Hyacinth Girl Reworked: Feedback Please (652 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.67 on 6 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by SpikeGoddess (View user info) at 2005-08-30 09:27:47 EDT
Hello Uber!
I reworked an old post of mine per a brilliant suggestion of GodChicken's and am turning it into a scene for my playwriting group. This is the first bona fide piece of dramatic text I've ever written, so I would really love some feedback from y'all before I go and have it read this evening at my group. Any comments would be helpful, but I'm particularly interested in the following:
What can you tell about the characters?
What feels unresolved?
Where can I heighten the tension/stakes/etc?
And of course, anything else that you feel compelled to critique.
It's unfinished and very rough, so don't hold back!
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SEAN:
It's funny...something about the rain maybe...
CATHERINE:
God, what now?
SEAN:
Well, we don't have to talk about it if you're going to be so negative.
CATHERINE:
I'm not being negative. I'm being productive.
SEAN:
What's the point of studying TOGETHER if we can't talk?
CATHERINE:
What's the point of studying together if we aren't studying?
SEAN:
Ok. (He takes off his glasses and starts packing up his things to leave.)
CATHERINE:
Sean, don't be so infantile.
(SEAN continues packing.)
Come on, stay. I didn't mean to offend you.
SEAN:
You didn't offend me. I'll see you at the final. (He picks up his things and goes toward the door. She stands and follows him.)
CATHERINE:
I'm sorry for being bitchy. What were you going to say? I'm not really getting through this stuff anyway...
SEAN:
I don't want to distract you.
CATHERINE:
(She moves a little closer to him)
You're a good kind of distraction.
SEAN:
(Retreating back to the sofas where they were sitting before)
I'll stay, but we can't talk. We have to study.
CATHERINE:
Ok.
(SEAN puts down his things, puts his glasses back on, and starts pulling out his books. CATHERINE watches him.)
SEAN:
What?
CATHERINE:
I didn't say anything.
SEAN:
You're looking at me like there's something...
CATHERINE:
I'm not looking at you in any particular way.
(SEAN shoots her a look and turns his attention to his books. She continues watching him. It takes all of the self-control he has to be able to keep his eyes on the page, but he manages to succeed in 'reading'. CATHERINE changes positions a few times, crossing and uncrossing her legs, shifting her weight from one hipbone to the other. Nothing breaks his concentration.)
CATHERINE:
Ok, I promise I'll shut up...Just tell me what you were going to say before.
SEAN:
When?
CATHERINE:
Something about the rain.
SEAN:
Oh, yeah. I was just thinking about how the rain has this effect of waking up memories, you know?
(pause)
CATHERINE:
You stole that from Eliot.
SEAN:
What?
CATHERINE:
The Waste Land. T.S. Eliot. "Memory waking rain"...or if it's not a direct quote it's at least a motif... Come on, don't sit there with your seven different journals and your pensive looks and your poetic aspirations and tell me that you have never read The Waste Land. It's just way too NYU cliché.
SEAN:
I have read the goddamned Waste Land.
(pause)
Let's just study, ok?
CATHERINE:
Ok. (pause) I'm sorry. I'm not being fair. There's only one quote I can remember accurately from that poem myself, and it's not about memory or water...
(pause. SEAN removes his glasses.)
CATHERINE:
What are you thinking about?
SEAN:
You.
CATHERINE:
What do you expect me to say to that?
SEAN:
I expect you to try to be clever or to say something caustic to avoid feeling uncomfortable. Like you do with everything.
CATHERINE:
What would I do without you? To think that I pay somebody to psychoanalyze me when you do it so brilliantly and don't charge a cent!
CATHERINE:
Sean, don't you think it's strange that the air inside of your body as you breathe has been other places? Inside other bodies, inside of trees, or pipes...
SEAN:
No.
CATHERINE:
Or the fact that you can't smell something unless those molecules are actually bonding with receptor sites and joining up with you? God, it's astonish—
SEAN:
Don't take the Lord's name in vain while holding a Bible. Even if it is for study purposes.
CATHERINE:
Very funny, Reverend.
