Subtitle: 
The 2002 Humana Festival Gathers Dramatists; We Get Their Advice

At Louisville's Actors Theater for its 2002 Humana Festival, various playwrights represented in the repertory or attending the festivities chatted about the craft of playwriting. Prolific dramatist Mario Fratti asserted, "Yes, playwriting can be taught. I am a teacher of playwriting. But sometimes it is impossible. In America they start with great ideas, but they never know how to end the play, so I specialize in giving students structure. Structure is acutely important. Write the ending first - that is the sign of a good playwright. There's a lot of freedom in going there. Because you must know where you are going! There is no school for playwriting in Italy."

Discussing the playwrights currently represented on Broadway, Fratti continued, "All My Sons is fantastic.  The great playwrights know all the right lessons, and I suggest for everyone to see Metamorphoses. That and The Crucible. You see, playwriting will never die, because there will always be the need to communicate. Polish people on the panel today said, `they no longer use words.' Words will prevail, I say, and continue. I don't use so much poetic language, but I do use poetic emotions. The language in my plays is very realistic. I write a play when I have something to say. Never, ever start a play until there is a complete image of the story in your mind. Some plays, I keep a clipping file about real people for...such works as `my Che Guevara play' or `the Duse one.' I keep notes. When I write my own characters, I do not keep notes."

Charles L. Mee feels that "the future of playwriting is that the human species will not die, and some fools will continue to be playwrights."  When I ask Mee why is play featured in the Festival was so sharply unlike his last few -- including The Big Love and True Love -- he replies, "`Cause I just wanted to try and do something very different.  I graduated from college in 1960 and started to be caught up in the anti-Vietnam War movement.  This led to writing about politics, which then led to writing about history.  That was the detour in my life.  It lasted 25 years!  I finally came back to playwriting in the mid-80s.  Anything can spark a play with me, and it sort of takes me over then."

Young Jerome Hairston, author of a.m. Sunday, stated, "Trust your imagination!  No matter what you start, make sure you finish it.  See it through to the end.  All writers to it instinctively, as it is in their blood. My investigation began with my first drama teacher.  My director, Eduardo Machado at Columbia University, was my mentor.  Machado teaches, `be the writer you are and not the writer you want to be.'  This involves an unbridled dramatic imagination.  The play in your marrow is the right play.  Trust your voice.  I learned from other playwrights I am not alone.  Others are doing extremes in their extreme ways."
Continued Hairston, "It all started for me with Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, and I have never seen a production which matched the initial impact that play had on me just reading it. Also August Wilson and Harold Pinter shaped me."

Tina Howe gleefully responded to my question, "What did you learn from all this in Kentucky" with, "Oh my, I love that question! What did I learn? Yes, yes, I have to keep fighting is what I learned, and that dramaturgs can be trusted, and dramaturgs will help take care of you. Also, when you start to go crazy, go crazy, but don't go too crazy.  Dramaturgs aren't evil and can be wonderful. No, there aren't enough women playwrights.  Tear my heart out!  Men want victims in plays.  They get nervous with strong women..."
Howe adds, "I tell students, `Just keep doing it, and sometimes all that work will produce something that forgives the very bad writing. Write a play set on a beach or under water. You really can put anything onstage, but just keep writing. Something will eventually emerge. I went to Paris after writing a very pretentious play at Sarah Lawrence. It was about the end of the world, and what else would you write at Sarah Lawrence? I went to Paris and wrote my first full-length play, which I have never shown to anybody. I did The Nest at Provincetown Playhouse, and it closed in one night after receiving terrible reviews. My next play came 23 years later, as no one would touch my stuff. I didn't get a good review `til the fifth play! See? The way to begin is how I did, with an uphill struggle, so then you will not really expect anything. I feel so fortunate to have gone through all that."

Asked about the current crop of Humana Fest works, noted dramatist and playwriting textbook writer Jeffrey Sweet ("Solving Your Script," "The Dramatists Toolkit") commented, "There was a lot of physicality in the plays, which I like a lot. But there were too many plays about art and artists. A lot of it was self-conscious and self-absorbed. I am a lot happier when plays take in more of the outside world. a.m. Sunday was, indeed, my favorite play here this time."

[END]

Writer: 
Larry Myers
Date: 
April 2002
Key Subjects: 
Humana Festival, Playwrights, Jeffrey Sweet, Tina Howe, Jerome Hairston, Mario Fratti.