a scene

here is a scene from my new play. first draft as
always. this time it's in response to the joshua
james challenge.

http://playwrightjoshuajames.com/dailydojo/?p=225

(In the desert, JONES and SARAH)

JONES
I've been wanting to talk to you?

SARAH
Oh?

JONES
Yeah.

SARAH
What about?

JONES
I've seen you looking at me.

SARAH
What do you mean?

JONES
You know what I mean.

SARAH
What do you mean?

JONES
It's OK. You don't have to pretend. I know how you
feel and I dig it.

SARAH
You dig it?

JONES
Yeah, because I have a soft spot for you. This kind
of thing happens to me over and over in my life.
People fall in love with me. I'm used to it. It's
become a bit of a theme for me. Although it never has
worked out. Sometimes it will work out for a while
but in the end, it never works out because when it
comes down to it, I never feel the same way about them
as they feel about me. Which is how this is different
though. Because I have strong feelings for you.

SARAH
You do?

JONES
I want you to know however strongly you feel about me,
I feel just as strongly about you, or almost as
strongly in any case. It's the way you laugh… more
than anything it's that. The way you laugh, I feel
that all inside me. And I just know. I'm not really
sure why. It's the volume of your laugh maybe or the
snide thing you say before it that adds to it. The
way your face crinkles up. I'm not sure what exactly
but it grabs me by the throat and squeezes everything
out of me. You could kill with that laugh.

SARAH
Thanks.

JONES
Yeah, so I just though you should know. You don't
have to hide the way you feel. Because I feel that
way too and maybe from now on we could find more ways
to spend time together alone like this getting to know
each other better.

SARAH
Yeah, see . . .

JONES
You don't have to say anything. I can see it in your
eyes.

SARAH
I think I should say something though.

JONES
You don't have to though. Don't say a word. Just
close your eyes.

SARAH
Um.

(JONES kisses SARAH)

SARAH
Oh.

JONES
You can do better than that. Let's try that again.

(JONES leans in and SARAH pushes him away.)

SARAH
I don't think so.

JONES
What? Too much tongue?

SARAH
No. Yes. The thing is that I don't really feel that
way about you.

JONES
You don't have to pretend.

SARAH
I'm not pretending. It's just that you're not really
like the kind of guy I usually date.

JONES
Well I am one of a kind.

SARAH
That's not what I mean.

JONES
You aren't serious that you're not into me.

SARAH
There's someone else I have feelings for.

JONES
What, like back home? Because back home is far far
away.

SARAH
Here.

JONES
But I'm the only man around any woman could seriously
consider.

SARAH
Except Hank.

JONES
Yeah but . . .

SARAH
And I'm sorry it won't work out for us but I have to
say I am impressed with your confidence. It's
inspiring. In fact, I think I should follow your
example.

JONES
Yeah but—

SARAH
I've waited long enough. I need to tell him how I
feel. Don't you think?

JONES
Yeah, but he's gay.

SARAH
No, he's not. Hank?

JONES
Oh, come on, you seriously don't know that he's gay?

SARAH
But gays aren't allowed in the military.

JONES
Sarah, seriously. You don't know that he's gay?

SARAH
I know the way he looks at me.

JONES
I know the way he looks at me.

SARAH
You're wrong.

JONES
OK.

SARAH
You just see. He's going to marry me and then you'll
see.

JONES
Oh, like that will prove it.

SARAH
You'll see. I will tell him how I feel about him and
then he and I . . .

JONES
Listen, the only way either of us is going to have any
sex is if we're fucking each other.

SARAH
I'm going to go find Hank.

JONES
If you're honest with yourself, really honest, I think
you'll find that you're really into me.

SARAH
I don't feel that way about you.

JONES
Really?

SARAH
I just don't.

JONES
I think you do.

SARAH
(Exiting)
No.

JONES
(Following her out)
Oh, come on. Really? Well, we can still have sex.
Hey, Sarah, we can still have sex! Come on!

plays written

>From time to time i like to write down all the plays
I've written. I feell like I may have forgotten one
but for the life of me i can't remember what it is or
when I wrote it.

i started writing plays sometime in college. i think
it's safe to assume I've been writing plays for about
10 years now, 7 or 8 of them seriously. i guess i
average somewhere in the realm of 2 full lengths a
year although there are years with only one and last
year there were 3. Here is my list.

