Finally, I've realized that writing is hard, and that it's easy to overdress a pig, or to put lipstick on a salad. (Or maybe it's the other way around.) Either way, collaboration is now my biggest ally.
By David Cotrone (Writer)
Recently I wrote a play. Not a great one, but a play nonetheless. It was called Wreck, and my goal was to at once make the audience look for the door and yet find themselves riveted, unable to leave. I wanted each person watching to feel more than they've ever felt and not know what to do about it.
In hindsight, I realize that I accomplished none of this.
When push came to shove I was too worried about matters of language, and too insistent that each word had to be right. I thought the script was sacred, that it needed to be bright and shiny and ready to wear. I wanted to be pretty at a time where I should have been happy with mud. Metaphorically speaking, I wanted to put on the Ritz.
(Fred Astaire, Puttin' on the Ritz)
In reality, I had done it all wrong.
I mean, while words are important they're not revelations. I should have been simpler by allowing images to tell the story. I should have written so that someone watching would think no words were written at all, but instead that something simply became.
Luckily, I had been working with a director who had enough sense to know the difference between text and performance, and who had the ability to make it all come together. In the end, she gave the play velocity, momentum, and grit. For that, I can only say that she transcended her role as a director and became an editor, one of those distinct angels of creativity, a collaborator with a different and yet altogether necessary perspective.
DAVID COTRONE is from Plymouth, MA. His writing has appeared in The Rumpus, Thought Catalog, Paper Darts, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, and elsewhere. He's the Editor of Used Furniture Review, a literary magazine. www.davidcotrone.com
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