CHARADE
5 Characters
1 Woman. 4 men, although the stage manager could be a woman.
Simple Set
43 pages
Performed at the Dowling College Performing Arts Center as a student production.
The Director/Writer of this play is creating the play as the audience watches.
What enfolds is the creation that seems to be originating in his head.
But the characters often do not like how they’re being written and rebel, or think they’re rebelling, when that is actually what is being written.
The characters attempt to define themselves, as the Director/Writer writes, but are not writing their lines – he is.
Or is he?
As the Director creates his play the characters go further into their thoughts, feelings, philosophies of life, art, theater and who they are as independent beings, called characters – until the Director/Writer has writer’s block.
His creations feel trapped in their lines that seem to be in a play within a play, where no one seems to know who is really writing it – are they writing it or is the writer writing it?
The Stage Manager in the audience, in the dark, gives them their lines when they go off script. But the Characters don’t often like the lines being given to them, yet have no choice but to say them.
Even though the confusion is what is actually written in the script.
Were they written by the Writer/Director, or the Characters in his head, that speak as he listens and writes what they say on the page, or, maybe something else is going on – something else is actually creating the characters in his head, that he listens to and writes down, but takes credit for.
Except when the characters dislike what he’s writing. Or he dislikes what he’s writing.
Charade was an experiment in Metatheater although I was going beyond that.
Being a writer, actor and director I became keenly aware of the fine line between what humanity is, and what character is. We study the creation of character, in acting – but that soon becomes clearly limited to what we’re really trying to understand.
The human being’s inner experience is or “can be” vast, connected to all that is – in some ethereal if not intellectual way.
Character is limiting down from that vast potentiality – labeling characteristics, past experiences and education that to become “the characters” they are – defining specific ways of thinking, responding, acting, hiding, lying etc. All limitations of limitations rather than possibilities of possibilities.
Within that conflict, when writing a play, one becomes aware of the characters seeming to know what to say and do beyond the writer’s control – be it parts of the writer’s subconscious, or, working through conscious conflicts and ideas, the characters and the writer are doing a dance. Or perhaps we are just channeling something from something somewhere.
As the Director attempts to shape the play about a play, being written by him, or perhaps the characters in his mind in the play, or, someone else – the actual playwright – ME who wrote all of them. But am I the creator because I have written the play, or just a conduit for something beyond myself.
These tiers and textures, levels and dimensions, permeate and create The Charade of our existence, as we grapple to better understand who or what is really in control, what we can potentially experience if we’re open to possibility, and how we hide from that by boxing in our characterizations – and tell one another who we are.
Charade, is fun, and thought provoking, and can use physicalized theatrical staging withing the fluent dialogue that dances between the Writer/Director and his creations.
To read Excerpts from the play, click Read More below.
Note that formatting in the excerpts are not centered, and instead, left justified.
The PDF of the the play is in correct format.
5 Characters
1 Woman. 4 men, although the stage manager could be a woman.
Simple Set
43 pages
Performed at the Dowling College Performing Arts Center as a student production.
The Director/Writer of this play is creating the play as the audience watches.
What enfolds is the creation that seems to be originating in his head.
But the characters often do not like how they’re being written and rebel, or think they’re rebelling, when that is actually what is being written.
The characters attempt to define themselves, as the Director/Writer writes, but are not writing their lines – he is.
Or is he?
As the Director creates his play the characters go further into their thoughts, feelings, philosophies of life, art, theater and who they are as independent beings, called characters – until the Director/Writer has writer’s block.
His creations feel trapped in their lines that seem to be in a play within a play, where no one seems to know who is really writing it – are they writing it or is the writer writing it?
The Stage Manager in the audience, in the dark, gives them their lines when they go off script. But the Characters don’t often like the lines being given to them, yet have no choice but to say them.
Even though the confusion is what is actually written in the script.
Were they written by the Writer/Director, or the Characters in his head, that speak as he listens and writes what they say on the page, or, maybe something else is going on – something else is actually creating the characters in his head, that he listens to and writes down, but takes credit for.
Except when the characters dislike what he’s writing. Or he dislikes what he’s writing.
Charade was an experiment in Metatheater although I was going beyond that.
Being a writer, actor and director I became keenly aware of the fine line between what humanity is, and what character is. We study the creation of character, in acting – but that soon becomes clearly limited to what we’re really trying to understand.
The human being’s inner experience is or “can be” vast, connected to all that is – in some ethereal if not intellectual way.
Character is limiting down from that vast potentiality – labeling characteristics, past experiences and education that to become “the characters” they are – defining specific ways of thinking, responding, acting, hiding, lying etc. All limitations of limitations rather than possibilities of possibilities.
Within that conflict, when writing a play, one becomes aware of the characters seeming to know what to say and do beyond the writer’s control – be it parts of the writer’s subconscious, or, working through conscious conflicts and ideas, the characters and the writer are doing a dance. Or perhaps we are just channeling something from something somewhere.
As the Director attempts to shape the play about a play, being written by him, or perhaps the characters in his mind in the play, or, someone else – the actual playwright – ME who wrote all of them. But am I the creator because I have written the play, or just a conduit for something beyond myself.
These tiers and textures, levels and dimensions, permeate and create The Charade of our existence, as we grapple to better understand who or what is really in control, what we can potentially experience if we’re open to possibility, and how we hide from that by boxing in our characterizations – and tell one another who we are.
Charade, is fun, and thought provoking, and can use physicalized theatrical staging withing the fluent dialogue that dances between the Writer/Director and his creations.
To read Excerpts from the play, click Read More below.
Note that formatting in the excerpts are not centered, and instead, left justified.
The PDF of the the play is in correct format.
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