HOME |
MUSIC EVENTS |
FAMILY EVENTS |
ART EVENTS
THEATRE |
MOVIES |
UPCOMING EVENTS
ARCHIVES |
ABOUT |
ADVERTISE |
CONTACT |
DISTRIBUTION
entertaining u newspaper: your monthly guide to entertainment
<<
Movin' Out
|
Main
|
Evita
>>
|
|
By Alun Montgomery
It's easy to think of a filmmaker transitioning to playwriting for the stage as one would a rock guitarist gravitating toward acoustic blues or even classical guitar. But rather than flirting with pseudo-purist gimmickry or engaging in a specious "back-to-the-woodshed" exercise, some earnest artists take an unexpected turn when looking to find their real voice and gift.
But don't tell that to playwright Jay Huling. Whatever serious subtext or commentary on the human condition his plays may contain, ultimately it's about the fun. From concept to synthesis to execution, the process is one of discovery and delight that has its own internal compass. Good stories write themselves, he'll tell you. Don't believe that either.
|
|
It's appropriate that in describing the language in Huling's Twelve Bar Blues, it's impossible not to sound like a classic beer commercial: crisp, refreshing-and yes, even "sparkling, flavorful, distinctive". But that's just what it is. The words just crackle and jump off the page. It's a very funny read, and it's not hard to imagine what an enjoyable night of theater its performance would offer in the hands of an accomplished troupe. It's also easy to see that a lot of folks writing for the screen today could benefit from taking a page from his "playbook".
A youthful filmmaking prodigy, Huling was steeped in and greatly influenced by the sketch comedy shows of the 1970s. While exploring film studies tracks at Florida State, Flagler College, and Florida Southern University, Huling decided to audition for Jacksonville University's Theater program. Though they had film classes, they offered no degree; but they did offer a playwriting program that seemed to be an answer to an unspoken wish. A scholarship offer cinched the deal, and so began an enduring passion.
Graduating in 1989 with BFA in Theater, Huling plied his craft while nurturing a parallel-and successful-career in advertising. Now Creative Director for Jacksonville's Hoffman Agency, the playwright is currently enjoying the buzz surrounding the opening of his newest play, Twelve Bar Blues, produced by the Vagabond Players at North Hollywood's Raven Playhouse.
Recently, Jay shared his thoughts with me on where his ideas and inclinations spring from.
EU: What are your earliest memories about where and how your craft was nurtured?
Jay Huling: I'd always been that artistic kid, like a lot of kids are, drawing comic books and writing stories and whatever. But I just kind of never grew out of it. When I was growing up, my dad would make these 8mm home movies, and he would do the typical thing people would do: somebody's birthday, or Christmas, or whatever. But he would actually end up making little 3-minute stories that we little kids would act out-in my Halloween costume or whatever. And as I got older, around 12 years old, I started making those little films myself, just making bits of comedy and 3-minute stories with a beginning, middle, and end. And finally, my parents bought me an editor, so I was actually splicing the film. I was 12-years old and making my films. Long before we had video, I was working with actual film. So I just kept kind of doing that; I had always wanted to get into it, and then it kind of moved more towards just the writing of things. You have more control when you're just writing as opposed to the whole production of it all. I liked that.
So when I got to JU, I just got more into theater, and then I was writing actual plays as opposed to screenplays. And it's just kind of been that way ever since.
EU: What've you found to be the biggest differences in the process between writing a play and a screenplay?
JH: Typically, we hear a play; we watch a movie. Screenplays are particularly visual; you tell most of the story in what you see. I don't know what the percentage would be, but if 80 percent of a film is visual, then 80 percent of a play is audible. There are more things you have to deal with when you're writing a play because you're writing it to be performed on a stage, and there are limitations to what can actually be done in storytelling. Whereas in a screenplay, if you want to show your person saying, "the bad guys are in Vegas, we've got to go to Vegas", they can get on a plane and fly there, then the next thing you know your in Las Vegas, and they're chasing the guys down the street. You really don't have that whole world of storytelling at your disposal when you write a play; you have to just focus your actions primarily in one particular place, and that creates a whole new set of challenges.
