Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Writers Block Ending! (At long last)

Holiday distractions and what not, blah blah blah. But today, it's one of those weird days where I don't have anything to do and I just sort of continue in a strange kind of stupor. Really, I kind of wish I had already joined the Y or something, so I could go there and work out or do something of like nature, to get really physical for a bit so that I can at least keep my body awake and with it.

My writer's block is ending, and it's doing so all on its own. The other day I had a dream about being in the audience for a production of My Littleton Play which I began YEARS ago. It's my "family play" and I have struggled with the writing of that since 1986. Wow. 20 years ago I started this play, and though I'm largely happy with the form the play took in its latest iteration, I feel Act Three just isn't right. I wrote the last iteration through an unfortunate aspect though.

MLP as I call it took its current form after the Columbine Massacre. That horrific event was what it took for me to "get the play" and its Chekhovian overlay. (Chekhov wrote his 4 great plays aware of being inside le fin d'empire russe; MLP is my understanding of le fin d'empire americaine.) In the intervening years, I've only accumulated more awarenesses, also of my own implication in the global situation I'm calling the "Ampire." Huh. I just made that up right this second. Am(erica)+(Em)pire. "Am-pire." Sounds like (v)ampire, which ties in strangely with cunt as I like to use the word--cunt:vampire as grunt:laborer. Funny how things circle around, isn't it?

Anyway, the play had a slightly different beginning in the play, and I've revised it accordingly. Not too different, just clearer. But Act Three is still a problem as far as I'm concerned, so I feel called upon by the Goddesses and Gods to put my focus back on MLP, only now with all these other awarenesses of the Twilight of the Ampire. I guess in a way it's bringing a lot of the websites, movies and plays I've been fascinated by into the alembic of the Rossiter family's saga from 1982 to 1997, forever to be rendered incomplete by having an absent protagonist.

(The character representing yours truly never makes an appearance, only literally phoning in his one line for the audience's benefit in the darkness before the play begins. My dream clarified it by having the protagonist's face projected onto the curtain as the lights went out. I added a label that said "Chris Rossiter, Protagonist" to make it more evident. His one line is "My Littleton Play??! Only one thing, I can not go back there again. I must respectfully decline the luxury of my presence.")