Revisions

April 2, 2008

What tumult for a fine sweet spring day!

The reading of Edward in Hollywood was not particularly a success. From what Pavel implied, the actors were under-rehearsed, under-prepared, and perhaps a little unsympathetic to the script. In addition, he reports that lighting made every mistake it conceivably could. I don’t know why there WAS lighting at a casual reading. The actor playing Mortimer had a good deal to say about the script, but it sounded like the blame-placing of an actor who was unprepared and didn’t do well. One of my goals is actor-proofing, but I cannot possibly anticipate all the ways an actor can go astray. A couple of other people had comments, which Pavel reported. None of them seemed actual–that is to say, actually a fault in the script-- so I ignored them and put the event down as something which might bear fruit in the future. But I woke this morning feeling as if I had been contemplating those critiques all night. I summoned Edward to the screen, revising widely if not massively, tweaking here and there, fixing things which had bothered me during its run here, even following some of the advice sent to me from Hollywood, thinking it could as well be a way that didn’t arouse criticism as a way that did. Some criticisms– "the soliloquies are too long"– are reflexive and asinine, but, if you can write the scene so even a dumbshit audience cannot make one particular dumbshit observation, why not do it? I sent the revision to Sid and my actors in New York. Within fifteen minutes–after my not hearing from any of these people for months–B was on the phone foaming at the mouth for being left out of the loop, practically weeping over my–what? Malice? Insubordination? Cruelly manifest desire to wreck his life and his production? That my sending out revisions would be read as an act of violence never entered my mind. That I should have sent them to the producers first rather than to the people who were actually going to use them never entered my mind. I thought I was saving everyone time and bother. So I sent the revisions to B and J, with a note repeating I was sorry but also stating my conviction–rather mildly–that they had blown a gasket over nothing. B phoned with an apology. I accepted and assured him all was forgotten. I don’t fully understand what ignites that bunch up there, so I don’t know how to prevent future explosions. Perhaps my not letting this one go unchallenged will help.

Rented a U-Haul and brought a garage full of DJ’s and my junk to the Cantaria yard sale locale. I’d planned this for some future moment, but, as usual, precipitous action proved the better choice.

Planted my mail-order walking ferns in the wet loam of the back terrace. Dug weeds out with a trowel.