I got a lot of feedback from yesterday’s post, in various locations, from Facebook, to LJ, and right here.  A lot of great feedback.  Some people had suggestions, some people named names of women I should look at.  There are a lot of possibilities, and my head is spinning with ideas.  On the weekend, I’m going to one of the city historical museums to do some research on women in the Upper Canada Rebellion.

The response and the wealth of information and help I received was overwhelming.  So thank you to everyone who commented.  You’ve all been a big help.

When I first conceived of the this play about the Upper Canada Rebellion, I thought of it as a grand historical play in the style of one of Shakespeare’s History plays.  I even thought of writing it in Iambic Pentameter – and then I came to my senses.  Writing the play in iambic pentameter was a good way to make sure I wouldn’t finish the play.  And I wondered about the size of the cast for a “Shakespearean style” history: would a large cast make the play unproduceable?  And should I worry about such a thing? [I probably shouldn't worry about such a thing, but I can't help it].

So, as I considered the story, I found what I thought was a way to tell the story.  This take on the story was exciting to me, and offered a few wonderful possibilities.  And, I thought, it made the play more “producible” because it had a small-ish cast and only two locations.  I thought: write the play, introduce all your characters at the beginning, and follow them through the play.  Limiting the locations and the cast size would keep production costs low, and would give all the actors some meaty parts (and lots of stage time).

With all the new information I am learning, and the research I will be doing in the coming weeks, I need to let go of this confined vision of the play.  The story I want to tell won’t change, but the scope will.  I’ll stop limiting the number of characters, and start telling the story as I need to, introducing characters as they are needed.  Just tell the story, and then worry about how “producible” it is later.

So again: thanks to all the people whose feedback helped me get to this point.

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I have a pet peeve when reading or working on plays: I hate reading a play that consists entirely of male characters.  Now, granted, there are plenty of great plays that are entirely made up of male characters (Glengarry Glen Ross comes to mind), but when I read these plays, I end up thinking about all the women actors I know (far more than of them  than male actors) who aren’t getting into the play.  When I write, I always like to ensure that there is at least one female presence in the script I create.

So, imagine my distress as I begin to work on my history play, and find that I cannot find a way to work a woman into the play.  The action of the  historic event in question (the Upper Canada Rebellion for those keeping track at home) was orchestrated and perpetrated by men.  Yes, most of those men had wives, but the wives themselves were not involved in the Rebellion at all. Additionally, there are no references in any of the historical documents I’ve looked at of any direct female involvement.

Of course, this is unsurprising.  The Victorian sensibilities of the time would not have allowed any of the men to permit a woman near this dangerous affair, but I’d love to be able to find some evidence of some direct female involvement.  Otherwise, adding something in feels both like an obvious fabrication and a betrayal of the actual events (which, I have previously indicated, I want to be careful with).

I think I have to accept the fact that the rebellion was a man’s affair, and that the woman, though loved by their husbands didn’t directly participate.  This does pain me somewhat, but there doesn’t seem to be anyway around it, that doesn’t involve adding participants that were simply not present.

Posted in Lyon and the Banshee, Writing | 5 Comments »

One of the plays I’m working on at the moment is a historical drama.  I’ve been toying with this in one form or another for many years.  One of the problems I’ve had with this particular story is that I wanted it to be accurate.  Its a story that has been misunderstood for many years, and for a long time, I thought that the only way to tell the story was to do it right, and be as historically accurate as possible.

This posed a great problem, however, because while history may be full of drama, presenting a historical events in a factual and yet theatrical fashion does not inherently create drama.  There’s far too much information that needs to be understood by the audience, and likely far too many people for them to keep track of.  And, although certain events or episodes were certainly dramatic, for the whole thing to work as a single piece, there has to be a story arc, and things have to resolve in some way.  History can’t really work as a verbatim piece of theatre.  There’s no main character in history, and the story is not clear; there’s no narrative.  Good storytelling needs these things.

So I’ve been thinking about how to represent history, and be true to the facts, while creating a unified piece of theatre.  To do this, I’ll have to make a compromise.  I’ll have to understand the facts of the historical events that happened, but give myself the freedom to deviate in order to tell the story, and keep the narrative clear.  I have to be true to history, without being a slave to it.

Right now, I’m concentrating on identifying the story arc, and once I’ve done that I’ll start writing the play proper.

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