Two Script Reports

[In the 1980s and ’90s, I did some freelance script-evaluating for several theater companies in New York City and one in Washington, D.C.  I was one of many script-readers at each theater, and our job was to be the first step in the evaluation process before, often, first a “distinguished” panel, and then the theater’s literary manager and artistic director stepped in. 

[The script-reading routine was generally the same at all the theaters.  The readers stopped by the theater’s admin offices and picked up about a half-dozen typescripts from the dramaturg or literary manager; usually, we had to sign out the scripts so the dramaturg/lit manager knew where they were when they were out of the office. 

[(In the theater—as opposed to the film industry—the playwright retains ownership of his or her script even when a theater agrees to produce it.  Most theaters returned rejected scripts if the writer provides a self-addressed, stamped envelope—though with today’s electronic transmissions, I’m sure that practice has changed some.  In any case, the theater is responsible for the typescripts it receives.)   

[The readers took the scripts home (usually for a specific number of days), read them, and wrote an evaluation of each play based on the criteria the theater has established for the kind of play they’re interested in considering.  (The Theatre Communications Group used to publish an annual Dramatists Sourcebook that provided information about its member theaters regarding who accepts unsolicited submissions, what kind of play they produce, and to whom to address submissions and inquiries.  The book hasn’t been updated since 2010, but the information is often available on the theaters’ websites.)    

[We filled out an evaluation form each theater devises—though I usually duplicated the form on my word processor so I could write up my eval on the computer instead of by hand or on the typewriter.  (Raise your hand if you remember typewriters!)  Another reason for transferring the eval form to my computer is that I had a copy of the report for my own files without having to stop by a copy shop every week to make copies and store them in a hard-copy file.   

[One of the theaters for whom I read was The Gypsy Road Company which conducted an annual playwriting contest, the 21st Century Playwrights Festival.  That’s what I read scripts for, and one particular play stood out in my mind for the 24 years since I read it.  (I made reference to this play in the introduction to Article 1 of “Staging Our Native Nation,” posted on Rick On Theater on 24 March 2018.)

[This script is Call the Serpent God to Me by a young writer named M. Elena Carrillo.  The drama focuses on a Hispanic girl in El Paso coping with family oppression and abuse.  I don’t know very much about Carrillo except that she’s from south Texas. is a Tejana, and was a grad student at the University of Texas, El Paso, when she wrote Serpent God. 

[I also don’t know what happened with her play beyond my evaluation, except that it was honored as one of 10 outstanding scripts.  (Gypsy Road required us to write a letter to the playwright with our evaluation—presumably in softer terms than we might have used with the theater’s personnel.  Mine is included below with the eval report.)]

CALL THE SERPENT GOD TO ME

by M. Elena Carrillo

Gypsy Road Company

21st Century Playwrights Festival

9 May 1996

  

Summary:  The Serpent God of the title is Quetzalcoatl, the principal Aztec god usually represented as a feathered serpent.  Call the Serpent God to Me is about the conflicts between the ancient Aztec culture, Mexica, personified by Papane Tranquilo; and the Catholic Spanish culture of the conquistadors, represented by Mamá Domitila and Papá Fernando.  There is also a sort of contemporary Tejano nihilism espoused by the doomed Javier, a young gang member. 

Caught in the midst of this cultural maelstrom is Esperanza, granddaughter of Papane, daughter of Mamá and Papá, and sister of Javier.  More than anything, Espie wants to go to college but her parents won’t recognize her abilities or her value.  They place all their hope in Javier, refusing to see what he is or even that he has no respect for them or their world. 

Papane Tranquilo guides Espie with the wisdom of the old beliefs, and the gods and spirits of Aztec lore appear in dance-like imagery throughout the play.  As counterbalance, so do a representation of Domitila’s Lamentation—a kind of Catholic spirit/conscience—and Fernando’s Diablo, his devil.  (These figures are all wordless, but not silent.)  Though the script reads on the page like Realism, in performance it will be more like Surrealism.

