Scenes from My Last Play
Why Governor General’s Award winning playwright Jason Sherman is in television now
SCENE 1. MY OFFICE AT HOME
The stage is bare, except for a couple of pieces of worn, gaffer-taped furniture. I sit at my desk, typing a letter on a laptop computer. The letter, composed on email, is projected onto the back bare wall of the theatre, and reads:“Dear A —, This is to inform you that I am resigning from the Playwrights Guild of Canada, effective immediately.” I press send, stare at the screen, drum my fingers on the desk. After a moment I click open a file. A page from a teleplay is projected onto the wall. I type some dialogue. My computer alerts me to an incoming email. It’s from A — and reads, “Dear Jason, It is a great loss for theatre.” I stare at the message. I type a reply: “Not so great. My annual dues only amounted to about 50 bucks.” My hand hovers over the send key. I press delete instead, then return to writing the teleplay. The stage darkens, leaving me illuminated by the light of the laptop.
Music plays: a mournful violin. The title of the play—The Statement—is projected onto the wall. It’s like we’re at the movies. The cast list appears, followed by the intertitle “Seven years earlier.”
SCENE 2. MY OFFICE AT HOME
I enter sorting through the day’s mail. I toss the bills and flyers onto the desk and slit open an envelope from my publisher. The letter is projected onto the wall. At the top of the page are the words “royalty statement” and the date. On the left are the titles of my published plays. On the right is a table showing the price of each volume, how many have been sold over the previous year and the accrued royalties. The total for all five titles is $791.91, including GST. I slip the attached cheque from the statement and sit down. I think about how many productions of my plays are planned for the new season. I think about how long I’ll be able to write plays before penury sets in. There are no projections on the wall.
SCENE 3. MY AGENT'S OFFICE
My agent is on the phone, or rather the phone is on my agent. He’s wearing a headset that brings to mind operators standing by. He looks up at me, uncertain as to my business before him.
MY AGENT [looking at me but speaking into the headset]: Where’s B —? ... What do you mean Edmonton? I need to talk to him.
My agent presses a button on the telephone console. I slip the royalty statement into his field of vision.
: Please get me some work in television.
MY AGENT [after a pause]: Playwrights and television ... playwrights and television ... [He rises, shaking his head and staring in wonder as he repeats the mantra.] Why... do you want to work in television?
ME: I’m broke. My plays aren’t making any money. It takes me two years to complete a play. If it sells out at the Tarragon Theatre, I make $10,000. That works out to $96 and change a week.
MY AGENT: But you’re very respected. You’re in Time magazine. You won a Governor General’s Award. American Theatre Magazine says you’re Canada’s best playwright. You’re in Who’s Who, The Canadian Encyclopedia and have been voted Best Local Playwright four times by the readers of —
ME: Yeah but —
I brandish the royalty statement. My agent grabs at the earpiece of his headset.
MY AGENT: You got B —? Okay, put him on. [He takes me by the elbow, leads me out of his office.] Trust me. Playwrights aren’t happy in TV. Too many compromises. You want to make money? Go into film. It’s more in your line. [Leaving me on the threshold, turning back.] B —? Yeah. Where you been? Cause I got some good news.
The door closes.
SCENE 4. A PUB, TORONTO
Projection : “The playwright attends a 40th birthday party for an actor friend.”
I sit at a table, my back against the wall. The room is small and narrow and filled with theatre actors, drinking beer and wine, exchanging war stories of auditions and rehearsals. One of them, known for his exuberant, manic performances, drops onto the chair next to me. He slaps my thigh with the back of his hand.
ACTOR: [exuberantly, as though greeting a long-lost school chum]: Hey! How you doing?!
ME: [in the reserved slightly ironic tone I adopted at roughly the age of 11]: I’m still standing.
ACTOR: [laughing, but uncertain as to why] Ha ha ha! You’re doing all right, though.
ME: Am I?
ACTOR: [no longer laughing, still uncertain]: Well, yeah—your name’s always in the paper. You’ve got productions all over the place. Awards. Great reviews. You’re a star!
I take a sip of my scotch.
Me: It’s funny you say that. There’s a large and ever-widening gap between that perception and the reality of my life in theatre. [I look at him; he seems curious to hear more.] The truth is that not one of my plays—and there are a dozen or more—is being produced at the moment, nor does it look like any one of them will be next season. Last season I had one production, which brought in $1,000. I have made what could reasonably be called a living in only two of my 15 years in theatre. I wish it were otherwise; I might have a reason to keep going. As for awards, good reviews—those dried up many years ago
ACTOR: I can’t believe it. I mean, I just assumed...
ME: Yes.
ACTOR: [pauses a moment; drinks some beer]: But I mean aside from all that, you still love it, right? I mean, look at everybody here. Hardly anyone’s actually making a living in theatre. It’s hard work. It’s a struggle. But we do it because we love it.
