Friday, November 02, 2012

Words on Play, Play on Words


Podium where we all read at nightly salons last week.
 


I have this marvellous idea for a new play. All based on a story that was told to me and my friends on a mini high school reunion. We were on the floor, howling in disbelief. My friend who told it is one of those really serious people. She seems to attract family trouble and drama like pins to a magnet.

Her house is the original Dysfunction Junction where her husband lives on one floor of it and she on another. Where they have favourites amongst their adult children and entertain them separately and the daily policy is to take sides on each and every family argument, banishment, grandchild-sitting, dryout centres for various progeny and real estate difficulties.  And they own a shop in a small town and see absolutely nothing wrong with their lifestyle choices.

She is totally oblivious to the fact she is causing havoc in a room with the droll way she uses words. With the result that now all she has to do is enter a room and we all fall down. Her eyebrows are always elevated in shock at the instant hilarity that greets her.

"No, seriously now, what's so funny? You can't be laughing at me, as my hair was just done and my clothes are not loud or anything and I have sensible shoes, look....." and she sticks the shoes in our faces.

And the way she says this? Roseanne Barr would have serious competition. When we performed my play in Ireland, she barged right into the dressing room after and told us all that that kind of drama happened in her house all the time. No, boy, there was nothing new in my play for her and she walks out, shaking her head. We all fall down.

So this play based on one of her stories? Well, it is scattered throughout pieces of paper and notebooks and needs to be keyed onto my playwriting software and submitted by December 15th, for performances in May 2013.

I would credit my friend Faye but she just wouldn't get it.

10 comments:

  1. LOL! The lady sounds as though she'd have fitted well into a modern-day tale Dickens might write, were he still among us.
    So WWW - you now have his mantle!

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  2. I have long ago ceased to be surprised by the misery people willfully heap upon themselves since I hear about it every single day in my work. But if you can make a play out of her stories, go for it!

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  3. Oh, that sounds just wonderful and like it would be a great comedy. I am sure you are up to tje task and would turn out something great and inspiring. Now I can't wait to find out what sort of success you are going to make of it. Break a leg, WWW.

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  4. Fortunately I don't know any families quite that dysfunctional but I'm sure there are plenty of them. How they manage to survive with such constant battling and conflict is beyond me.

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  5. Why not a pilot script for a comedy series WWW?

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  6. Thank you all.

    As to dysfunction - I know very very few functioning families. Even those that seem most "normal" can have crazy bumps along the way.

    My own is far from normal where estrangement seems to be the way to deal with those bumps.

    Sometimes I long for screaming matches, that would seem more acceptable - where people are not afraid to express themselves.

    Oh well.

    I've started the play and it's making me laugh.

    XO
    WWW

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  7. This sounds like a play I would enjoy. We people and families can be really weird, can't we!

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