(I don’t know if this is significant, though I suspect it is: the main characters’ names almost all have symbolic meanings.  Tranquilo means ‘quiet’ or ‘peaceful’; Domitila means ‘mistress of the house’; Fernando means ‘bold adventurer’ or ‘conqueror’; Esperanza means ‘hope.’  Only Javier confuses me in this context: his name means ‘castle,’ which I suppose could be understood as ‘fortress’ or ‘redoubt.’)

Critique:  Carrillo has a very interesting voice and her invocation of Aztec, Catholic, and contemporary secular figures (the last include a Professor, a Policeman, and a school principal) promises some excellent theatricality.  The conflict among the forces essentially vying for Esperanza’s allegiance is an interesting dramatic focus, and Carrillo never gives away which force will win.  In fact, Espie pretty much defines her own route to happiness in the end, though the influence of Papane Tranquilo is most tenderly dealt with. 

You can be sure that the images of Aztec gods will result in some wonderfully colorful and theatrical designs, and their dance-like “scenes” (there’s also music throughout the text; Carrillo calls the play “a folk ballet”) will add much non-realistic movement to the staging.  Call the Serpent God to Me (possibly an awkward title) shows definite promise for a terrific—and visually beautiful—production.

Serpent God’s one draw-back—more or less a problem, depending on your point of view—is the amount of Spanish dialogue Carrillo uses.  Papá, for instance, speaks no English in the play, and other characters often converse entirely in Spanish for as much as half a dozen lines.  As important as this is for Carrillo’s dramaturgy, I can’t help but fear that it will be hard for spectators who, like me, don’t understand Spanish.  A reading before an Anglo audience would provide some clue about how much may be lost, and perhaps Carrillo can find a way to lessen the amount of Spanish in the text without damaging her point.

Recommendation:  Second Read

Suitability for public reading series:  Yes

Comments:  I say this because the script is good enough for a public reading, but there are two factors that may make one ineffective.  First, as I mentioned above, there is a lot of Spanish (requiring actors fluent in Spanish for all major speaking roles).  A non-public, test reading would be valuable to determine if this is a real problem.  Second, there is a good deal of non-verbal theatricality that is important to Carrillo’s work.  The visual impact of the wordless characters and the movement aspects of the spirit figures’ appearances will all be lost in a mere reading of stage directions.  (Without these elements—not to mention the music—the play will sound pretty much like a Realistic script, which is definitely a misconstruction.)

(If I may be permitted a personal comment, I’d like to say that, from a purely gut-response perspective, I really like this script.  My hesitation to rate it a finalist straight out is based solely on the language issue.  Though on a realistic level I don’t know if it can be produced successfully for a general audience (as opposed to, for instance, the bilingual audiences of the Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre or the Repertorio Español), its appeal is such that I would love to give it a try somehow.  I don’t know how much developmental work GRC does on prospective scripts, but if you have the facility to work out any problems this text might pose, my recommendation is to do so.  Of course, if the problems are all in my own mind—all the better!)

CALL THE SERPENT GOD TO ME

by M. Elena Carrillo

Reading your script was a great pleasure!  The juxtaposition of Aztec, Catholic, and Tejano cultural elements provides a unique perspective that makes reading Serpent God a constant surprise and keeps the reader—and most likely, an audience—intrigued and rapt.  The incorporation of the images of Aztec gods, as well as the figures of Domitila’s Lamentation and Fernando’s Diablo, gives the script a theatrical aspect that is also theatrically provocative.  The addition of appropriate music as you call for should make Serpent God a truly magical theatrical experience.  The only appropriate comparisons for this piece are non-Western: Kabuki, Beijing Opera, Kathakali—all highly theatrical, multi-disciplinary forms.