I look at him to see if he means it.
ME: That used to be good enough. It isn’t anymore. Because finally you need a reason to keep going. If your plays open to lousy reviews, do poorly at the box office, aren’t given subsequent productions and disappear—doesn’t that finally say more about the plays? I could sit and complain about the unfairness of it all, I could gather strength from those admirers who tell me “I just can’t understand” how this play or that hasn’t won a wide following, or “that asshole critic has a grudge against you, it’s obvious!”—but in the end here I am, my plays having failed, and me having to come to the conclusion, rightly or wrongly, that the plays just aren’t any damn good. I guess I allowed myself to believe that I was writing plays that could have some kind of effect, plays about the assumptions we carry around, about who we are as people. I didn’t realize that I was carrying around a couple of assumptions of my own—not only that I could survive as a playwright in this country, but that theatre actually meant something here...
I trail off, but I’m already tired of listening to myself.
ME: There’s really no way to talk about it without sounding didactic or embittered. So I think I’ll just stop. Anyway, I went out and got me a new agent. [I swirl my scotch.] I work in television now.
The actor stares at me. He starts to say something. Decides not to. He shakes his head, then goes to join the partygoers. I finish my drink and leave. The wind is heavy and biting, with something between snow and sleet falling from the night sky.
SCENE 5. HOTEL CONFERENCE ROOM, MONTREAL
Projection: “Some years later. Jewish theatre delegates mill about a hotel conference room following the keynote address by noted Canadian playwright Jason Sherman.”
Coffee and refreshments have been laid out. The mostly older crowd heads for the buffet table. They don’t have a lot to say to me about my speech, excerpts from which are projected onto the walls of the theatre: “Your plays are too political.” “This play is one-sided.” “Self-hating Jew.”“It isn’t right for my audience.” “I love it but I’ll have to run it by my board.” “I wouldn’t know how to direct it.” “Have you considered writing a novel?”
Once the crowd has made off with its coffee and blintzes, a young man, maybe the youngest in the room, approaches me. He seems nervous. He hasn’t shaved in a couple of days. He speaks in a low whisper.
CONFEREE: : Nice speech.
ME: Thanks.
CONFEREE: What do you think of the conference?
ME: I thought today’s panel discussion was most informative.
CONFEREE:: Yes. “Bringing the theatre to the synagogue and the synagogue to the theatre.”
I join him in looking at the roomful of Jewish theatre practitioners, wondering what I’m doing here. The Conferee leans in and whispers.
CONFEREE: I love your plays. They mean a lot to me. I wish I could produce them.
ME: [with a shrug] The rights are available.
CONFEREE: [looking around the room, then back at me, speaking in an even lower whisper.] It’s just ... difficult ... politically.
I nod, not in acquiesence, but because I’ve heard it before. And will again. The words “It’s just ... difficult ... politically” join the others on the wall. The words soon fade, followed by the intertitle “A couple of years ago.”
SCENE 6. MY OFFICE
I enter with the mail. I rip open a small packet to find a book, a collection of essays on Canadian theatre. I flip through it, stopping at an article that catches my attention, its title projected onto the wall: “The Playwright: Two Statements, by Michael Cook.”
As I read, Michael Cook’s words are projected onto the walls of the theatre, in a CNN-like crawl: “One of the most unpleasant aspects of being a playwright in this great country of ours is having to endure, almost daily, a variety of opinions from critics, directors and simple cultural bagmen about the state of the playwright. Very rarely do the playwrights get to speak for themselves. They can be personally abused and vilified by reviewers, yet denied even the right of reply.”
ME [looking up]: Can we have the houselights up, please?
The houselights come up. There are seven people in the audience.
ME: Has anyone here ever seen a play by Michael Cook?
No one responds. But a few of them turn to look at one another. Finally an elderly man in the back row stands.
MAN IN THE BACK ROW: I have.
ME: And you are —?
MAN IN THE BACK ROW: Michael Cook.
ME: Sorry.
MAN IN THE BACK ROW: It’s all right. I never expected to be recognized. But it’s nice to be remembered, if only by a colleague.
ME: Wait a second: aren’t you—no offence—dead?
MAN IN THE BACK ROW: All of us are. Take a look. There’s Carol Bolt. George Ryga. Robertson Davies.
ROBERTSON DAVIES [rising]: Sorry, wrong room.
The doors to the theatre open, filling the aisle with brilliant light. A figure stands there.
ME: Mavor?
MAVOR: Hello, everyone. Don’t get up.
ME: Sorry to hear you died, Mavor. Sorrier still that I didn’t maintain contact with you. You were the best teacher I ever had.
MAVOR: But you didn’t take my advice.
MAN IN THE BACK ROW: What advice was that?
MAVOR: Go on. Tell them.
