I took
theater appreciation in College, not all that long ago. Going to live
theater wasn't really a thing for me prior to that, though I had seen
a bit through all the years of searching out Christmas Plays and
Kenneth Branag films. The past few weeks have seemed dramatic, but likely not to anyone who wasn't following what we have been doing here. It
occurs to me that those who don't know our story, the marquis reading
“A Triumph of Completing the House”, might not understand what is
happening now, in what appears not to be a one act play.
In a one
act play, the whole thing usually takes place in one corner of the
universe. There's something that happens there which has some of the
elements of other plays and the whole conflict and resolution are
found by the time the curtain comes down. I love a good black box one
act play. Minimalist, it is all about make believe and believing; and
I took a class, so maybe I appreciate it a bit more than some. But
it appears our triumphal house building and farm getting “play”,
if it is such a thing, is a bit more complex than just the one act. Now that we have a cliffhanger at the end of the first act
we've got to turn the page to see what happens. But lets appreciate
the first act during a short intermission.
In the first act
we had a dream of victory. We are celebratory and chose the new path.
We found, instead of a bright road lined with flowers, a dark thing,
something menacing lurked somewhere undefined. But we were committed,
in true heroic form, and we stood against the tide, jumped all
obstacles. About a month ago, we emerged from the deep dark forest of
fear and into the sunshine of our victory. Mid month last our house
was built, permits signed off, land cleared, and crops in harvest.
Curtain down, bring up the house lights. . .
It was a good
story. And it might have ended right there with everybody feeling
like it was fun, but maybe two bucks too expensive for the time spent
watching. But wait! In comes something unexpected, something
shapeless that appears to feed on those things we grew; something
that might just put another end over the happy ending . . . The
curtain is down so let's stretch the legs and maybe buy another drink
in the lobby. Fifteen minutes later we are deep into the Second Act.
If the writer was any good at all.
So here we all are. Ann and
I spent years clearing, cleaning, building, and spending cash money.
We're the protagonists and the world into which we inserted
ourselves, and appeared to prevail over in the first act. . . Didn't.
It all would have finally paid off, except it didn't. But this isn't
a one act play.
Production Note: I wrote an article claiming
that our farm was an “undeniable fact” around the middle of
August. It should have been a tip-off that something evil this way
comes. Mis- direction is key to good writing.
In the opening of the Second Act of
Part One, of a three part serial, we have a nameless, formless,
potentially amoral monster, who had been lying dormant, under the
surface, just waiting to be found at just the right moment. We found
it in the last moments of Act One. So Ann and I, happy and faithful
true in our ignorance, scratched at something innocent and boom: a
disaster that proposed the possibility of defeat from what was
obviously a victorious end. If my thesis is correct, this whole thing
is a dramatic form, we already know how it ends even if we don't know
how we will get there.
With only a little faith in my
premises, the conclusion is that we will win. Our Farm will continue.
Our lives will improve. We will bring people what they want and give
them what they need. Our original Act One goals will work themselves
into being despite the challenges ahead in the Second Act. Act Three
will be about looking back and stomping the last fires out. Then we
can start producing Act One of Part Two, if there ever will be such
a thing.
Every day we get up and work towards some long
termed thing we drempt up a decade ago. A lot of this work is as simple
as picking a tomato or raking some dirt. All of everything we have
done is along the road to somewhere else, perhaps something better.
Maybe in the current troubles at the beginning of Act Two we have
somehow lost sight of the good we are doing because we are caught up
in the dramatic bullshit we mostly wrote for ourselves.
The way we did things here was risky at
first. We thought that right would certainly prevail. And we thought
we'd get away with it. Then we thought we had gotten away with it,
and that didn't prove true at the end of Act One. But we all know
where this is headed. You couldn't write it any different. From
Cinderella to Diehard the story always takes on a form we seem to
know instinctively. Even without taking the class.
Keeping
all of the above in mind, for a moment, the questions we will ask as
we leave the theater are: What part did I play in this? Was I
audience? Sort of the point of the production was to find an
audience. Was I a minor player? No lines, but I walked in from
Stage Left on cue. Was my part that of a supporting actor? Can't
get it done without some real help. And what of the antagonist?
Are they evil, or merely supporting a system which in it has
challenges? Remember, the bad guys don't see themselves as bad or
your writing comic melodrama. We simply have no answers yet.
So
we'll all sit in the dark and watch as the curtain rises for the Second Act. Even the
actors behind the rising curtain don't know what will happen if they are good at it. But we
all know how it will end, the form of the play is undeniable.
I'm thinking you should grab that
second drink during this intermission and get back to your places. We
will need you and you are a help even if helping is only watching
this play out.
