Revision: An Audioplay by j. Snodgrass

Madison has been editing Elijah's memoir about founding a charity with his wife, who is now deceased. But when she advises him to dig for some details in a diary, the widower's world gets torn apart. Now Madison must help him put it back together before tomorrow's final deadline.

Author Interview by Phil S. Stein

The Concept?

“Revision” is a story about changing the past. A memoir editor wants to fix something in her own past, but accidentally destroys this other person's past. His Eden, his innocent paradise, is now blighted. His memory of his marriage has a degenerative disease. Now his whole universe is getting sucked into this black hole, and her universe is being pulled into it as well.

There's this guy, he's sensitive and he's hurt, that's what made him... I don't know if he was ever, necessarily, likable, but tolerable, that's what brought this editor into his orbit. But now she's accidentally turned him into this apocalyptic monster who can destroy the past and future.

The story came to me as a sort of Socratic dialogue about the nature of space and time, it's part of a series of pieces I've written on this topic. But a philosophical dialogue about abstract concepts doesn't sound very exciting, and if I'm going to write something I always want to make myself laugh. So I thought about a very specific story and relationship. And motivations – I don't really see this as a protagonist / antagonist story. I want both characters to have recognizable needs and forgivable flaws.

I like the idea that she, on the one hand, knows everything about this guy, she's studied him, I think I cut the line where she says she could write a doctoral thesis on his family history... And on the other hand the guy she knows about is partly her own creation. She has shaped his story. And she has feelings for this character that... It's not a pygmalion thing, because she's not in love with him. But she's got strong feelings, complex feelings, about this guy. And she needs something from him, her whole life depends on it, but it's not a simple romantic need.

Talking with Sarah about the character, I said she can't be one-note – we're gonna hear her voice for an hour, no face, no stage, so it can't be a monotone. So my directing of this piece was just to advise her – break this up into mini scenes and for each one ask yourself: what is this guy to you at this moment? Is he your tragic hero fantasy-man, is he your temper-tantrum toddler, is he a monster, is he a wounded friend? Etcetera. So her character can approach this guy from different angles.

The Cast?

Of course, ninety percent of directing is casting. And I knew immediately, when I decided to record this, Sarah was the first person who came to mind. She acted in some short plays of mine five years ago, I was so impressed by her professionalism, and then she was in my play Rust & Redemption – as soon as she walked in for that audition my immediate reaction was a sigh of relief – good, that part, that character, I don't have to worry about. If this table is gonna collapse, it's not gonna be that leg that breaks.

She says the words precisely, fast and clear, so it was no question who to ask to play this part. She also, when she was acting in Rust & Redemption, sang the lead vocal in the theme song for the show, “Canalside Summer,” which I wrote, and that's here on youtube also.

“Audioplay”?

I love telling a story in dialogue, writing for the stage. I don't read novels anymore, because as soon as I see a paragraph about what the upholstery looked like, the whole forward movement of the story has stopped. The action has ground to a halt – and what do I care about furniture anyway? Characters, conflict, that's what I want. Even exposition, revealing the stuff from the past, I still want it to be in the moment, part of the scene, like in this story when he tells us the whole history of the charity (which she pretty much already knows) he's still telling it as part of his in-the-moment urgent interaction with her.

I'm not really attracted to the idea of a radio-play. If a narrator needs to explain something then the story has stopped moving forward and I'm bored. So I wrote this piece, not for the stage, I think this would get dull on the stage, but I wrote it so the whole story could tell itself in just back-and-forth dialogue. Two characters, we never need to be told who's speaking or what they're doing. In my imagination, someone on a car-trip could put this on for an hour and get a whole story. Hopefully some laughs, some surprise twists, and then take a moment in silence and think... What's that deep regret, that missed moment or lost dream, from my own past? And if I tried to fix it, what effect could that really have on my present and future?

The Music?

The Eurythmics' 1999 song “Forever” - I listened to that a thousand times while writing this. And the theme from “Peter and the Wolf” kept running through my head too. But neither one's available so I recorded this little thing.

Who?

Sarah Emmerling is a Buffalo-based actor with a BFA in Theatre Performance from Niagara University. She has worked with several local companies, including American Repertory Theatre of WNY, the Brazen-Faced Varlets, Bellissima Productions, the Carriage House Players, Desiderio's Dinner Theatre, First Look Buffalo Stage Productions, and Unique Theatre. She enjoys working with children and is a character performer at Enchanting Birthdays of WNY. In her free time, you can catch her training her acrobatic muscles at the Bird's Nest Circus Arts.

j. SNODGRASS is the author of numerous books including Murder & Miss Conception, Thirteenth Moon, and The Sarcastic Enchantress (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgQLD0UxyNo) His podcast, “Animal Magic” can be found at https://animalmagic.podbean.com/ He lives in Buffalo with his bride and four children. j-snodgrass.com

Matt LaChiusa recorded this at the American Repertory Theater of Western New York.