Long Plays

1. The Backstage Camel
2. Hotel West
3. Deflowering Waldo
4. Cats and Dogs
5. The Relationship Game
6. Someone I Don't Know
7. Open Minds
8. The Art Machine
9. Anne
10. Nerve
11. Pretty Theft
12. One Wednesday at West Haddam High
13. Food For Fish
14. Herbie: Poet of the Wild West
15. Incendiary
16. Bee Eater
17. Never Again

Plus 6 one acts, 25 or 30 short plays, 1 screenplay
and another co-written screenplay. Not to mention the
reams of started and discarded plays.

Some people think i write a lot. It feels to me
always that I'm not writing fast enough.

godot

got this from Mike Daisey's site.

for the Godot fans.

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=97961

what is staged and what is real in Borat--

thanks to comtois http://jamespeak.blogspot.com/

http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2006/11/10/guide_to_borat/

good news from jason

http://www.jasongrote.com/

http://szymkowicznaked.blogspot.com

http://szymkowicznaked.blogspot.com

PLAYWRIGHT

I've discovered something recently. My subconscious mind doesn't register the novel I'm trying to write. All the time it wants me to work on plays. It doesn't think I'm a novelist and so it is not impressed with time spent working on the novel. i'm not sure what to do about this. i could try and convince it i guess that novel writing is writing too but it may be a hard thing to convince it of. Especially since noveling doesn't offer the form of thearapy that writing plays does. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's more work or maybe somewhere so deep in me i have told myself i have to be writing a play all the time adn now that's all I can accept. It's like there is an invisible tattoo on all my organs that says playwright and subsequently the novel writing does not feel like progress. Or maybe I'm just in a funk again because I just finished a play and i forget that i always have this moment of happiness followed by a funk that the play is over and exists and by existing some of the doors of what it can be have been closed and it just is something now. in any case, i want to start another play right this second to get out of this funk and that may be what i do. because writing a novel is not helping. although i don't want to stop the novel so i may take on the dubious task of trying to write a novel and a play at the same time. i'll let you know how it goes.

from Chris Durang

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-durang/you-must-watch-hacking-d_b_33271.html

"By creating machines with a security flaw that
includes the ability to change vote tallies with NO
SIGN THAT SOMETHING HAS BEEN CHANGED -- that's one
helluva security flaw -- Diebold shows itself to be a
truly dishonest company. One could decide they're just
incompetent - they're only receiving billions from our
tax dollars for these fraudulent machines - but I
think it's fair enough to say they're dishonest.

I have no idea if my vote on Tuesday will register
properly. And if the votes in my area don't match
"exit polls" or national Pennsylvania polls, there's
no way to do a recount without the paper trail. No
way. "

coming soon

http://www.theater2k.com/t2kmain1.swf

from ny times Ted Koppel

http://select.nytimes.com/2006/11/06/opinion/06koppel.html?hp

"We are left with the impression that the grown-ups in
Washington would prefer to make the difficult
decisions for us without involving the courts,
Congress or the press. That is precisely the wrong way
to go about winning this war. Back when the United
States was widely admired, it was for all that was
most cumbersome about our democratic process.

America's efforts to transplant democracy elicit none
of that admiration. How can they, when we appear to
have lost confidence in fundamental aspects of
democracy here at home? What has historically
impressed our allies and adversaries has been our
often flawed, but ultimately sincere, determination to
operate within the law — if not always abroad, then at
least within the United States."

from ny times

http://select.nytimes.com/2006/11/05/opinion/05rich.html?em&ex=1162962000&en=8a1ab164161ba7af&ei=5087%0A

"On the same day Mr. Kerry blundered, the United
States suffered a palpable and major defeat in Iraq.
The Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, once again
doing the bidding of the anti-American leader Moktada
al-Sadr, somehow coerced American forces into
dismantling their cordon of Sadr City, where they were
searching for a kidnapped soldier. As the melodramatic
debates over how much Mr. Kerry should apologize
dragged on longer, still more real news got short
shrift: the October death toll for Americans in Iraq
was the highest in nearly two years. Some 90 percent
of the dead were enlisted men and nearly a third were
on extended tours of duty or their second or third
tours. Their average age was 24. "

I didn't get a chance to work on the novel this
morning. What I did do however was finish a first
draft of the play about Bush and Cheney and the War in
Iraq. At the moment it's called "Never Again, a
Fantasy Play."