There is only one aspect of Serpent God that is troublesome, and that only from a production (as opposed to playwriting) standpoint.  You use a great deal of Spanish in your dialogue.  Though you admonish us that this will not be a “barrier to a non-Spanish speaking audience,” the length and significance of some of the extended passages are a concern.  The dramatic importance of your use of Spanish is clear—there is no dispute about your reasons for doing it—but is there any way that the potential for losing parts of a general audience can be lessened?  Can, for instance, Esperanza (or some other character) “translate” more of the Spanish for us, say by responding in English more or otherwise commenting on what’s being said?  Even if this sacrifices somewhat the impact of the Spanish dialogue, it may pay off by keeping your non-Spanish speaking spectators in touch with the text.

Please do not think for a moment that the concern about the Spanish dialogue is in any way a criticism of your playwriting or even of Call the Serpent God to Me as a piece of theater.  The concern is purely practical with respect to an audience outside a community like that in southern Texas where Spanish is part of the culture, even among Anglo-Americans.  Artistically and theatrically, you have produced a remarkable piece of writing.

*  *  *  *

[Another play I read that has stuck with me all these years was from the Arena Stage in Washington.  In 1985-86, Arena was one of the theaters participating in the FDG/CBS New Play Program.  (The initials stand for the Foundation of the Dramatists Guild, the playwrights’  professional association, which administered the now-defunct program, and the Columbia Broadcasting System television network, which funded it.)  

[The goal was to encourage the production of new plays around the country by regional rep companies by subsidizing a play contest for unsolicited manuscripts.  The theaters received $15,000 to defray the cost of running the contest and hiring reader-evaluators like me.

[Once again, we were the first rung on the ladder.  The FDG/CBS program lined up five regional theaters each season.  (I recall that the life of the program was finite, something like five or ten years, and then simply expired.)  The reward was a production during the next season for each regional winner, plus $5,000 for the author; a national winner split $10,000 with the theater.  

[Herman Raucher’s Littlefield’s Book intrigued me because, as I say in the evaluation, it’s “very interesting, funny, and surprising; different.”  Raucher (b. 1928), who’s better known as a screenwriter, is the author of the screenplay for Summer of '42, a critically and popularly successful 1971 film, and the subsequent novelization that was an instant bestseller.

[I don’t know what happened to Littlefield’s Book after I submitted my eval.  There’s no record of the play on the ’Net, so I assume it didn’t go on to production—at least not one that left a footprint after the Internet was established.  Raucher apparently effectively retired from writing in the ’80s—around the time he wrote this script about a man’s struggle with the deaths of his loved ones and his own sanity.]

LITTLEFIELD’S BOOK

by Herman Raucher

Arena Stage

FDG/CBS New Play Program 1985-1986

9 November 1985

Gut reaction:  Very interesting, funny, and surprising; different

Synopsis (2 or 3 short sentences):  Josh (short for ‘Joshua,’ Hebrew for ‘Jesus’) Littlefield’s book is a new version of the Bible.  While he’s writing it, he unites with his parents, wife, and daughter—all long dead.  He considers whether to stay with this living lover or return to his dead family, with Jesus as his adviser.  He chooses his family.

Please give this play a rating from 1 (worst) to 5 (best):  5

What is the play’s genre:  Fantasy – surreal tragicomedy (?)

Number of characters:  2 males; 6 females; 1 extra

Any unusual production demands?  1 female is 12 years old

Please rate these elements from 1-5, with page numbers of examples: Pick any 10-12 pages, especially Act II – it’s all different and keeps getting better.

            Plot  5

            Character  5                             

                                                           

            Dramatic tension  5                  

                                                           

            Language  5                             

            Theatricality  5

Assuming this play is of interest to Arena, how much revision do you think is needed to bring the script to production quality?

One revision (mostly trimming)

Should this play be considered further for the FDG/CBS project?  Yes

Is this playwright of interest to Arena?   Yes   Why?  The guy can write, he’s got style and imagination. He’s also already “established.”

Other comments:  Describing this play is impossible.  It has elements of Oh, God; Pennies from Heaven; Blithe Spirit; It’s a Wonderful Life—all with sophistication, wit, and unpredictability.  It may offend religious purists—the folks who got exercised over Jesus Christ Superstar.  The first scene with Jesus (Act II, scene 8 to ACT II, scene 19) is hilariously irreverent.