January 13, 2021

Maya Ortega

Spirit

Tip: The Gestation of a Play

January 13, 2021

Maya Ortega

Spirit

Synopsis

A woman dies and discovers in the

afterlife that her fate is based on her

internet search history.

hilarotragoedia

n.

A burlesque of tragic subjects.

Burlesque is defined as a literary or dramatic work that makes fun of something, often by means of outlandish exaggeration. Such burlesques were also called phylyakes, meaning “fooleries.”

Created in approximately 200 BC by Rhinthon, a Hellenistic dramatist

Encyclopædia Britannica 23, (11th ed.)

American Heritage Dictionary of the English Languages (5th edition)

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TL;DR

Read here ———-> TIP.pdf

Seeds

The idea for Tip came in college while I was walking on campus in 2007. I don't know what led me there, but it stuck. I didn't know it was a play until years later. The characters seemed born somewhere else and sent here to me. I knew I wanted it to have simplicity, able to be performed on a big stage or at a high school.

I knew I had to fall on my sword for this one. That if I was uncomfortable, perhaps the audience would only be half of that. So I aimed to dig deeper, using my life, secrets and hopes to write this story.

The idea for this play was over 10 years old when I started writing it. It's taken me two years and change to finish. 11 drafts. 73 pages, with more minutes for the video.

Recently I’ve had some friends read it, and that has reminded me the value in this piece, and the importance of sharing. God knows I take my time, but Now is better than never.

Born: 15 December 2017

one

Logbook.

For all my long projects, I now keep a logbook to go along with it. It’s really for me. It’s evidence that all the feelings and tumult existed in the process of creating the piece. It was also a place where I could write when I couldn’t write. I can always complain about writing, thinking often that I could manage having a therapist just for writing. The logbook has become my therapist and witness for this process.

So much of writing is ethereal, unseen, and unprovable. A finished piece doesn’t betray the struggle to create it, and sometimes I need to remember that everything happened. My logbook is my personal proof of the journey.

Two

The Dump. A stream-of-conciousness all-in everything-counts kinda document.

three

Outline.

First draft

The first draft is the worst. Not just in quality, but it is truly the hardest part of finishing a large document of writing like a play, for me. I am a “better to edit a finished ugly draft than polish up bits and pieces” type of person. The combinations makes for a long trek.

My dad always says the most efficient way to accomplish a goal is the buddy system. So a recruited such a buddy to help me with the process. I decided to write rules for myself, in the form of a contract, which we both signed. It was never about rewards or punishments, so much as accountability and encouragement. Nick was a great support system. I highly encourage accountabil-a-buddy systems whenever possible.

[Writing is] like standing on the edge of a cliff. This is especially true of the first draft. Every day you’re making up the earth you’re going to stand on.
-Peter Carey

mute

At some point I hit a lull, a block of frustration and boredom.

Then a long time passed.

Then a longer time passed.

“The only thing more tormenting than writing is not writing.”

— Cynthia Ozick

October 2016

Somewhere along the line I distracted myself with other things. After five or so drafts in, I started plotting an outline for a book for National Write a Novel Month.

I met up with Mitchell, a high school boyfriend, in the morning at the Lyric for coffee. I was running late walking north and could see him singing and playing the piano outside. I made him a latte with honey and we walked to my place. He was about to leave for his first solo tour as a musician, in November.

I told him a bit about the book as we sat and smoked in the shade of trees in backyard. He said he had a book idea too. It was about a man who died and the afterlife was full of all these different rooms he had to go into. His wild imagination contorted these rooms in a way so different than mine that I can't even express them with justice. And then he said, "I don't know at the end if -- ------ -- --- -- ----."

I was stunned. His ending was my ending too.

It was a sister to Tip. Like he'd been in my head, and perhaps I'd been in his. When I told him the premise his face expressed the same surprise of the seeming brainwave transference. I made a joke about seeing who would finish first. After we hugged goodbye he walked away singing.

Three weeks later Mitchell died on October 19th, 2016 in the stupidest car crash I've ever heard of. The morning of the 20th I was getting coffee again at the Lyric. I got a frantic email from Juanita to call her and I knew he was dead before I called. I wanted to be wrong. So I pretended I was for just enough time before she picked up the phone.

I went to the small private viewing at the funeral home before his cremation. I was the last to leave. I went in the room by myself and wept along the shell he once was in. I have lost people in my life before, but this was the first person who I was in love with that passed. It isn't the same kind of grief. I was changed in that room. I do not know what the change is called.

After he died I went straight back to Tip. I had to. It wasn't all mine anymore. I promised myself I'd finish it for us and give the first copy to his parents. I went over to their house on a Sunday and explained how Mitchell and I had a brain transference and this play is for him.

Sometimes I'd ask him for help writing. When I asked he always came. To bring life to this from the death of Mitchell was healing. It was also necessary. This is for everyone. This is for M.A.V.

