An extreme close-up with uncertainty and unease #Playwright #Screenwriter #Author

When I began writing Crazy Plastic Love two years ago I wanted to explore relationships “the lived in experience”. Questioning how I could look at the subjects of truth, lies and love closer to expose the characters’ true nature. Life up close and personal, if you like. I believe I did that by enticing the audience with a sinister piece of artwork and the supernatural, taking us into unfamiliar and familiar territory.

I believe it was David Lynch who once said he, ‘Lives in extreme close ups, looking at a thing closer exposes their true nature.’

I wanted the audience to feel uncertainty and unease in different parts of the play reading. I hoped to draw them in with the unknown quality of the supernatural which of course took them through a mysterious passageway of unformed dialogue and explored the unsolved message of what if.

The relationships within the play are complicated with adultery, addiction and mental health all being explored, but not fully, each shift persuading the audience to engage in mental activity. Be uncomfortable. Be Uneasy. Be drawn in to the connection that you might experience from your lived experience. I was successful in doing this because many of the audience members shared their experience with me at the end of the performance. A connection had been achieved.

As I now work through the final draft of the play for stage submission I find myself in the space of understanding my work is more and more in a similar vein to David Lynch. I don’t want the end to be polished or perfect, in fact, I don’t want it to be fully formed at all. When you can’t comprehend everything it leaves the viewer curious. When the parts are not fully formed or made easy to understand the work is more mysterious. And I don’t want everything to be spelled out for the audience. Perhaps the vague endless finish of this play has now become even more uneasy, undetermined and I did that for a reason. That is, if nothing else, to help the audience be open to the hectic nature of the life to come. The atmospheric pressure of lingering emotional density of the characters’ future experiences.

I certainly didn’t want to create a play that was fully formed throughout, not even at the end. No. Is your life fully formed? Is your every day going to be logical and planned out perfectly? What issues are you experiencing right now? Are you perfectly formed? A car accident can change a life. A promotion can change the way we do business. A death, a birth, or perhaps even our childhood development will not allow us to be perfect because stuff happens during and after the phases, birth to second teething, second teething to adolescence and adolescence to adulthood. Some of us are indecisive, some instinctive, sometimes we’re confusing, and a lot of the unknown is yet to come. See, not fully formed.

The wonderful part about The Arts Centre Gold Coast Playwright Program 2017 is working with other industry specialists, the actors, the director, and most importantly having the audience participate and provide feedback. All of which made me even more determined to deliver a play for the stage that would not only entertain but encourage the audience to be aware of the fabric of human existence, our fragility and understand the sacrifices we make to emotional bonds, and perhaps help to explore something profound within us all. It’s a little CRAZY, a little PLASTIC but has a whole lot of LOVE woven in.