September 31st, 2022 The Perfect Second Act

 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.