The play's the (terrible) thing ...

      Recently I attended a terrible play. Actually the play is a celebrated part of American theater; this performance was a stinker. We're talking so bad that the police needed to cordon off the theater and arrest someone.
      Ordinarily I have a well-developed instinct for avoiding things that might not enjoyable, but a good friend was in the play so I went anyway.
      Let me say now my friend was excellent, her character sharply drawn, her diction suitable and her lines clear. The rest of the cast made me long for a sniper rifle. It's not that they were bad -- well, actually they were -- but I knew the play, knew what the playwright had intended, and they botched the whole sorry mess.
      This is not to say the evening was a total waste. I learned a few things. First, it is impossible to strangle yourself. Second, you can't fake a heart attack well enough to fool my friend Linda who kept poking at me and saying, "You made me come to this. You're going to live through it." And third, ministers who say we don't understand eternity obviously hadn't sat through that performance.
      As a budding playwright myself, it concerns me to see actors and directors miss the point. I co-wrote two one-act plays that were published by Contemporary Drama Service. Both are light, fun comedies. I worry that somewhere they are being performed badly to audiences who don't realize that it is totally the actors' fault. I don't want to be blamed for something over which I have little control.
      Not that my plays are perfect -- well, now that I've brought it up, they are -- but they do have lots of funny lines and good stage action. They are fun to read and to do. I've seen them performed a couple of times by good actors who got the point, and everyone had a great time. I hate to think my little plays are making someone somewhere wonder if they could choke themselves by eating a program.
      At intermission, some people sneaked out. I resisted the impulse to call the escapees cowards, but they were. They were worse than cowards: They were leaving while I had to stay. I wish I had thought about letting the air out of the tires of the other cars, but I didn't know going into the play how bad it was going to be. If I had known, I would have developed a stomach-ache or malaria and stayed home.
      The worse thing about people leaving was that it thinned the already sparse crowd. As more people slipped away, I began to think the actors onstage would outnumber the audience. But there remained enough at the end of the play for the receiving line in the lobby.
      The receiving line, a characteristic of community theater, allows the audience to thank the individual actors for allowing them to see the performance. This posed a problem. The best compliment is a truthful one, and while I could honestly say my friend did a great job, what could I say to the other actors that would both compliment them and not be outright lying? I certainly didn't want to encourage them.
      I considered possible comments:
      "You must be proud." -- Of what, who knows? Let them decide.
      "I've never seen anything like it." -- True enough, but it had be said in a bright, positive tone, and I wasn't sure I could pull it off.
      "It brought tears to my eyes." -- Also true and the same problem as above.
      "My, hours of practice pay off, don't they?" -- Not bad since it implies that the pay-off was on stage while the true meaning was that hours of practice would pay off and how I wish they had done so.
      "Wow." -- Positive tone problem as well as seeming too awestruck.
      "Thank you." -- For ending the play before I tore my eyes out.
      I had reached the front of the line by this time so I chose to just shake hands and smile. The smile was sincere; after all, I was going home.
      As a postscript, I asked a friend of mine to read this blog entry and tell me what she thought of it.
      "I've never read anything like it," she said in a bright, positive tone.
      Hmm.

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