ME: Mavor was my playwrighting teacher at York University in my final year. I told him I was thinking about applying to graduate school, that there were only two universities in Canada offering a grad program in playwrighting, and which one should I go to? Without skipping a beat he said to me, “Go to the States; you’re ahead of the game.” A shudder goes through the audience.
MAN IN THE BACK ROW: Did you really tell him that, Mavor? You, a pioneer of theatre in this country? Champion of Canadian culture? Former chairman of the Canada Council for the Arts? Mentor to so many?
MAVOR [taking his seat, lighting a pipe]: He should have listened to me.
MAN IN THE BACK ROW: Well, he’ll just have to do what the rest of us had to do. Teach. Host a radio program. Write a novel.
ME: God, no. Anything but that.
MAN IN THE BACK ROW: Why’d you ever start writing plays in the first place, boy-o?
ME: I don’t know. It just came out that way.
MAN IN THE BACK ROW: “It”? Me: Yeah. You know: It.
I slam the book shut, toss it aside.
SCENE 7. A LECTURE
Pictures of a trip to Alaska are projected onto the wall.
ME: I was at a playwrighting conference in Alaska. Edward Albee had given his name to an annual competition that was held there. I was invited to be a judge for the short play portion. Albee showed up three days later with his entourage, which included a longtime New York Times drama critic. This man had the most unpleasant face I’ve ever seen, scowling and grey, and he seemed to lean to one side like the crooked man of the fable. We were introduced and he took an instant dislike to me, owing in part to my youthful appearance (old age hates youth nowhere so much as in the theatre), my refusal to bow and scrape before him, and the festival organizer’s ridiculous praise of me (“Canada’s David Mamet!”). “Is he any good?” the crooked man contemptuously asked someone later. A couple of days after his arrival, the crooked little critic gave a speech to the assembled playwrights, almost all of them without a professional production to their credit. A question-answer period followed. Someone in the crowd asked, “Why are playwrights from Los Angeles always given such bad reviews in New York?” The crowd laughed. The crooked little critic smiled a crooked little smile. “Because,” he said gleefully, “New York critics don’t like playwrights from Los Angeles.” He looked around the room, as though searching for someone, then added, “Or from Canada.” Two people with whom I’d made friends were at the lecture and related the story to me later. They said there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that the comment was directed to me. All it took was a chance meeting. I wonder, should I have genuflected before the crooked little man? Told him what an important writer he was? How modern theatre was forever in his debt? Would he then have used his position to have my plays produced in New York? Ah, think of it! Think of it!
SCENE 8. STREET CORNER, TORONTO
Projection: “Leaving a meeting to discuss a documentary film he is writing, the former playwright bumps into an actress of his acquaintance.
“The actress is well-known in the city, especially for playing roles that require her to seem half-mad, a far cry from her lovely, caring, thoughtful persona.”
ACTRESS [somewhat glumly]: I heard you’re leaving the theatre.
ME: It’s true.
ACTRESS [staring at the ground]: It’s a shame they have that kind of power.
ME: Who?
ACTRESS: The critics.
I stare at her blankly. So this is how it’s going to go down.
ME: I’m not leaving because of the critics. I’ve never suggested, let alone believed, that the critics have that sort of all-encompassing control, unlike J —, who stopped writing plays about 10 years ago after—as he told me—“the critics killed my career.” Well, now he’s got a big hit play that’s being done all over the country, hell, the world, winning every award going, critics falling over themselves to praise it—but I’m pretty sure he hasn’t given them credit for reviving his career. Listen, my plays weren’t getting second productions when they were getting good reviews, so what am I supposed to think now that they’re getting lousy ones? Whatever power the critics have is given to them by the same people who go around complaining about them. Who quotes them in their ads and the cover of their published plays? Who goes to lunch with them and makes pals with them and doesn’t have the guts to publicly refute their idiocies? I tell you, if it were only the critics, or just one critic, I’d be laughing. Instead, I’m done.
SCENE 9. PUB, TORONTO
Projection: “Two ex-playwrights meet to discuss their work in television.”
A— is waiting for me at the bar, a pint in front of him. I sit down next to him, order a drink.
MY FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE: Where you coming from?
ME: The Mavor Moore tribute. My friend and colleague looks at me, lines of compassion Etch-A-Sketching onto his face.
MY FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE: I didn’t know she died. Pause.
ME: No. Mavor Moore. You’re thinking of Dora Mavor Moore. His mother.
MY FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE: Oh. Right. Did you know him? I nod.
ME: I looked around the theatre tonight. You know what I saw? Mainly his contemporaries, older people who’d been there in those brush-clearing days. But as for the people who are working now—the writers, actors, directors, designers, artistic directors—the ones who owe this man so much, where were they? Neither one of us speaks for a moment.
MY FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE: How’s the series?
