Notes To Read When Playwrighting # 4

An Occasional Series

Given that I’ve been in rewriting mode around my latest play, I found this piece about Lucas Hnath, which originally appeared in the New Yorker, very helpful. I don’t know if I’m mystical about rewriting but at times the process does seem to require a metaphysical approach; i.e., is this thing being created acquiring a coherent existence?

🙂

“He can sound mystical about his creative process. At workshops, I’ve heard him say many times, “This line hasn’t figured out yet what it wants to become.” But he can also be stringently analytical. Playwright’s Input A should result in Audience Output B. That side was in evidence at the Golden, as the seats began to fill. (The preview was sold out.) I asked him what he’d be looking out for that evening, and he said that it was important that he not look for anything. He wanted to experience the play as if he’d never seen it. This, he emphasized, would be just the start of his process. “You have to watch several performances,” he went on. “Then take a step back and try to understand, on average, how the play works. It’s what remains consistent across many performances that tells me something useful. Tonight is one single data point.”

He hoped to next time find “a better spot” in the theatre. Another night found him in the stage manager’s office, listening to the actors on a monitor. He was rewriting their parts as they spoke.”

DT Max on Lucas Hnath