As a connoisseur of critical reviews, I savor media critics who dare to slice and dice a popular restaurant, give a “thumbs down” to a blockbuster movie, or advise us to tune out the latest Walking Dead sequel. More than 10 years after it was published I still relish Pete Wells’s New York Times bloody evisceration of Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar, Guy Fieri’s Times Square outpost.
But now the glistening kitchen knife is pointed my way. My schadenfreude has been repaid with a critique of my first, unpublished, play, White Collar. The post-mortem.
Writing a full-length theater piece has been simultaneously challenging and exhilarating. Under the tutelage of my dramaturge, the work underwent seventeen revisions. It expanded and contracted like Weird Al’s accordion, going from one act to an act-and-a-half, back down to one, and finally a full two acts with a prologue and epilogue tossed in for good measure. Characters were added, subtracted, and redefined, while scenes were melded together using (almost) seamless segues. Only the final twist remained unmanipulated.
When the manuscript reached the ideal number of 90 pages, my dramaturge scrubbed out the obvious gaffes and cliches and submitted the work to his friend, a local theater producer. The producer didn’t like the play. At all.
In a very detailed email, he explained why. He saw dramatic inconsistencies, stilted dialogue, and characters who added nothing and had no arc. If the prologue was bad, the epilogue was worse. And too many witty retorts.
I could quibble with a few of his thoughts and comments–I could quibble with more than a few. But I will take this as a positive learning experience. I normally express myself in 500-word blogs, so completing a work of this length was immensely satisfying, even if it is nowhere near professional quality.
My next step? My cognoscenti included some suggestions. He even tossed in a compliment or two. I may use that insight to tear the play down and rebuild it in a few new ways—versions 18 through 30. But on my honor, no more witty retorts.
And from now on, Guy Fieri, I stand with you!
Getting More From Les 