Seeking Shakespeare

Just to add another one to all my complaints and bitching. The last couple of weeks have been very unproductive. I’m looking to blame something. The weather? I know that I’m the only one to blame but as a (failed) writer it is almost impossible to recognize that.

I contacted an old friend recently to promote my blog and particularly my new podcast and her response about the site was, although it’s been more then ten years since we communicated on any regular basis, she remembered some of my old titles.

That word “old” made me think about how unproductive I’ve been over the years. Where does a writer draw the line of productive and unproductive? Sometimes I sit around for hours at my desk, starring at a screen or an open notebook and nothing happens. I reach for my pencil and jot down a few words. For example, I wrote this post first in my notebook this morn. Other days I write for hours only to realize that I wrote so much I can’t remember what it was about.

Perhaps it’s the dreaming that make its all so bad. I didn’t just dream of being a playwright, for example, I acted upon it. I produced my own work – because no else would. Although I can’t say I had a “success” I can comfortably say that none of my plays actually failed. There was audience response both during and after the productions. I guess I just didn’t get in with the right crowd. Or. There are too many playwrights.

Clear head. A cup of coffee and a smoke. Or a herbal tea and a fuck. Head clear. And now? The thoughts of words come again. They always cum. Today my thoughts said, just sit down and forget about everything. Forget the podcast. Just write. Write “Peter and the Producer”. It’s all there. Just write it.

Then… the failure as a playwright.

The scanned pic below is an article from sometime in the 90s. The author of the article is Andreas Rossmann. Unfortunately I don’t know what newspaper it is from. I do remember that it was given to me by a colleague who sympathized with my struggle to write for the (any) theatre. This is one of those rare pieces of info that I’ve collected and failed (there’s that word again) to file properly. Oh well. My best guess now is that it is from a Feuilleton section in either the Suddeutsche or the FAZ.

Here is my rough translation of the red marked area of the scanned pic. Remember, this is from the 90s, this is from Germany – a place where I thought I could make it as a playwright.

Article title: Seeking Shakespeare

“The dilemma continues in detail: there is no continuity granted to a playwright, although he is the only one who carries the risk of a production. This is obvious not in the number of premieres but instead in the readiness to perform new plays. Models promoting exactly that were set up, without, of course, addressing the problem first. It didn’t matter if it was the Forum Stadtpark in Graz that was commissioning the writing of new plays, or Schauspielhaus Wien that was trying to pay it’s deficits with musicals, then there’s Schauspielhaus Koblenz where the “Probe-bühne 2” (secondary stage) would have to give up some of its high expectations, or perhaps in Munich in Marstall where a workshop was setup for writers. Everywhere there is a danger that new plays (or perhaps new theatre) will be pushed off the edge to experimental theatre.”

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