I don't quite feel the sense of accomplishment I
always think I'll feel when I get to the end of
somtthing. Perhaps it's because I know in some ways
it's just the start of the process and I still have to
hear it out loud and revise it and then try to talk
someone into doing it and then that makes me tired to
think about.

Maybe I can come home and work on the novel after
work. In any case, happy Monday.

http://szymkowicznaked.blogspot.com/

Warrantless

Blue Box Productions has a radio play of mine alog
with some others up here in protest of Bush's illegal
wiretapping.

http://www.blueboxproductions.net/operation%20liberty%20tap.html

If you check back again on the 15th there will be more
plays up.

oh and also

I meant to say. The reading of Incendiary went REALLY
well. I was kind of shocked how well it went. I hope
you can come see it when we do a workshop production
of it in Feb at Juilliard with 2nd year actors.

batistick

Saw a fantastic show last night--Mike Batistick's Port
Authority Throwdown at 45 Bleecker/Culture Project
produced by the Working Theatre.

All four actors were terrific, the set design was
gorgeous in a port authority way and the direction was
out of sight. Most of all though it was a smart well
written play about something important delivered in an
entertaining way with humanity and truth and humor.

Can't recommend enough.

only got a bit of writing done today. see me here
babling in the early morning hours.

http://szymkowicznaked.blogspot.com/

tomorrow

Tomorrow I will start a novel. I finished a first
draft last night of my dog play. I know I haven't
mentioned it at all yet or posted anything from it
really because it's different kind of play and I'm not
sure how much more work I need to do on it before I'm
ready.

I was hoping to finish the political play as well by
today but I guess I will have to just write both it
and the novel. because deadlines are important
people.

So for the next month or two month or three months, I
may be blogging less, or i may be blogging more or you
may find me here instead.

http://szymkowicznaked.blogspot.com/ or not. It's
hard to say.

ny times article

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/30/business/worldbusiness/30energy.html?hp&ex=1162270800&en=0aec92e4764ed849&ei=5094&partner=homepage

"Most of these experts also say existing energy
alternatives and improvements in energy efficiency are
simply not enough.

"We cannot come close to stabilizing temperatures"
unless humans, by the end of the century, stop adding
more CO2 to the atmosphere than it can absorb, said W.
David Montgomery of Charles River Associates, a
consulting group, "and that will be an economic
impossibility without a major R.& D. investment.""

playwrights on writing

http://www.calendarlive.com/stage/cl-playwrights-sg,0,1013979.storygallery

I'm having a reading Halloween Tuesday at 2:30 of my
play Incendiary at Juilliard. Let em know if you wnat
to come and I'll use my special powers to get you past security.

whoops, what I meant to say was:

http://www.dramatists.com/cgi-bin/db/single.asp?key=3728

http://www.dramatists.com/cgi-bin/db/single.asp?key=3820

http://www.dramatists.com/cgi-bin/db/single.asp?key=3821

hooray

http://www.dramatists.com/cgi-bin/db/multiple.asp

fratricide

here is the replacement poem i wrote for the scene in
my cowboy hamlet. I'm not saying it's a better poem.
in fact the fact that it's bad is kind of the point.
And it works better in context but here it is anyway.

Fratricide: A Poem For a Bear to Read

In the grimy streets of
Dust-y
Dust
Where the flowers don't grow
Fratricide

A man goes out to buy a horse
But comes home with
A gun instead
It gleams
Polished as it is
Fratricide

A Bear is just a large person who feels too much

Fratricide

I had
Such
Hope in my heart
Before
Fratricide

Flowers at the funeral
No flowers at the saloon

A bear will hibernate in winter
But our feelings
Cannot sleep
Fratricide

on wonkette
http://www.wonkette.com/politics/impeachment/its-a-mandate-209624.php

via daisey
http://www.mikedaisey.com/

"Buried in this Newsweek story is the news that 51% of
American voters want Bush impeached — 28% say High
Priority, 23% say Low Priority, 44% against, 6%
undecided or don't know what a president is. And only
78% of Republicans oppose impeachment, proving
something or other.

Didn't Bush come back in '04 claiming 51% was a
"mandate" for all kinds of new fun?"

a poem

this is a poem I am deleting from my cowboy hamlet
play and replacing with something funnier. It is a
poem the dancing bear delivers so that the Hamlet can
watch his uncle's reaction. You know, that thing the
traveling players do? It's for that. Anyway, this no
longer cuts it, so here it is.

