Fences? FENCES? Fences.

If seeing a play is like watching a movie, then reading the script is like listening to the director commentary. I very much enjoy reading plays, but I think the fact remains that there is a huge chunk of a play that you don’t get from the script alone. The one big thing I will take away from seeing Fences is the simple fact that so much is inserted and changed between the page and the stage. So many little nuances are either added or removed from the page that the production that we saw in the theater might be considered a different show entirely.

My initial thought is to get mad about the interpretation on a stage. I had all these ideas for characters in my head (i.e. the father, the strong mother, Gabriel, ect.) and the people on the stage simply didn’t do what I wanted them to. As a person who wants to write plays, I am immediately thinking about how I can write everything so clearly as to ensure my vision is carried out. My next thought, and by far an easier and more open one, is the idea that a play is supposed to be changed from the page. A production isn’t merely the writer’s vision, but a huge amalgamation of a hundred creative minds together. Perhaps instead of pigeonholing a play that I write into my own mind, I might leave a character open ended and allow the director and actor to fill in the blanks.

I wonder what kind of touch is best for a writer to have. Too many stage directions, too-wordy character descriptions, and too much writer presence may spell death for the creative malleability and growth of a play. If a play is written in a way that it can only be produced in one fashion, what is the point of a company putting it on again? On the other hand, a play with no writing touch at all lacks everything that makes the play unique. I wonder what percent a production is the writer, what percent it is the actors, what percent it is the director, and what percent it is everything else? Is there a number range that most successful and engaging plays fall into?

Like many discussions of plays, this one will revert to Shakespeare. His plays can be set in almost any time period with any actors and any director and still work. Do they drip with their writer because of the flowery language, or was Shakespeare simply able to write in such a way that by simply saying the words, his vision was achieved? I suppose he is so stylized now compared to modern English that he will never be forgotten, and his voice will only grow stronger as our days increase. This is not so with contemporary playwrights, and subsequently they must find different ways and percentages with which to affect the final production.

I think now I leave too much to the rest of the crew. Even when I write sketches and see them performed, I find that the writing isn’t clear enough to get my point across even in a staged reading. I will endeavor to write in a way that is clear and personal, and perhaps once I have done this I won’t mind so much when the rest of the play diverges from the way I saw it in my head.