—From CB—

Writing fiction at least keeps one out of trouble. It takes lots of time, it’s likely that few will read it, and so much accumulates even in the time it takes to read this, that like a fruit-fly life it’s gone before sunset. So why do it instead of more fruitful efforts like weed-whacking?

I suppose, for me, it comes down to a fascination with STORY and how the medium affects it. Most of my work—and all my profitable work—has been for the stage, straight plays in alternation with short sketches, radio drama, puppetry, even two musicals. Over the years I’ve made many excuses for leaving university teaching, but I guess the bottom line is that I just want to do it and do it and do it.

Now I’m not doing it. I’m writing fiction. Most recently, I’ve been adapting some of my short plays and sketches to the page. The latest is ACTION NEWS. It brings back memories.

We staged it in 1986 and toured it briefly. It’s a couple on morning talk-radio celebrating their 25th year on the air as their show is being cancelled. We sit and talk for an hour as WW3 is breaking out, with Russia invading Europe and dropping tons of heavy office furniture on German cities—it’s surreal.

Many memories. Simplest was playing it in a Movement Theatre Festival in Philly. In a festival of clowns, mimes, and dancers, we pitched it as an anti-festival piece—two people sitting at a table, no movement except leaning in to the mikes.

And a showing in Pittsburgh. It was very heavy tech—besides lighting cues, it was phones ringing, taped sequences, news feeds, flashbulbs—all cues for very rapid dialogue. Our techie did fine through the run at home, but in Pittsburgh something went wrong, he lost his place, we never knew what would happen next, and it was a solid hour of pure improvisation. In fact we garnered a pretty good review, though the writer described it as a “throwback to the Sixties.”

We took it to the Midwestern theatre where we got our start in independent work—by that time, we’d redesigned the tech so Elizabeth ran the whole thing from tape decks, push buttons, and foot pedals under the console. One of our dearest friends saw it and expressed his dismay. He felt we were painting the worst possible portrait of ourselves and our marriage.

I realized then that I used autobiographical fragments for a concrete purpose: to make the story real to myself. To say, perhaps, that this could be anyone. I’ve continued to do this. Not that I regard all people as equally corrupt or virtuous, but that I regret the sports-team fandom that’s crept into the public dialogue. However weird the human mind is, there are usually good reasons for whatever crap it comes up with. The Art of War stresses the need for good intelligence; if your spies are spying only on your own tribe, they won’t provide the best data.

I think it makes a good story.

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