SEAN:
I'm serious.
CATHERINE:
We're picking at each other like old fogies.
SEAN:
Old what?
CATHERINE:
FOGIES!
SEAN:
I haven't heard anybody say that word since third grade.
CATHERINE:
There are a lot of great words in the third grade lexicon that I think we need to resurrect. Old fogies...barf...butt-munch...
SEAN:
(laughing) Yeah, butt-munch is a good one!
CATHERINE:
(catches SEAN's laughter) I know!
(There is a moment of quiet after their laughter dies down. They look at each other. SEAN reaches to put his glasses on but they don't make it to his face. He holds them in his hands and his fingers unconsciously trace circles on the frames.)
CATHERINE:
You took your glasses off.
SEAN:
I only need them for reading.
(CATHERINE gives him a look. SEAN looks back but says nothing. CATHERINE softens her affect and her demeanor becomes almost apologetic.)
CATHERINE:
You're the only person I know who still wears glasses on a day-to-day basis.
SEAN:
I like my eyeballs to breathe.
CATHERINE:
Once I had this dream that I couldn't see and it was one of the most terrifying experiences...Everything was blurry and I had no idea where I was, how to prepare for what was coming at me. I'd have to wear contacts if my vision went out. Not seeing was too frightening.
SEAN:
You'd get used to it.
CATHERINE:
It's me.
SEAN:
Yeah, I see your point. Maybe you wouldn't.
CATHERINE:
Yeah.
SEAN:
You also put too much stock in your dreams.
CATHERINE:
Was that comment literal or metaphorical?
SEAN:
Take it any way that seems appropriate. So what's the one line you remember?
CATHERINE:
The one line of what?
SEAN:
The Waste Land.
CATHERINE:
Why?
SEAN:
Just curious.
CATHERINE:
Bullshit.
SEAN:
Not bullshit.
CATHERINE:
You've been thinking about that this whole time.
SEAN:
Like I said, I'm curious.
CATHERINE:
'You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
'They called me the hyacinth girl.'
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Then there's some German that I can't remember...
User Reviews
Submitted by SpikeGoddess (user info) at 2005-08-30 16:06:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Thanks Gang!
Submitted by shandythedog (user info) at 2005-08-30 10:00:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
SEAN:
I have read the goddamned Waste Land.
how about:
"I've read the fucking Waste Land"
?
seems a bit snappier to me.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2005-08-30 09:45:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by GodChicken (user info) at 2005-08-30 09:37:53 (#)
Ranking: 2
Promote the body language of the woman, it is currently missing far more than the man's.
Where's the tug to lower her skirt? where's the nervous gesture of tucking her hair behind her ear?
The dialogue is fine for the type of relationship and scenery you've created here but SHE is not giving off enough body language signals to make him as uncomfortable as he seems to be.. she should seem a little more physically familiar, or at least aggressive. It would match her dialogue.
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Not too obvious though. You don't want to ruin the repressed emotion and desire with Dawsons Creek-esque overstatement. It's theatre dammit, have a little faith in your audience.
OR you could tottaly flip the scene around with her making a play and being 'rejected' and then him making a play and being 'rejected' and then a micro conflict leading to tragic unfullfillment!
That'd be wicked bad!
Submitted by vergedor (user info) at 2005-08-30 09:42:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Good tension between the characters... seems like a real relationship to me
Happy to see you are still alive and well and creative.
Submitted by GodChicken (user info) at 2005-08-30 09:37:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Promote the body language of the woman, it is currently missing far more than the man's.
Where's the tug to lower her skirt? where's the nervous gesture of tucking her hair behind her ear?
The dialogue is fine for the type of relationship and scenery you've created here but SHE is not giving off enough body language signals to make him as uncomfortable as he seems to be.. she should seem a little more physically familiar, or at least aggressive. It would match her dialogue.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2005-08-30 09:35:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Needs an ending (obviously) but there's so much oppurtunity for the actors to bring the subtext of the dialouge to the fore. Tell me, is this an assesment piece? Is it a single scene or part of a full length production?