Thursday, November 17, 2011

The Phases of Balancing the Moon

Originally published in shorter form in LA Stage Times First Person.

Balancing the Moon is my first full-length play. Set in 1934, the story revolves around Jared Thornhill, a Freudian psychoanalyst who expects his wife Charlotte to put her poetry aside to type his academic articles. When an Irish love fairy possesses Charlotte and tries to teach Jared the ways of women, Jared learns he must tap into something much deeper than Freud to get Charlotte back.


The idea for the story came from Virginia Wolfe's 1929 book, A Room of One's Own. In it, Wolf presents the dilemma of the woman writer who has no money of her own; limitations imposed by her roles as obedient daughter, wife, or mother; and no time or quiet place to write.


Wolfe's book struck a chord with me, because this was something I, too was experiencing even 70 years later, as I juggled my day job and marriage to find time to write. And so it was that Balancing the Moon began as a serious drama, in which the main character was Charlotte Thornhill, a frustrated poet struggling to pursue her craft, constantly interrupted by her domestic obligation to support her husband's career.
When early scenes were read in my Philadelphia playwriting class with Michael Hollinger (Opus, Tooth and Claw, Incorruptible), my "serious" drama got laughs. When it kept happening, I had to accept that this play wants to be a comedy.  Since my favorite comedies have always been of the screwball/mannered ilk, my play naturally followed suit.  In grad school I had fallen in love with Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit after playing the role of Ruth Condomine.  Like "Blithe," Balancing the Moon has an unwelcome ghost and an eccentric medium named Madam Szymanski O'Brian, a respectful nod to Coward's delightful Madam Arcati.


Bringing Up Baby is my favorite screwball film, and I was delighted to learn it was written by a woman (Hagar Wilde).  Charlotte's loquaciousness certainly came from Susan Vance (Katherine Hepburn), and Jared was all the more the science nerd because of Dr. David Huxley (Cary Grant).  Oh, and of course, there just had to be a man in a negligee!
From A Room of My Own also came my inspiration for Jared.  In it Woolf holds up the the ideal writer as someone with an "androgynous mind." She gave high laurels to poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge for having this quality. This idea became the genesis of Jared's lost thesis on "psycho-sexual balance." It just so happened that Coleridge was a Romantic poet, who celebrated the awe of primal nature untamed. Since Charlotte was a poet, Coleridge became her favorite, and throughout the play she frequently quotes from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and other poems.  The androgyny theme also worked well with the negligee!



A big challenge I encountered was the fact that with Charlotte becoming possessed by the fairy in the second act, I was essentially eliminating her character from the play - a major structural flaw. I had a great deal invested in Charlotte, so it was difficult to "let her go." But I soon realized it was much more interesting to explore the damaging effects patri-centric society has on a man. Thus the play became a screwball comedy with Jared as the main character. Charlotte's artistic struggle remained, and is a key part of the story, but it was Jared's transformation driving the play.



Since Jared was to be a psychoanalyst, I started reading Sigmund Freud, and revisiting his profound influence on early 20th century culture. His relationship with Carl Jung I found particularly interesting, especially their famous "break-up" over Freud's emphasis on the sexual theory.
A self-professed scientist and atheist, Freud was uncomfortable with Jung's interest in spiritualism. It seemed to me that Jared was of two worlds, both Freud and Jung, both science and the occult. To up the stakes, I took the latter a bit further, and made Jared a "latent" wizard, too.


As my writing progressed, I continued to get the strange feeling that the play was "telling" me what to write, and I even explored the source of creativity in the play - where does it come from?  Is it supernatural, psychological or both?  Jung offers his explanation in a monologue drawn almost verbatim from his 1930 book, "Psychology and Literature." In it, he refers to the poet as a "seer," which I found fascinating.




I had the title Balancing the Moon from the start, which kind of guided me like a little light. At first the title related to Charlotte's struggle and the cosmic influences of the moon on women. Then it both figuratively and literally became directed on Jared, as he re-embraces his theory of psycho-sexual balance, and tries to unravel the "mystery" of the female psyche. In mythology, the moon represents the ideal marriage of earth and sky, male and female, but it is also a powerful image of the Goddess - a force Jared both fears and lacks.

Workshop readings had a huge impact on the play. They allowed me to finally "hear" the words and get them out of my head, and I received invaluable feedback. Putting a work on stage in a workshop performance is the final step. Director Wynn Marlow offered valuable feedback on the script before rehearsals began. And watching the wonderful actors in this production breathe life into my characters has been an absolute thrill! The audience has also been a huge part of this process, letting me know when what the play "told" me was right.

Balancing the Moon has its final workshop performance on Sunday, November 20th at Zombie Joe's Underground Theatre at 7:00 p.m. Tickets are $15. For reservations call (818) 202-4120.

A shortened version of the above article appeared in the LA Stage Times and was published on Oct 28th. http://www.lastagetimes.com/2011/10/the-phases-of-balancing-the-moon/

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