This is the Voice

What kind of plays do you write?

Plays of desire.

(from the imaginary interview that constantly continues inside my head)

I was waking up this morning and standing at the toilet peeing.  That's when I figured out that the plays I write are plays of desire.  Twenty years of writing plays and I finally figure that out.  I used to think that the plays I write are plays of identity.  And that is fine.  I believe that identity fits into some of my plays, but not all of them.  But I just looked at all of my plays and I realized that desire is in all of them. Sexual desire.  The desire to belong or succeed.  Objectification.  The desire to be more.  The desire to have what everyone else has.  It's in every single one of my plays.  And I'm about to embark on a seven play series that's all about desire.  It's about coveting.  It's about wanting what someone else has.  So desire is consistent in my work.  It's also consistent in my life.  The feeling of desire, of wanting, of longing.  There's something seductive about that.  There's also a lot that's destructive about it as well.  But the feeling of desire is very much an aphrodisiac to me.

The origin of this epiphany came from an article I read announcing a TV project from a writer I know.  And I thought, "Wow, that's something I could write.  That's something I am writing about, but what I'm writing about takes it one step further."  There's a lot in the zeitgeist about sex and sexuality from an intellectual point of view.  I need to finish this play that I'm rewriting!  But something is definitely in the air.  So I was thinking about this writer and this project and I thought about how what I'm writing could be a great TV show (which coincidentally was an idea I had over a year ago and a brilliant friend of mine convinced me to write it as a play).  Then I thought about what that play is about and the word DESIRE popped out.  It also felt sexy.  My plays are about desire.  You can just see the smoke from the cigarette I'm smoking as I'm telling you that. You can feel the charge that's created when someone hears that.

And I don't know anyone who's writing those plays.  I don't know anyone who's writing the way I'm writing.  With an air of every day conversation and intimacy.  For me, besides theatricality, plays are there to talk about the things that people aren't talking about in ways they aren't talking about them.  Theatre is the forerunner.  It's the risk taker.  It's the pioneer.  You can do that in terms of form.  But you can also do that in terms of content.

So that's what I'm doing.  I always tell my students that writing is an exercise in finding their own voice.  It turns out that the task of finding your voice doesn't just end because you start using that voice.  It's the action of using your voice that helps you discover and experience your voice on a deeper level the more that you use it.