A few months back (probably during my last update to this blog: ha!) intern alumnus Nancy Vitale pressured me into writing a site-specific play for Swim Shorts, a short play festival taking place outdoors at a New York City swimming pool.
I assured her I would write something. Then I didn’t.
I had what I thought was a good reason: lack of inspiration. I had a vague scenario concerning Mountain Dew being poured into the water and unwrapped Baby Ruths floating on the pool’s surface, but this wasn’t art. I had to admit defeat.
Recently the Swim Shorts debuted, not including a Mike Mariano submission. NYtheatre.com reacted with a very unfavorable review. Apparently all but one of the plays did nothing with the pool but dunk actors into it. It was a waste of site-specificity. And more importantly, none of the plays were as daring as even my feeble ideas. If I had slapped together my Mountain Dew play, it would have been dazzling next to the existing shorts.
A following New York Times review amplified my regrets. The review was condescending, (“A ‘pool play’? What a cute idea, kids!”) yet was blandly favorable. Time to start kicking myself: I passed up a positive New York Times review.
And furthermore, what have I written this entire year? Nothing. But to be fair, it has been a whole lot of nothing. Even more of the same nothing from previous years. (Marley revisions, Boring Science, etc.) But it looks like I have to stop prejudging this nothing; I have to write it through, poop jokes and all, and let it get the Times reviews it deserves.