I should be reviewing Wall Street Journal Articles for class...but I'm not. Instead I'm frustrated and a little angry at the Grove City Theater Dept. I wrote a play last year and I've submitted it to be used in the One Act festival twice, neither time was it accepted. I also adapted Mark Twain's "The Diary of Adam and Eve" for the stage this summer and submitted it, it was also not selected. Now, certainly I have a bit of wounded pride at this, but that's not what this article is about. (Every writer should face failure and learn to deal with it) The thing is, the coordinators for the festival actually enjoyed my plays, though they found the one I had written too dark for a festival they wanted to be full of comedies (it has it's moments but it's no tragedy...) and they questioned Twain's theology and it's use on a Christian campus. Ok, I disagree, but ok. Until that is, they tell me they still want me to direct and I have my choice between two plays: one boring and not really suited to what I want to do senior year, and the second, which I chose, a slightly riske play about a husband and wife and the husband's ex-girlfriends visit (which consists of a big ol kiss and a sketchy backrub) <--The theology of this is not questionable? Sure Mark Twain has some unorthodox views of the first man and wife, he humanizes them *GASP* oh no! he humanized humans? but but but, that just makes my world crumble!!!
It seems that we are only concerned with differing theology when it is placed before us in a way that we cannot avoid questioning. A play that has no mention of God, but portrays action that flies in the face of his commandments, that's ok...but heaven forbid Adam say that wherever he went with Eve a part of Eden was with him...blasphemer. Likewise, we want a play that makes us laugh, not one that makes us think, or desire a relationship with Christ, we just want to laugh.
Well it's a week from the show going up, I'm frustrated, my coordinator just told me he thinks the way I'm portraying the backrub scene is sketchy and awkward....it's the way it's written! ("I just always pictured her sitting up" ...it says flops over on the bed!!)
Sure I could censor the script, I could cut out the scene (and the play would make a lot less sense) I could continue to edit words like promiscuous (already did that...apparently it's an inappropriate descriptor...) and other moments that make the audience understand why Wanda is such an odd character and an irritation to Marsha (Jim's wife) but then what would the play be? anything? I've already made edits I'm sure the writer wouldn't approve of, but that I have to make bc it's GCC. So Instead of asking me to edit the last line of the play I adapted, to make it a little less like Eve was replacing God (which I don't think was Twain's point) I'm changing a whole lot more of the play, and I'm still uncomfortable and stressed.
I don't want to cater to the crowd but I don't have a choice. Or do I? I'm only here one semester. I'm seriously considering an underground production of either the bus stop or the diary of adam and eve...
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