Thursday Nov 21

On Hiatus

Joshua Fardon - Drama

Joshua Fardon's play Julia Arbuck was a finalist for the 2013 Alec Baldwin Fellowship at the Singers Forum. His plays Shake and This Contract Limits Our Liability –Read It! were produced by Theatre of NOTE in Los Angeles in 2010 and 2008, respectively. He has also written and directed one-acts for The Naked Angels, the Ensemble Studio Theatre, Sacred Fools, Saturn and Vine, The Secret Rose, Slap n' Tickle, Stevedore, the Yale Cabaret, the Yo! Yo! Theatre Company, NOTE and Adam Carolla’s Ace Broadcasting Network. His short films Tenant (directed by Kiff Scholl) and Shattered Bits were official selections of Dances With Films.  A graduate of Northwestern University and the acting department of the Yale School of Drama, he is currently working on his first full-length musical. His website can be found here.
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Wow. I was actually gasped audibly (more than once) while reading your play. It is so powerful, funny & scary!!! Your dialogue, characters and plotlines veer from comic absurdity and brilliant current social commentary to terrifying, breath-holding dramatic tension- and somehow makes Facebook the most powerful sociopathic-building, socially acceptable application to create shape shifting, identity-stealing narcissistic stalkers. I just love this play!! And the end has such power in the ultimate completing embrace of what loves and destroys us simultaneously…  And since I’I've read more than one of your plays, I’m used to an expert blend of tension and humor and character revelation, but in Transcendence you (forgive the pun) have transcended yourself and crafted a great two-hander that will be so much fun for actors to perform… Okay, onto my questions…
 
Thank you, Kathleen!  Coming from you, that means the world to me.
 
 
What is it about Facebook that compelled you to make it an integral feature, if not the 3rd character in the play?
 
I'm always fascinated by the way memory and imagination interplay and by how we invent our own stories and I had to address that the fundamental laws of that were changing.  Before 2005 or so, the past was personal – usually a flawed memory of events which were uniquely and privately yours.  Now, thanks to Facebook, the past is public, and because it's public, the flaws in memory are often deliberate.  The past isn't mis-remembered, it's crafted.
 
 
Do you feel that Facebook or the internet in general is potentially dangerous, or just for people with potential for fixations?
 
I guess the jury's out about healthy people, but for the rest of us, of course it's dangerous.  I've already had a number of experiences in which my continued correspondence with someone, or even just exposure to them on Facebook threatened my own mental and emotional well-being.  Most people respect boundaries, but there are exceptions.   But I'm on Facebook and I have giant fixation potential. I'm as guilty as anyone and I usually post twice a day.
 
 
I know I’m focusing on Facebook, and this has as much to do with my fascination with whether Facebook is shaped by us or shaping us as people- and you might have only used it as a dramatic and character development tool- but Elizabeth’s utter dependency on Facebook and her use of it as a diary or proof of her own existence, makes me curious if you see Facebook as a creator of narcissism or as a creator of self crafted identity?
 
Yes, it is a creator of self-crafted identity.  And it's Miracle-Gro for extreme narcissism. Certain people who already have issues constantly post bright happy personal vignettes, positive epiphanies and pictures of themselves as they want to be perceived – and every “like” or User Comment has to be like a shot of dopamine to them.  I make something up and it's validated – people accept me and like me, not as I am, but as I present myself.  It's no different than advertising – the commercial experience of using the product is much better than actually using the product.  There's a woman I know who's a Facebook friend who once posted “I'm lonely.”  I loved that, because it was honest and she wasn't trying to paint this fantastic image of herself.  Of course she's lonely, why else would she be on a social network?  We're all lonely and most of us are sad and we all have problems and very few of us are as good-looking, wealthy or loved as we wish we were.  We can either come to a place of acceptance, or we can re-invent ourselves.  The internet makes the latter option easy.
 
Now Elizabeth, who has been trapped by her own psychological issues, sees Facebook as a sort of chance to reconnect with a fractured, painful past and to glue it all back together.  She can't always (or doesn't wish to) distinguish between the reality that Faceboook presents and everyday reality – but, she also argues to Kevin that maybe neither reality is more “real” or has more truth.  If the world Facebook presents is cleaner, happier and prettier, why not embrace it and tell the other world to take a hike?
 
 
Kevin is fascinating in how little he actually reveals about himself that he almost appears as a reactionary character- in that he lives in reaction to Elizabeth, which adds so much mystery to him.  Is he a complete shut-in because he is obsessed with his theorem (it’s his Facebook) or is the theorem his excuse to not participate in life?
 
Well, he's literally a shut-in, in that he's agoraphobic.  And he's trapped by the everyday reality that Elizabeth is striving to escape.  His life has fallen apart because of his relentless pursuit of the truth – which is embodied in this seemingly unsolvable equation.  I don't think it's an excuse not to participate in life, I think it's noble – but it's also excruciating and very sad.  He's searching for an answer and there probably isn't one.  Elizabeth presents him with the possibility of escape.  I believe she's come there to save him.
 
 
What inspired you to write this play?
 
Part of it was being dumped (last August) and wondering if I would ever get out of the terrible feeling it left me.  I found that the lonelier I became, the more addicted to Facebook I got.  And part of it was inspired by a Facebook friend (whom I barely knew in real life) who continually messaged me and posted stuff to my wall.  I wondered why this person was so convinced that our lives were intertwined when they weren't.  It occurred to me that this person truly believed we were close – and, in a way, that belief was just as valid as the belief I had that this person was a lunatic.  The truth is nebulous, because it's subjective.  It's a big spongy mass of perceptions – Facebook allows us to shape that sponge, to create our own indentations.
 
