A reading of this play I didn't write?

I inadvertently had my first Chicago reading today. On January 22, I was offered one of the oddest jobs: ghost-rewriting another playwright's play. In this play, three goddesses come down to save the planet from, firstly, environmental destruction, and then, secondly, a nuclear holocaust. They intend to do this by inspiring three activists to do...well to do what they are already doing...only better. They want to convince them to embrace their inner "god" or "poet", as the original playwright put it. Only these gods accidentally allow human emotion to consume them and they fall in love with the humans they are attempting to assist. Whoops.

Not my thing really. Although, I realized half way through the ghost-written rewrite -- for which I would receive no credit or royalties but had attached to it a commissioning fee that would pay my rent for the three months to follow -- that I started my own playwriting experiments with gods, goddesses, and spirituality. My first full-length play was about a son and a father in the afterlife who could travel to visit the living on a horse; one of my first completed one-acts was about the three Fates and what happens if they just quit; an early ten-minute play for a 24 hour play festival examined a couple in the Elysian fields. So I can deal with that crap. Mythology's just my cup of tea.

Activism though? Really? Me? I'm fairly moderate. More over, I'm a libra. The idea of getting passionate enough to do, well, just about anything seems foreign to me, as did writing a play about characters who are passionate enough to fight. But I did it and it's done and I've been paid and after Monday's meeting with the original playwright and his staff (his alter ego is the President of the Center for Cultural Interchange), I don't have to have anything to do with it...

Except I probably will. There was a reading today. I hadn't been invited: this was either a) an oversight, b) a decision based on the assumption that I would not want to come because I wouldn't be paid for my time and because it says quite clearly in my contract that I will have no association with the play after Monday's meeting, or c) a decision based on the idea that it would be easier to criticize the play if I was not present. But Chicago's off-loop theatre scene, though vast, talks. And word got 'round.

I talked to Lois Smith about what to do. She is the lead in the Goodman's Trip to Bountiful and one of the lovely actors I am driving around as part of my current day-job as the Company Manager's assistant. I asked Lois if I should warn them that I was coming or just show up. Just show up, she said. I forget her reasoning. It was something simple and true and I wish I could remember it. So this morning at 11am I just showed up.

I was surprised to learn my name is attached to the script. I thought that part of our contract was that it wouldn't be. I don't know if I feel strongly either way...or maybe I feel strongly both ways. Of course I would like to get some recognition for the changes I made, and believe me I changed quite a bit. All of the character development, the majority of the dialogue, and a few key plot points. The intentions of the script and the basic structure of the original plot are all that really survived. And I am pleased with it. I am pleased with what I did to it within the parameters that surrounded me.

But at the same time it is not a play I would have written, and I am not sure how I feel about people thinking that it is a play that I would have written. It is didactic, but also campy. It requires 10 actors. These rules made for a fun exercise, but they are frankly not my style.

This was clear in today's reading. Oh yes, there are problems with the script still. Thankfully we had one of the most helpful talk back sessions I have ever experienced. Critical but constructive. Honest but polite. And articulate. Incredibly articulate. Many talkbacks consist of people wanting to blather about themselves. "Well I liked that a monkey popped out of the microwave because that reminded me of this time my husband..." "I hated when she kissed that boy because I would have never kissed that boy because his eyes aren't pretty." But the few audience members who accepted the invitation that I never received were brilliant: this isn't working and here is why. That can't happen because then it betrays that. I liked the old beginning from the last draft because this, this, and this...

So now I have these ideas on how to fix it. But it's not my play anymore. And not how a director's production is not his production anymore once the show opens and it becomes the actors' play. I mean legally it's not my play anymore. If it ever was...

So odd. So so odd.