The following quote from Jose Rivera about writing plays could be said about any kind of writing:
“You write because you want to show something. For instance, you write ‘to show that the world is shit.’ ‘To show how fleeting love and happiness are.’ ‘To show the inner workings of your ego.’ ‘To show that democracy is in danger.’ ‘To show how interconnected we are.’ Each ‘to show’ is active and must be personal, deeply held, true to you.”
“We write plays in order to organize despair and chaos. To live vicariously. To play God. To project an idealized version of the world. To destroy things we hate in the world and in ourselves. To remember and to forget. To lie to ourselves. To play. To dance with language. To beautify the landscape. To fight loneliness. To inspire others. To imitate our heroes. To bring back the past and raise the dead. To achieve transcendence over ourselves. To fight the powers that be. To sound alarms. To provoke conversation. To engage in the conversation started by great writers in the past. To further evolve the art form. To lose ourselves in our fictive worlds. To make money.”from “36 Assumptions about Writing Plays: A Noted Playwright Nails Down Three Dozen Creative Principles” by Jose Rivera
American Theatre, Vol. 20, No. 2
American Theatre, Vol. 20, No. 2
3 Comments
What else would you do?
Both!
To poke fun at the ridiculous and dignify the truth … or vice versa.
Add Comment