EU: Tell me about how you begin the process: do you have to "prime the pumps" artificially, or do you wait until a story is just clamoring to be told before you commit fingers to keyboard?
JH: Actually-I don't know if other writers are this way, but-I don't really have a problem coming up with ideas. I have a problem coming up with good ideas, though. But I'm constantly having ideas about what might make a funny play: a funny setting, or some other good thing. At some point, I'll usually have some strange idea about something, and I think, "well, that'd be a cool play, I'd like to do that." And then it just sits there in my mind along with a hundred other ideas, and at some point, I'll combine a lot of these ideas together. And I end up coming up with writing whatever I write. Once I really get excited about a concept or an idea or thought I want to communicate, then it's just more about the craft of working it out.
EU: Though this is an important milestone, to be sure, it's obviously not your first success.
JH: The first one I ever had done was a one-act called Trilogy for Two. It won the Premiere Performances International Playwriting Contest, which they then produced at the Pennsylvania Playhouse in 2002. That was the first real professional success I had had. I'd been writing things and sending things out for a long time, in playwriting contests, and I'd been a finalist, or semi-finalist…I'd done a lot of things and gotten a lot of good responses, but never actually pulled one in until that. And then I won that one, and then from there, I guess, it's really just taken off, so that other plays have been done and I've won other contests. Even plays that had been rejected for years were all of a sudden starting getting done. And even Trilogy for Two was written a long time before somebody decided to do it. A lot of people decided to pass on it.
EU: Nothing succeeds like success, does it? Especially when it comes to promoting your work.
JH: If you've ever been in a literary agent's office at a theater, he's probably got 500, 800, a thousand plays stacked around him that people have sent him. And the reality is that there's usually not enough staff-it's usually just one or two people that read everything, and they have to make decisions on what they're going to read. And they give it maybe a few seconds to decide whether or not the want to pursue reading this thing, but if your cover letter comes with all these credentials and you've had all this other work done, they might be more easily convinced to take the time to read it. Reality forces them to make decisions on what they're going to pursue, just because there are so many things out there.
EU: Tell me about 12 Bar Blues: what was its genesis, where did it come from?
JH: I like to explore human behavior using comedy to communicate with extremes. And again, it's a thing where I'm always having different ideas. But I'm looking for a place that would be a funny setting that I can keep my characters in one place at one time. I thought in a bar, I could have a good setting where all the action could take place right there. And on top of that, I always loved the sketch comedy shows from the '70s when I was growing up, like The Carol Burnett Show or The Dean Martin Show, And like the short films I used to make-- the short comedy sketches that were self-contained a beginning, middle, and end within themselves as opposed to a stand up routine or a ten-minute play-I found that interesting and I thought I could do this with a whole bunch of comedy sketches happening within one play. And then, the idea of somehow putting it in a bar and then doing twelve of them and calling it Twelve Bar Blues, it all kind of came together, and I kind of got excited about it-because I kind of came up with that concept before I wrote it, and I thought, "Ooh, that'd be cool: 12 comedy sketches in a bar and calling it Twelve Bar Blues; let me do that!"
So no; from a creative standpoint, it's not like writing a letter or a memo; it comes from several different angles that you mix together.
EU: Talk about taking on a life of its own. Is there a common throughline through all your plays, common themes, a commonality of character development?
JH: I like issues of faith-I have a lot of plays that somehow deal with people's faith, whatever that faith might be in-whether it's a religious faith, faith in another person, faith in oneself or something-it's kind of a theme I have in a lot of my plays. Even in Twelve Bar Blues, it's not so much religious faith, but the things people kind of lean on, and crutches, and different types of human behavior I find funny. I do like to explore something serious, but attack it in a way where I use really over-the-top comedy, that is just really resting on this foundation of a serious subtext. And in Twelve Bar Blues, a lot of it is about social interaction and how we treat each other, how we want others to perceive us, how we perceive other people, and the masks that we wear to convince somebody else that we are what we want them to think we are. And so there's a lot of serious tone about how we treat each other in real life, but I do it in such an extreme comedy way. The comedy is there for people to enjoy, but if somebody stopped and thought about it, they might actually say, "you know, we are really that way."
