I just watched a documentary about Philip Glass and the creative process in which he said that if you're lucky as an artist, by the time you get to staging your work, you will understand what it is about. It may sound odd to say that in the process of writing Dora, I sometimes didn't know what the play was about. I more felt than understood the scenes I was writing, but I didn't always know why I was writing them or how they fit into the story.
It's nearly impossible to explain the new insights I find watching rehearsal every day, the nuances I hear in the language choices, the sentence construction. In so doing, I am able to tighten, trim, enhance, manipulate, rearrange words and scenes. I learn to make the play darker, funnier, more poignant, more dramatic -- all because I am now writing in collaboration with a director (who I love and respect) and actors (who I also love and respect) and, of course, stage managers (who I love and respect for literally managing the rehearsal and production process so efficiently and effectively).
Just one example from a recent rehearsal: Dora and Nusch are chatting in the cafe. Dora fears that Picasso thinks of her no differently than a dog -- something loyal, something to pet, something to paint. In contrast, she wants to be an inspiration to him. She wants to be recognized for making a contribution to his artistic success. Rob asks the actors, What is this scene about? And then follows a discussion, the gist of which is: In this scene, Dora is sowing the seeds of her own demise. She is desperate to influence Picasso. She wants to be "the woman behind the successful man." But, tragically, in the end, people regard her in exactly the opposite way. "Without Picasso," they say, "Dora Mar would have been nothing." And on some level, she has known this all along.
One must be willing to leap off cliffs when creating. We can't see the bottom of the canyon. We may fly. We may fall. It doesn't really matter. The joy is found in mid-air.
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