that you know it’s time for you to let it go and trust that you have chosen the right people to tell your story. You go to the movies, you go to the beach, you start writing something else. You let them work it out in that steel cage match we call a rehearsal and you always answer the phone when your director calls.
This is what I have done this week and it wasn’t easy. But it was necessary and, I believe, helpful. Caitlin Moon is a smart and sensitive director who is the only person on this planet who knows my play as well as I do. Greg Graham is an imaginative and tireless choreographer. Vaniek, Barret, Nathan, April and Benita are deeply gifted actors and dancers who have constantly surprised me with their insights and discoveries.
Every play goes through The Uglies and every team must get to the other side of it by themselves. I am very fortunate because not every play has the team that my play has. I can’t wait to see what the other side looks like for these artists. It’s going to be something wonderful.