Keep Your SASE

Keep Your SASE

words, tattoo
Christine Chun displaying word No. 1262 in Shelley Jackson’s Skin

The grrlz all now have a tattoo at the base of their spine. The vogue is a midriff-exposing top and low-riding jeans. The thong rises out of the back of the jeans almost as pedestal to display the art.

Fashion is fascist
the tattoo says as much about the dead eye of desire
reading the display
as it does about the playwright marketing his work.

I’ve been spoiled I guess. I came upon my first playwright the way Ishmael came upon Queequeg. His story and words, his script tattooed into his flesh and life in “mysteries not even himself could read.”

Queequeg was a strange bedfellow that first night, but still stranger was the obsessive journey of theatre that beckoned us all.

Keep your Self-Addressed Stamped-Envelope. I am not one who would traffic in the dead. My fellow traveler is the living word.

What is the process by which Queequeg’s coffin becomes Ishmael’s life buoy? This is the only dramaturgy I now explore.

2 thoughts on “Keep Your SASE

  1. I’ve always thought of the dramaturg as the equivalent of a cityplanner– he’s there to make sure that no one zone of the play grows too quickly, gets out of line with the character of the neighborhood and the city, and makes sure that the buildings and uses of the city are meshing with the the users of the building and the citizens of the city. Of course, this is in some kind of fictional ideal world that doesn’t exist. A cityplanner is also buffetted on every side by “real-world” forces, like the mayor, big business developers, outraged citizens, utility companies, and a host of other people. Hmmmm… maybe not so different.

  2. Hi Adam,

    Nice to hear from you. Hope you and your fleas are doing well. And how’s my friend Carlos?

    The cityplanner is too legit for me. I think many playwrights have correctly labeled that journey through readings and workshops as “developmental hell.” Frankenstein creations of a near dead theatre culture.

    Carlos was my dramaturg mentor in our trip across the country. Plays need to disrupt reality. You know how certain animals can puff themselves up, or posture themselves in a certain way, to look bigger than they really are. Or you know, the gunfighter needs to position himself with the sun to his back. No high noon shit. This play ain’t no Gary Cooper, so don’t delude yourself on its potential. But it is rock and roll, so let’s get it ready to party. And I know the perfect venue.

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