This is one of my rare open-ended posts. If you were to write and direct a play…
… would it have a happy ending?
… would it be an entertainment, or would it make a point?
… if the latter, what point would it make, what lesson would it teach?
Your thoughts are valued and enlightening.
My friend Ed, who’s 80, just wrote and had produced a play about Ethel Rosenberg. It’s a one-woman play, and she is in jail, talking about her life, the arrest, life, motherhood, politics. It’s really brilliant. I have long had in mind a play about a priest in 11th century Germany, when the popes are making sure priests stay or get single. The protagonist has been married or at least living with a woman and he has to decide what to do. With a straightforward story, I’d hope to deal with the tug between calling and domesticity, work and family, where the sacred is found, and all that sort of thing. The point would be the striving for unity rather than balance, and I’m thinking it would remain somewhat frustratingly unresolved.
“… the striving for unity rather than balance… ” Wonderful.
Great question, but if I knew the answer to it, I would already have written my play! That said, if I were to write one, my play would be a circular infinite loop, i.e. the ending would take us back to the beginning of the play.