 
Since I’m quite familiar with your writing, do you feel that your plays are continuations of each other- that your fascinations vary and overlap from play to play?
 
That's probably true.  I'm scared of repeating myself, but I probably do it all the time.  I also very often mix characters, or use people and references from one play to the next, so in a way, I guess they're all in this parallel reality.
 
 
Piggybacking on my previous question, I do feel you write a lot about people who want deeply disturbing things from other people, or they are characters who feel they need another person in order to complete a slightly psychotic version of their ideal selves. What drove you to create Elizabeth?
 
Maybe it's me, but I always feel like there's something very dark lurking under the surface.  I'm sort of paranoid that way – but I've had a few life experiences which have confirmed my suspicions.  But underneath the darkness is a kind of humanity, a desire to love and to be loved, which is heartbreaking – so I'm always trying to get to that.  Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I don't. 
 
And in a way, to me, Elizabeth represents the uncontrolled fury and confusion of the past and the present blended together in this huge hungry, irresistibly aggressive force.  It arrives at your door and barges into your life.  It doesn't go away unless you deal with it, so you have to deal with it.
 
 
And what inspired you to create Kevin?
 
I think the fear that comes with devoting your life to something that may never come to fruition.  It's very brave, but it's also dangerous – not in a sexy, edgy way, but in a slowly fading, dream-dying, world goes-on-without-you way.  It's death in the Sarlaac or your failure, more painful because of its attenuation.
 
 
I really enjoy your dark side and the idea (in my opinion) that what we despise and ultimately want to kill might also only be our only redemption/chance of completion. Is this something that compels you or am I completely misinterpreting the play.
 
You're not misinterpreting it - I can barely interpret it myself.  This play scares the shit out of me, partly because, honestly, I'm not sure I understand it. 
 
So, yes, Kevin definitely despises Elizabeth, but by the end of the play realizes that she's the only way out.  And the great big insane version of truth which she brings into his door ends up manifesting itself as a new reality.  And maybe to me, that's a sort of fantasy of how life might turn out – it's kind of hellish and parts of it are ugly, but it's also interesting and seems to have some kind of divine or embedded purpose.
 
Kevin realizes that the most important thing – much more important than solving the equation, which is a MacGuffin, really - is that someone wants to save him.  The blessing of rescue isn't escape – it's the act of being rescued – of someone caring enough to pull you out.
 
 
In Transcendence you really pull a triple play of mis-directed identity, where a character may or may not be who they insist they are, and then once we are convinced of their identity it then changes again.  Are you just trying to freak your audience out? Kidding, but what is the creative intention here? That we really never know who people tell us they are or that we are all so obsessed with our own problems that we can’t ever really know another person? Or is it just really good drama?
 
I think I do want to freak them out.  Or maybe I'm freaking myself out as I write it.  But, yes, we can never know who someone else is.  And by the end of the play, hopefully, while we still care about the characters, we're done trying to ascertain what the truth is.  The truth is what's in front of us right now. And thanks for saying it's good drama.  I love not knowing quite what's going on when I go to see something – provided that I still care.  It allows me as an audience member to be active, to participate by completing the picture the play has put before me.
 
 
Do you ever write in other formats? I know you compose musicals and music, but have you ever delved into prose?
 
I've written a few short stories and a terrible novel which sits in the second drawer of the file cabinet near the door of my apartment.  I like writing prose, but I'm very impatient and I love the weirdly extroverted nature of theater.  When you write a story, you don't often get to see and hear the reaction of your readers.  A play has so much visceral power – it's like instant gratification.  And there's something magical about watching what you've started change shape and be interpreted by other creative artists.
 
 
What inspires you to write your plays? Do you study newspapers or look for inspiration in current events or do you create a dramatic dilemma and then ‘crochet’ a play out of that?
 
I usually just start writing.  I have no idea what I'm going to write, which is terrifying.  I've written 350 pages of globbedly-glook and abandoned it.  But I'm a horrible planner. 
 
I told a college professor once that I wanted to write something and he suddenly turned to me and shouted “You let those characters tell you what's going on!  Don't you try to tell them!” I was surprised at how angry he was for characters who didn't even exist yet. Okay, he was probably crazy, but I realized much later that he was right.  It's different for a screenplay – but for plays, I find it's best if I shut up, listen to the people in my head and merely dictate.  If I try to be more clever than they are, I usually fail.
 
 
Are there any current or recent playwrights who you are enjoying right now?
 
Tons and tons.  Springing to my head: Tracy Letts, Tony Kushner, Sarah Kane, Martin McDonagh, Charles Evered, Theresa Rebeck, Erik Patterson, Padraic Duffy, August Wilson, Brian Groh and I could list more, but I'll leave some out and regret it later, so I'm going to just say several dozen others.  Writing plays is hard – I admire anyone who actually finishes one, especially if it sucks and they know it sucks but they finish it anyway,
 
 
Do you work on other plays while writing one, or are you a one-play-at-a-time writer?
 
I usually work on two projects at a time.  It allows me to take a break without stopping.
 
 
What are you working on right now?
 
A new play – and don't ask me what it is, because I don't quite know yet, but the characters make me laugh and wince and I love hanging out with them.  And I'm working on a full-length musical which has been an 18 month project so far and I'm only a little more than half-way through.
 
Thank you, Kathleen!!!

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