Thanks for the memories.

I want to thank everyone for their input last night. It was---Wow! Amazing, wonderful and useful. It will take me time to sort through all the remembered and written conversation that we got into! The evening was on fire. I found the other two pieces very inspiring, complete or not, and everyone seemed to be having a great time.
         I certainly was and (either that or the Spring Equinox)--I stayed awake and wrote until three this morning. Not something I do often. 
         Anyway, hartfelt thanks to all of you. Your responses, feedback and ideas (not just verbal but what I could see and sense) on so many other levels were a great help to moving this piece forward! Do you know the Revenge Tragedies of James I? Lots of blood and total weirdness but I believe takes place offstage or in the past (I am drawn to James Webster). Webster is not literal about his buckets of blood   ( I don't think)--but they are definitely there. Of course, now I will have to go back to them to really see if that is correct or not. Even if it isn't I still would rather not be throwing the buckets around. A time-honoured (?) combination of Sex & Death. Now, for the comic relief.
           I spent some time last night watching some Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter--searching for a guide to pauses and so on. Mamet's quote: that Rhythm is meaning; is a truth.  And part of the pauses, silences, beats, etcetera. A bit too pat to my way of thinking but true nonetheless. Rhythm plays a part in all of our existence--conscious or not. We move to it even when we don't think about it. Bringing that to the conscious mind is part of making a play and the characters therein. It is essential to building beginning, middle and end and differs with every character; every piece written; and, every playwright. Like the creative process itself--the rhythms in us are as individual as the way we get to the end product--whatever it is. Finding those rhythms and acknowledging them is part of what helps the playwright to speak to an audience. Whether it is Shakespeare, Arthur Miller, or, Mr Mamet. 
            Mamet has never been one of my favourite playwrights. I say this without prejudice (i.e. personal baggage interference). I do agree with him, however. 
             The second question of where the characters' voices come from was beautifully covered by Kristen. Part of my way to absorb and remember new information is to read things aloud a lot. Especially with characters in a piece. That also disengages them from me and then they can be separate and talk to me about what they are and what they need, want, get. It may take awhile and hearing from other folks helps to make their voices clearer to me. No Kristen you are not mad--or, if you are then I am too! You are not alone in this. One of the things about madness is that I believe I am the only one to feel like this. Not so.


Thanks again, everyone. 
Jain