I'll give you an example: in one of the sketches, a guy's on a blind date, and he's got a bag with him, and throughout the date, he's constantly reaching into his bag to hand his date something, asking her to change herself with it: like, "here's a blonde wig I want you to wear," and the lipstick he wants her to put on. And she's actually putting up with it. So the comedy's pretty extreme: we don't really do that, but actually, we kind of do.
EU: What's it like to see a theater company get a hold of your scripts and go to work on them?
JH: It's pretty exciting-there are lots of talented people out there, and I always find it best to try to stay out of it. There are a lot of playwrights who try to get involved and control everything, but I always try to allow the directors to direct and the actors to act, and the wardrobe people and the lighting people to do their thing. They're more talented at what they do than I am. But it's pretty exciting to watch it come to life, because that's ultimately why you write it. Plays are not really intended to read; you can read a play, but until it's actually performed on a stage for an audience, it hasn't really come to life yet. So you really need those people to do a good job. And I've been fortunate that so far almost all the things I've done, people have done a good job…with maybe a few exceptions…
EU: It's that excitement of seeing other possibilities coming to life, too, isn't it? Possibilities you hadn't originally envisioned?
JH: You always see something you didn't think about. I've been tweaking a play that was just recently done up in Tennessee, because when I was up there watching it, I noticed a couple of things that I didn't notice just reading it. I thought I could make minor tweaks, a few adjustments here, make some extra connections between characters, clarify something that it didn't seem the audience got, so it's always a great opportunity to fix something or improve something.
EU: And different audiences pick up on different elements, too, don't they?
JH: And that happens night after night, the exact same play in exactly the same location but with a different audience that reacts differently from the night before.
EU: I read the Vagabond Players' press release about Twelve Bar Blues, and it seems to me they're especially stoked about having an opportunity to work with this piece.
JH: They seemed to really jive on the comedy of it all, and they have a good ensemble of players-they do a lot of comedy; it's neat to look at some the things they've done, a lot of Neil Simon to some rather obscure plays as well. But I think this play kind of fits them well, because if you actually did it with the amount of characters written, you'd need about 28 people to mount the play. But it's written in a way where an ensemble can do it so a lot of people can play multiple roles, among 12 different sketches. It's good for them to where their core group of people can play several roles in one evening like you would expect of a sketch comedy. And you have action in a bar, and you have people coming and going in and out.
EU: So you haven't been directly involved with this particular production?
JH: No, I wrote it, and they wanted to do it, and now they're doing it. I'm thinking of getting out there perhaps toward the end of the run, and I think they have some kind of get-together. It's always nice to see them when you can. It was done in Indiana last year, at the Heartland Stage Company in Muncie, I did go to see it then, and it went over huge. It was really cool because they actually transformed their entire space into the set, or at least that was there plan. The play takes place inside a fictional bar called the Jungle Room. What they had done was to set up tables and chairs so the audience was in the Jungle Room and all the action was taking place all around them. And they were actually serving drinks during the play; if you were sitting there and wanted a beer, somebody would bring you one, and it was just like you were there at the bar watching this funny scene happen at the table next to you. It was a really neat concept, and they did that for the first night. But the play was so popular that they were getting more and more reservations and more and more requests for tickets and they didn't have enough seats because of this configuration. And they actually abandoned that idea and started pulling out the tables and setting up chairs to sell the tickets.
In the final analysis, not a bad problem to have to contend with. If you happen to be in Los Angeles between now and the end of March, check out Jay Huling's Twelve Bar Blues at the Raven Playhouse, 5233 Lankershim Boulevard, North Hollyood, CA. Call (818) 509-9519 for more information.
Article Published in the 03-08 Issue of EU Jacksonville
|
|
