SET:
Act One might look vaguely like a classroom.
With Gothic windows and a big chalkboard.
And a rollaway ping-pong table.
And some chairs.
Microphones are scattered throughout the stage,
some on stands, some dropped from the ceiling.
In Act two, the trappings of the classroom give way to a bare stage.
The chalkboard becomes a sky
with a little portal.
PEOPLE:
SARAH (S) a teacher who becomes a student (age roughly between 35 and 45). Soft-spoken.
MAX (M) a student who becomes a teacher (age roughly between 20 to 25) Not soft-spoken.
*Ideas to further populate the world in the afterward.
A NOTE ON ACTING STYLES
The actors should imagine that they are inhabiting the voices of Sarah and Max.
And reading the language of Sarah and Max. When I say reading, that calls for emotion.
When I say voice, I mean the spirit of the letter.
I don’t mean reading in the dusty intellectual sense; I mean with full heart.
But the actors don’t have to pretend to be Sarah and Max--no need for imitation.
The actors don’t have to look anything like the people in life Sarah or Max. They do need to have humor and a profound connection to language.
And from Max’s literary executor, Elizabeth Metzger, this helpful clue: “When Max reads letters, the character is coming to face death, but when he transitions to read his poems, the character is not dying but being born, coming to life! The shock of Max’s performance style mirrors the strange wild aliveness of the poems on the page, somehow startling in the context of his illness.”
And don’t be afraid of humor. Max loved to make people laugh.
A NOTE ON COSTUMES
There are images of the original Max online (and the original Sarah) but no need to dress them accordingly as though the actors are impersonating characters. Feel free to ransack the closets of the actors themselves. M might wear glasses and something with flair; S might wear something under-stated. You can’t costume a relationship. Or a soul.
ONE. All I want to do is write.
S:
Max began as my student. This is how he began his application to get into my playwriting workshop:
Enter Max.
M:
Dear Professor Ruhl,
Thanks for reading this application. My name is Max Ritvo—I’m a senior English major in the Creative Writing Concentration. All I want to do is write.
S:
He said that he was a poet and a comedian, part of an experimental comedy troupe called
M:
His Majesty the Baby.
S:
A poet and he’s funny? Huh, I thought.
I re-read his application, which had been left by the teaching assistant to stew in the “no” pile because he’d never written a play before.
But-- because funny poets are my favorite kind of human being, I put Max in the yes pile.
Max reacts, with joy, perhaps whispers: Yes!
S:
It is hard to imagine now that Max could ever have remained in any other pile.
A shift.
S: Max walked into my first class and it was as though an ancient light bulb hovered over his head. (Who is this boy?)
M:
Dear Professor Ruhl,
I am writing because, before I had even realized that this wonderful class existed, I booked tickets for Einstein on the Beach—
(S gasps)
M:
at the Brooklyn Academy of Music for this coming Friday.
S:
Little did he know that I had longed to see Einstein on the Beach, but it was sold out.
M:
I am so so sorry—
S:
Nothing could have been more delightful to me than a student who had the foresight to book tickets to a difficult avant-garde theatrical epic.
M:
Might I have permission to miss class?
S:
Yes, you must see Einstein on the Beach, as long as you write a short report (no more than five minutes) on the experience of seeing the show. Maybe you can join us for the first part of class, then high tail it to Brooklyn.
M:
Dear Sarah,
S:
(it took two letters to drop the institutional formalities)
M:
The show starts at seven. I'm worried if I leave later I won't have time to properly get from Grand Central to eat something! The show is four hours long and I have to eat in a really regimented way to keep my weight up as a result of the chemotherapy I had in high school--more on that some other time.
S:
I now had part of my answer as to why Max was different from the other students, why (beyond being a poet) he’d already contemplated the big metaphysical questions—and why he was so skinny.
A shift.
Max delivered an insightful and detailed sermon to the class on Phillip Glass and Robert Wilson.
M:
And then a great tower of light descends…
S:
He was to have spoken for five minutes—
M:
And then this huge metaphysical cage appears--
S:
he spoke for about an hour without stopping.
M:
The most holy light--and then, in an almost Vedic incantation, the numbers begin: (singing or chanting in tone) 1234—
S:
A bright young woman in the class was horrified that a man was taking up an hour of her class time with Phillip Glass.
M: (singing or chanting in tone)
123456--
S:
The irritated young woman would become one of his best friends.
A shift.
M: I would really love to take you up on your offer of some post-graduating advice. What days are you in New Haven, and when would it be convenient for you to be a sage for half an hour?
They eat soup.
Or mime eating soup.
S:
We went to the local book-store café, Atticus, where we ate black bean soup. Max ate slowly.
You don’t like the soup?
M:
I love the soup.
S:
He explained that in high school he’d had Ewing’s sarcoma, and the chemotherapy made his digestion
M:
Iffy.
S:
Max slowly finished three spoonfuls of soup, then put his spoon down. He spoke about his--
M:
--dreams of becoming a poet—
S:
resting here and there to speak about—
--the trials of love.
S:
(A girl was probably plaguing him. A girl was often plaguing him.)
M:
My romantic life is falling apart.
S:
The semester wore on, with more deliciously coined phrases from Max in class, like:
M:
Theatrical onanism!
S:
(Wow!)
And:
M
Lyric complicity.
S:
Did you make that up?
He nods.
And more of the same leaves falling on the same Gothic campus.
Leaves fall.
S:
Then, this, addressed to me and our teaching assistant, Amelia:
M:
Dearest Sarah and Amelia,
Today was my cancer scanning day and an artefact was discovered in my right chest. We are waiting for more testing and surgical biopsy, but it’s possible that this is a recurrence of my cancer. I have every intention of carrying on with my work--I just wanted to forewarn you there might be some difficulties on the horizon. I can't say how much you've both come to mean to me in my short time learning from you.
If nothing else, maybe we'll squeeze a great play out of whatever comes of this.
Gratefully, Max