Once there was a bear
By the name of Mean Dean
He was the meanest bear
You have ever seen

He had long dark fur
Coals for eyes
Growls on his lips of enormous size

But his brother was better
In every manner
Stronger and sleeker
With paws like hammers
And a wife bear besides
Of enormous size
With soft red lips
And warm yellow eyes

Mean Dean decides
To perform fratricide
To be the biggest baddest bear
In town

So one day when
Brother bear turns his back
Mean Dean runs
With a drop-kick
Ten-claw
All-teeth
Two-fist
Red-rage
Unconscionable
Attack

And when brother is dead
Mean Dean eats his flesh
Takes his cave
Seduces his bearoness

The moral is
There is no moral
Because who can stop a bear?
Only a bullet perhaps
Between the eyes
To catch him unaware

scene from new play--first draft as always

(Back at the White House, CHENEY watches the PRESIDENT playing with the puppets.) PRESIDENT Oh, Mr. President, you’re so smart and funny. Thank you. You’re also such a talented artist. Thank you. What is that? A tree? It’s a giraffe. You like it though? I love it. And I know a lot about art. I am an art specialist. Oh, you are? Yes I am. I would like to have sex with you. Oh, my. But I have a wife who I love. But I really want to have sex with you. It’s one of the ten commandments. I’m sorry I just can’t. Oh, I’m so disappointed. CHENEY Mr. President, can I talk to you for a minute? PRESIDENT Can’t you see I’m busy? I’m making plans. I’ve got a lot of planning to do, planning various things. Lots to do here in the White House. CHENEY I know, sir. It’s just . . . PRESIDENT Not, now, Cheney. CHENEY Ok, sir, I’ll talk to you later. (CHENEY does not move.) PRESIDENT (tries to go back to playing with puppets but there is no joy in it.) See now I can’t concentrate. CHENEY Sorry, sir. PRESIDENT Why did you have to interrupt. You saw I was working, didn’t you? CHENEY I’m sorry, sir. PRESIDENT All right, what was it you wanted? CHENEY It’s just, well I’m not sure how’ll you’ll take this. PRESIDENT I don’t want to hear any more about any polls. CHENEY No, it’s not that sir. It’s these feelings that I’m having. PRESIDENT Don’t ever trust your feelings. You feelings will lead you to do stupid things that are often not in your best interest. Have you ever read The Prince? CHEENY No. PRESIDENT Well, me either but it’s on my reading list. CHENEY I wanted to tell you. PRESIDENT What? CHENEY That I admire you. PRESIDENT Well, of course you admire me. I’m your president. CHENEY No, I really admire you and I think about you a lot. PRESIDENT Well, I think about you too. CHENEY No, like a whole lot. PRESIDENT As you should. CHENEY But I dream about you. I think about you when I’m having relations with the wife. I day dream about you when you’re not in the room, wanting and wishing that you would come in the room so I can be near your magnetic energy. PRESIDENT Do you think about my paintings? CHENEY Not really. PRESIDENT I’m done with this conversation. CHENEY Well, sometimes I imagine that you ask me to pose for you and you say why don’t we try it without the shirt and so I take off the shirt and then you say maybe you should take off those pants too. They look uncomfortable and you know, they are so I take them off and then you say maybe without the boxers too and so there I am in my black socks completely naked, exposed in front of you. PRESIDENT Maybe I should paint you. CHENEY You should? PRESIDENT My problem is that I can’t paint people. I don’t understand or care about people really and it makes it hard to paint them. They all look the same like puppets. Identical puppets or at least that is what my critics say. But I want to understand people, I do. Especially if it will make me a better artist. All I want is to be alone in my room with my paints but I can’t do that I have all these obligations—I never would have even thought of trying to be president either if I had only been able to sell a painting. no one wanted one, not even mother. And all the other businesses I ran were failing terribly, probably because I was drunk all the time, so I thought well if all else fails at least I can become president. And that might not be so very bad. But what I really want is to be a famous painter. They would look at them, everyone would and they would see amazing things and they would say “look at that.” “Look at how well he understands the human condition” and “wow! The things he is saying with his art.” “Wowee, what a brilliant genius.” “the New York Times calls the President a brilliant genius.” It’s about freakin time that paper starts being fair to me. The next painting. Once they see the next painting they will have to accept me. The polls will shoot up and everyone will see. They will see that I understand people and the plight of the person. Humanity. I can’t paint people. CHENEY You can paint me, Mr. President. PRESIDENT Yeah? Hmm. Well, maybe I should be painting someone more attractive though. Don’t you think?