Kitchen Table Read

Dear friends helping me by reading the parts out loud while I edit. These gems, I swear. So grateful.

The feeling of finished

I knew that I’d be getting the play bound, once I was finished. And I knew I would cry when I did. I was tearing up at the counter paying. When I got to the car, I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.

Finishing Tip was like looking down between your legs to see if it’s a boy or girl. Whatever that feeling is called, a long labour of love, unseen toiling, sadness, loss, dreams and hopes. I’ve never had a baby before but that’s what it felt like. I knew that even if no one ever read it, I knew I fucking killed it. It was exactly what I wanted it to be. I had never felt the self-satisfaction, the personal pride, and confidence in my writing than I did after I finished.

New york City reading

For my 30th birthday I decided that I would like to have a reading in New York City, and a bff of mine had told me about a theatre company of her friend’s that did small readings. They accepted Tip as part of their program in late May. It wasn’t anything fancy, in the basement of a pub-type place. But the best part of it was that lots of my friends from SCAD came to watch. One of them performed the part of the stage direction. It was so wonderful to be able to share that with them. I miss our life back in Savannah. And what a way to enjoy my birthday.

You might be wondering about the title

Actually, the title was a bit of an accident. I had kept the unknown version of this titled “The Internet Play” on my computer. At some point, it was just the initials: TIP. And then I read it as tip. I looked up the definition and it seemed as though the play had named itself.

tip

1. The end of a pointed or projecting object.

2. The top, summit, apex.

3. A tilt or slant; an incline.

4. A small piece forming an extremity or end.

5. A helpful hint, warning, or other piece of information.

1. To push or knock over; overturn or topple.

2. To touch or raise (one's hat) in greeting.

3. The act of tipping.

READERS WELCOME:

Tip

A hilarotragoedia in three acts

+++

Read my play!

(tip: it contains hyperlinks, so watch out for those! must click!! also, read the stage notes, they are v short, I promise.)

Send it to others! Send me questions!

Get me an agent! A manager! Jeremy O. Harris’ number!

Read here ———-> TIP.pdf

+++

Note: Unofficial soundtrack (at least for the first act):

Mahalia Jackson, “His Eye in On the Sparrow”

Thank you for being here and witnessing this process. Sometimes I think I’m cursed by writing. Sometimes I think I can save the world by doing it. Sometimes it’s all at the same moment.

Either way. I appreciate you.

Yours, Maya

September 18, 2016

Maya Ortega

Spirit

The Passion of Joanie of Arc

September 18, 2016

Maya Ortega

Spirit

This is a story about three miracles and three objects. Objects are symbols moving through time. "Miracles are expressions of love and all expressions of love are maximal."

“I answer nothing from my own head; what I answer is command of my Voices.”

— Joan of Arc

Miracle I

Saint

St. Joan of Arc is a martyr of France and the Catholic Church. She was illiterate and uneducated. At a young age she had visions from God which lead France to victory in the Hundred Years’ War. She travelled with the army dressed in a men’s uniform with donated armor. She carried a banner instead of a sword. She was captured by the English, tried illegally and convicted of heresy in 1431.

She was 19 when she burned at the stake. Her choice was twofold: recant her testimony and unify with the Church, or die. Under pressure at her trial, Joan did it—she took it all back, and who can blame her? The call to save your homeland seems daunting enough. Four days later Joan returned to her truth. She said her false confession was for fear of the fire that would engulf her. She said, “One life is all we have, and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are, and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying.” I’d like to know the conversation she had in her head when she decided to die rather than live a liar. What did she tell herself?

Ms. Bergman in 1948. — Ms. Bergman in 1948.

Joan is the patron saint of captives. I think that includes captives of ourselves. She was a captive of herself too, as she held onto her understandable desire to live. Instead, she surrendered everything and said It. A commission of inquiry described her as being “of irreproachable life, a good Christian, possessed of the virtues of humility, honesty and simplicity.” Helluva a gal. How did she do that?

She has remained a figure of sanctity and controversy as the most prolific figure of the medieval period. I’m only beginning to understand my gravitation towards her and what her I can take from her life into mine. What I notice about her is that she was able to escape death by freeing herself. I don't know what this means.

My obsession began after seeing a film telling her life. It began a journey and a collection that keeps going.

MIRACLE II

Film

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The silent film La passion de Jeanne d’Arc, directed by Dreyer, was released in France four years after St. Joan’s canonization. The film is historically accurate, based on the existing transcriptions of the trial, yet arranged as if the proceedings happened in an hour and a half. Lead actress Renee Jeanne Falconetti’s Joan was heralded as one of the finest on film. “I don’t know what it was that I saw in her face, but I felt I couldn’t find a better one anywhere. She didn’t act for me; she just used her own face,” said Dreyer.

