Words and Meaning

I can’t stop thinking about Christina Green, the nine-year-old killed during the mass shooting in Arizona. I can’t – or, more accurately, don’t want to – imagine what her parents are going through – so the thought that keeps tumbling through my mind like a sneaker in the dryer is that Christina was born on 9/11. If I had created that scenario in fiction, most editors would say it’s contrived. But it happened and it’s now part of the narrative that’s being told hour by hour.

This tragedy is a perfect example of the basic human desire for stories. We’re all watching the news trying to get answers, to make sense of senselessness. It’s a way of legislating against our existential fear of the unknown. Or at least that’s what it is for me. I don’t know if I became a writer because I seek meaning or seek meaning because I became a writer.

You couldn’t construct a better narrative – the moment conservatives take control of Congress, a tragedy that seems related to their own violent rhetoric stalls them.

Regarding that rhetoric, as a writer I reject – indeed, am offended – by the claim that it had nothing to do with the act of an unstable young man. As Hub Theatre artistic director Helen Pafumi said to me on the way to the airport, “I know it’s free speech, but here’s the guideline for politicians: if what they say could get the rest of us arrested in an airport, they shouldn’t say it.”

Regardless of whether Tea Party rhetoric had a direct effect or not on a kid having a psychotic break, words have meaning and they contribute to an atmosphere. In the Too Much Information Age, the easiest way to be heard above all the blather is to make the loudest and most outrageous statement. It’s an arms race of words and it can only lead to annihilation. So I’ll say it again, because it’s so simple and wise: If what a politician says could get the rest of us arrested in an airport, they shouldn’t say it.

There seems to be a feeling in the media – who are all storytellers – that we’ve reached a turning point. But life is lived forward and only understood in reverse, so we won’t know for a while how Christina Green , who was included in a book called Faces of Hope, will be seen as a symbol. As a writer and teacher of story structure, I see two possible outcomes in how history gets written here. In the tragic version, the Hope that was born on 9/11 – the feeling that united we stand – has been killed by the kind of divisive hate that also came out of 9/11.

Or else it becomes a myth of martydom – that it took the murder of an innocent child to finally get the opposing forces in this country to finally work together.

The story is ours to write.

Conflict Resolution

I've spent the last few days in Fairfax, Virginia stirring up conflict. Since Thursday, I've been working with the Hub Theatre on my play BIRDS OF A FEATHER, which tells the true story of the gay penguins so desperate for a chick they tried to hatch a rock at the Central Park Zoo, the hawks who threw bones and gristle out of a nest on a Fifth Avenue co-op, and the birdbrained human behavior they inspired. (The world premiere will occur July 15th in Fairfax, which is in one of the counties that protested the children's book about the penguins, AND TANGO MAKES THREE, the most banned book in the country three years in a row.)

I often start with theme as a writer, so I used the workshop with the director, producer, dramaturg and cast to focus on Acting 101 stuff - what the characters want and what obstacles stand in their way. It's the most basic element of drama, and yet it's rarely my entry point, both in life and in writing. For reasons too psychologically boring to mention, I've been someone extremely conflict averse. It's made me a nice guy - which is to say, frequently dishonest - but it makes me wonder whether I've backed down from challenges.

Think of it this way - the vacation that goes horribly awry always makes for the better story than the idyllic one. Because the nightmare trip has conflict. I'm not advocating looking for trouble, but avoiding it can make for a boring life story.

With that in mind, I have no story to tell about my weekend at the Hub - because there was no conflict. I stayed at the gorgeous home of a generous and gracious board member who is actually named Gay Beach (on a sidenote, it's a good thing she married the equally generous and gracious Billy Beach - she once dated someone named Barr); the creative team and cast couldn't have been more insightful and supportive in helping me find the play; and everyone got along. When I told the Hub's artistic director Helen Pafumi that she denied me a good story, she said it was by design. "I want everyone to save the drama for the stage," she said. "It's like improv: the only way forward is by saying 'yes.'"

Perhaps that's why one of the keys of success is building a coalition of like-minded people. You need a strong team to take on the inevitable conflicts.

And birds of a feather flock together.