photos by punam bean

Here are some photos from the NYTR (http://www.nytr.org/) benefit. Thanks again to our talented team: Kip Fagan, Alexis Soloski and jason Grote. http://www.nytr.org/brick_100206_adam.html

From Chris Durang's newest post:

"When I was growing up in the 50s, "live and let live" was often said about people who were different, and even about people whom one disagreed with. It seemed an American value. I don't feel I've heard that phrase in a very long time. I hope it returns to the voices and thoughts of my fellow citizens"

1st draft of scene from new play

The REPORTERS remove their reporting clothes and underneath they wear desert fatigues. They carry machineguns and are marching through the desert.) SARAH I just don’t understand. Why are we the only people looking for Osama? HANK We don’t know that. SARAH Well, is someone else looking for him too because if so we should talk to those people and then maybe we could do this in a more systematic way. HANK Let’s just do our job, OK? JONES Why is this even my job? I am a radiologist. SARAH This wind is killing me. Do we know where we are? HANK We’re in the desert. SARAH Sure, but as compared to where we were yesterday. JONES I am a radiologist. HANK We’re north of there. SARAH I know, but . . . Are we getting any closer? Are we making any progress? HANK No one shot at us today yet. SARAH Is that progress? HANK Well, I’m happy about it. JONES I am a specialist. I have a degree. Why did they send me? SARAH I’m a helicopter pilot. HANK Can you both be a little more positive? We have a job to do and I can’t stand to hear you complaining all the time. SARAH Sorry, Hank. JONES I’m sorry too. JONES and SARAH We’re sorry. (Pause) JONES I wish we were back guarding the oil fields. At least then I knew what the fuck I was doing. SARAH Hey, what did he just say? HANK It’s OK, Sarah. JONES I’m sorry. Sorry. HANK Let’s stop here. (Pause) JONES Maybe we should go back to those caves. SARAH Are we going to start going in a different direction again? HANK Shut up for a second will you? Let me think. (A shift in light. Perhaps the sound of wind.) SARAH (looking at HANK) I like to watch his eyelashes flutter while he thinks. What is it about him? The way he stands, the commanding presence? The little specks of gray in his eye? Sometimes when I close my eyes I feel his hand on me, on my toes, on my legs, on my waist, on my back. I feel him on the back of my neck and it makes me feel tiny. Like he could hold me in his hand. Sometimes I imagine him reaching in and pushing aside my ribs like a waterfall to grasp my beating heart. If it’s beating too fast he can squeeze it and release, squeeze it and release until it beats at whatever pace he wants. It will beat for him, because of him. I think it’s beating for him now. Thump thump. Thump thump. Oh, if I could only have his lips on me. His eyes on me. His hands. /His hands his hands his hands his hands his hands. JONES I like to watch her eyelashes flutter when she thinks. I imagine she’s thinking of me. She doesn’t dare to look at me. How could she? She’s too embarrassed. Her feelings for me run too deep. Should I tell her? Should I let her know that it’s not just her who feels this way but I too am hiding deep feelings? It’s funny and indescribable but I know it as soon as I see it. This is only the second time I’ve been in love and the first time burned with the same intensity. Sometimes in the desert I think she’s a mirage but then she coughs or spits and I remember that she is not a mirage but my second serious love. Soon, I’ll tell her. I’ll tell her soon. Those eyes. Ow. Physical pain from those eyes, those lips, those hands, those hands, those hands / those hands. (Shift) HANK (To SARAH) Why are you looking at me like that? SARAH I’m not. (To JONES) Why are you looking at me like that? JONES I’m not. (Pause) HANK Let’s go this way.

From NY Times:

BAGHDAD, Oct. 10 — A team of American and Iraqi public health researchers has estimated that 600,000 civilians have died in violence across Iraq since the 2003 American invasion, the highest estimate ever for the toll of the war here.

CIVILIANS!!!! People who are in the wrong place at the wrong time. It must be hard to support the American Occupation when you see your families and friends die.

a short play of mine in LA starting oct 13.

http://www.theatermania.com/content/show.cfm/show/126054

http://www.theatreofnote.com/#lick