Board 8 > I wrote an purposefully-unstageable play. A stranger gave it honest feedback.

(+) Yeah! (+)

NSFW, presented without further context:



Thanks for sharing this piece. It?s pretty unusual, but it?s energetic and boisterous and I?m sure at the right festival (i.e. something with no kids in attendance!) it would bring the house down.

I?m not much of a singer/rapper so I won?t try to comment on the rhyme schemes, meters, etc. This reminded me of Hamilton?I?m sure in your head the lines and rhymes have a specific rhythm and flow that I can?t get just on the page. It certainly seems like it flows properly, nothing feels too clunky.

In terms of suggestions, this is obviously a raunchy and raucous comedy, but I always think a little emotional grounding is a good thing. If you look at something like Book of Mormon, which features some of the craziest, grossest lyrics and ideas possible, what grounds it is the fact that the characters feel real, and we identify and care about them right away. They?re set up right away with vulnerabilities and desires, no matter how goofy, and that?s key to the fact that a play with a character named Buttfuckingnaked and much worse becoming a Broadway hit. This play feels like it?s a lot denser with the raunchiness without the room for emotion that lets the raunchiness land.

So on that note, if you can sell us on Fisty as a real and rounded person dealing with this wild community, I think the play will land even better. Maybe a little backstory in the beginning from the duo would be valuable, tell us the quick story of who Fisty is and what he childhood was like, give her a desire, give us a rooting interest in her. Then this will feel even more like a play with something on its mind and meat on its bones.

Similarly, there?s an opportunity to round out Fisty and Scissorme?s relationship. If you get the audience to buy into that as a relationship with a history and an emotional core, I think some of the wilder flights of fancy and crude characters will hold up even better.

There are issues of staging, of course. If you want this to be presented at a festival, I?m not sure how something like a lighted queef and the resulting melted face is going to be staged, along with huge squads of SWAT members. This could work in a staged reading/concert setting, but most ten-minute festivals seem to have capacity for pretty modest staging requirements. So you might consider creating a more streamlined version without pyrotechnics and with a smaller cast. I?m not sure what an on-stage fisting looks like, either, but I assume that could be blocked in a way that makes it work.

Thanks again for sharing this, and good luck getting it up on its feet soon.

Ethan
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This play sounds amazing, why would you make it un-stageable?
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HaRRicH posted...

There are issues of staging, of course. If you want this to be presented at a festival, I?m not sure how something like a lighted queef and the resulting melted face is going to be staged, along with huge squads of SWAT members. This could work in a staged reading/concert setting, but most ten-minute festivals seem to have capacity for pretty modest staging requirements. So you might consider creating a more streamlined version without pyrotechnics and with a smaller cast. I?m not sure what an on-stage fisting looks like, either, but I assume that could be blocked in a way that makes it work.

btw for this you could do something similar to classic greek theatre where a character or small group of characters is on stage, and the large number of SWAT is "off stage" and taking action in a place that the audience can't see. this allows the characters on stage to describe or narrate the action without the need for 40 actors/extras to play SWAT members.
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There are issues of staging, of course. If you want this to be presented at a festival, I?m not sure how something like a lighted queef and the resulting melted face is going to be staged, along with huge squads of SWAT members.

I laughed
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TheRock1525 posted...

This play sounds amazing, why would you make it un-stageable?

I lost a bet to a friend. The terms of the bet was that the loser had to write a play for the winner based on the winner's title of choice. The winner also got to include five lines of dialogue. I lost and was given these parameters.

THE TITLE: The Ballad of Fisty McButch

LINE #1: So there I was, tied to the bed covered in 30 weight motor oil.
LINE #2: I can't abide a weak priest.
LINE #3: Listen up, fatty!
LINE #4: Sir, allow me to present you with my dick; you may suck it at your leisure.
LINE #5: This city smells like burnt whore.

You'll have to forgive me for thinking this might not be the best play ever. I just went hard on telling a story with no regard to how feasible it is to produce.
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