Filling Up The Empty Space

After the table read last night, I was struck by a line in the Landylady's speech at the start of Act Two: "A woman of my means couldn't leave an empty space; a space - if filled - that would turn a profit."

Every character in "G.S." is trying to fill up an empty space, literally and emotionally.

As writers, George, Gertrude and Alfred all fill the empty space of paper with words.
Alice fills up the empty space of the stage with the set-pieces and transforms it into a home.
The Landlady fills up the empty rooms in her apartment house with the individuals who "belong there."

These are all physical, metaphorical acts. It's filling the emotional empty spaces that are more problematic and challenging.

We all know the inevitable: people we love will leave us, either through an act of willful departure or because - no matter how hard they fight to survive - their lives end.

I feel strongly that the new ending of "G.S." works because it focuses on both these inevitabilities in the lives of the two couples.

As Doug said last night he loves a "fuck you" ending. The original end definitely falls into that catagory.

Now the focus is on both of the "two endings" discussed in the piece: the ending no one could have changed and the ending that could have been different through one's own actions. It softens George, gives her a transformational moment, and allows the audience to see that she has learned and changed. I think it will be just as powerful and will give the audience a sense of emotional satisfaction.

The actors were all uniformly strong and brought out - much to Jenna's surprise - the humor of the play. I knew the laughs were there - and they need to be there. Liz and Doug brought relish to the caustic repartee between George and Alfred. Cruel can be amusing - as long as it's not happening to you.

Everyone seemed to be rushing in reading Act One, so Jenna asked everyone to slow the pace during the second act. The piece seems short to me: the writer who always extrapolates and then has to pare and pare again. Now I want to keep adding things.

But I don't know if that's truly necessary. One thing a table read cannot tell us is the timing of all the physical business: Alice hauling all the furniture onstage, George and Alfred's know-down, drag-out fight, the transitions between scenes, etc. There is a great deal of physicality in the show (to balance all the overabundance of words, perhaps?) which will add to its playing length.

One thing that surprised me was the relative equality of all the parts. The character who seems to get the short shift is the one who demands the most attention: Gertrude. After the first long scene of Act One, she only appears twice (briefly) until Act Two. Although she's onstage for all but one scene of Act Two, there seems to be a lopsidedness. This may all be resolved in the playing of the piece: by Anne's physical presence and interaction with the other characters.

Everyone was most kind and complimentary about the piece, which somehow I never find reassuring. I always want to hone and make things crisper, clearer and sharper.

All in all, though, I believe, we have a very auspicious beginning.

First Read-Thru For Workshop

We have decided to have a workshop/staged reading of G.S. in November. An invited audience will come and hear the play performed and give feedback. This will give me some time to do rewrites and hopefully bring out the themes and shape the play into its best form before the production in Feburary.

The cast for the read-thru will be:

Alice...............Pam Mattthews
Gerturde.......Anne McEvoy
Alfred.............Douglas Collier
Landlandy.....Lynna Snyder
George...........Liz Conway

The first read-thru of the script (ever) will take place tonight. I'm looking forward to how the play sounds out loud with the actors interpreting the lines. Actors always bring out nuances that help me to discover things I didn't know about the play.

(I realize that sounds anti-thetical, because I wrote the play, but there it is.)

I have modified two small portions of the script prior to tonight's reading. One is the George/Gertrude argument about Jews and the other is the ending. That problematic ending!

We'll see what everyone thinks about that tonight, since the cast have been given scripts with the original ending.

I'll have an update after the read-thru.