The set was enormous and expensive, yet director Dreyer rejected establishing shots, save three. Of the film’s 1500 cuts, fewer than 15 constitute a continuous match on action. The film has been described as feeling more like a documentary than a drama. I first saw it in 2011 and began a quest to curl up inside it and know everything about Joan, Dreyer and Falconetti.

The battle for this film to exist has occurred at every level of production, release and archival. After censorship, being lost in fire after fire, it still survived in it’s own corner waiting to be seen. It's miraculous that we get to see it.

OBJECT ONE: JESUS, BY CARL TH. DREYER

Manuscript

I began at the end of Dreyer’s work. His last manuscript, Jesus was a long-term dream for him, and unaccomplished at the time of his death in March 1968. Three essays in the book explain his aims on the subject and story of Jesus. He made films in Europe during wars and was particularly affected by the anti-Semitism of WWII. Asked about his intent for Jesus, he said, “I think it will aid in lessening the antagonism between Christian and Jew. For this reason, among others, I know that I want to let Jesus be shown as a Jew. The masses have a deeply rooted conception that Jesus was blond and Aryan. It is a good turn I think, to see to it that this prejudice is stamped out.”

He did like Jesus—he aimed to unify what was separate. It was story about Jesus’ life, not his death. Dreyer said that film was his one great passion. I don’t know my one great passion. I don’t know that’ll I’ll ever choose. I share his aspiration for peace, for closeness of what is only perceived as separate. I should be so lucky to have a project like that to leave behind when I die.

Object Two: Falconetti by Helene Falconetti

Biography

“She dropped all of her inhibitions and allowed her feelings to well up from the unconscious level and be recorded on film.”

— Carl Th. Dreyer

The most interesting, and coveted character in this journey is Renée Jeanne Falconetti. She was a French theatre actress born in 1892. Jeanne was Falconetti’s only film role. Her portrayal of Joan is stunning and singular. She was committed to the role in the most beautiful and heartbreaking way. She famously shaves her head in the film, coaxed by Dreyer with an “appealed to her as an artist.” A few days before the cut, her doubts crept in. The day of the scene everyone was sent away and she sat in the chair. “I felt as if I had been condemned to death. I felt as if I were about to be executed. I didn’t need to play that scene; I could just be myself,” Falconetti said.

Almost nothing about her exists. She is found in clips and pictures here and there but much of her life is lost. She went to Argentina with her child. After her benefactor died, she gave elocution lessons to manage. There is evidence she experienced mental illness. She killed herself in 1946.

She said that film sets made her tired. They took a lot out of her—they take a lot out of me too. I felt a kinship between her and viewed her as a mentor from the past. I felt like we were the same type of crazy. The kind that creeps up and sinks you while you don’t even notice. I wanted to know the secret error and living artistry of her life. I wanted to discover her life and to live for both of us. I wanted to have her over for tea and talk about what makes us feel love. I want to not go crazy and die myself.

I found a rare biography written by her daughter. It’s in French, but I was sure there was an answer in there. I watched the price fluctuate online. My friend Kick works at a used bookstore, and had mutually joined the obsession of the film. He was following the status of the book and notified me that the few copies of it online had disappeared. The nearest copy to me was 800 miles away in an Illinois library.

A few weeks later one copy appeared for sale. I bought it without regard for my nutritional needs for 52$. It is full of pictures I’ve never seen of her. Someday I’ll translate the whole book, simultaneously learning French. I'll go to Montmartre to set flowers on her grave. I'll give up wanting her secret.

“Unknown.”

— Renée Jeanne Falconetti

miracle III

Object III: The Passion of Joanie of Arc

Short film

Child's play + La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc = The Passion of Joanie of Arc

The culmination of these experiences and objects led to creating a short film. When a friend asked me if I ever engaged in play, I knew that I didn’t. I felt resistance to my inner child lurch in my stomach. He was on to something.

I’ve started sitting on the floor more. I go to the park to swing. I sing or skip around at work. I bought a coloring book. My approach began to change from rigidity to a do-anyway ethos. The idea of remaking Jeanne aims at the perfection of the film by imitating it, and accepting imperfection—serious and silly. It was terrifying and necessary to complete. Also Kick and I needed haircuts.

The piece was performed mimicking several elements of the original film. Like Dreyer, I simplified and cut up the story and script to meet a shorter timeframe. It avoids establishing shots with lots of close-ups. We it is subtitled in English as we spoke (shitty) French. No makeup. We shot in one day with a small crew due to the extreme tonsure haircut I gave Kick. We used cardboard for our set and spray-painted it pink, just as they did for Jeanne. I tried to make this piece like Joan made her life, with humility, honesty and simplicity. I tried to make it like a child. I’ve been trying to make everything like a child, a nod to the earnestness of first tries with the hopes of having a second.