Mike Mariano

NOTE: Here at mikemariano.com, we run an ongoing series dedicated to the denigration of No Exit productions and adaptations that are not our own. The following is the latest in the series.

I think it’s neat that a new riff on No Exit—called Other People—is playing in New York. I just wish it didn’t sound so lame.

The official description? “[I]t is about a young couple with relationship problems who decide to go home with a woman they meet in a bar.” Not a great sell. The nytheatre.com review is reservedly positive, but doesn’t address my reservations. How is this Sartre? How is this sexy?

In the play’s favor, the male cast member looks like Ducky from Pretty In Pink! I love you, Ducky! I would have chosen you! I won’t let go at any price!

I put Naughty By Nature into Menage a Sartre. If Other People contains some OMD I think it could be a hit.

Bonus Warning: Other People’s playwright Joyce Wu stars in her own play. Unless Menage a Sartre is staged with circus freaks, you will not see yours truly as any of the characters.

After two long nights of PDF conversion, I have completed the second edition of Menage a Sartre. The PDF version of the play now spans 50 pages, which—if my previous estimates hold up—will result in a play twelve minutes long. This second edition replaces the first; if anyone wants a first edition Menage a Sartre let me know.

If you’ve read the first edition, the new section of the play will stand out. Some of this dialogue is now straight out of No Exit, but does it kill the mood? And are the new jokes funny?

But not all my time is spent wrestling with this computer. I’m also scrawling lifeless dialogue for my Egypt play! That’s one of the great and terrifying things about full-length plays: you can’t bail out after ten minutes. You have to keep the audience invested for hours! I’m not up to that challenge; this is going to require some major rewrites.

Work continues on The Egypt Play, but the second act appears just as tepid as the first. Plus I found out that I cannot write with a British voice. All my years of slavish Anglophilia have gone to waste; I’m hopelessly American. How did the Hull College production of Couchophilia deal with lines like “Best goddamn Presidents Day weekend of my life.”?

Despite my inadequate service to the empire, I may begin a side project based on an English fairy tale: Jack the Giant Killer. I haven’t yet read the tale as linked, but the story’s format may make for something episodic.

Oh, and my Menage a Sartre expansion is finished. But while I have added roughly seven minutes to the play, I discovered that the play is nearly fifteen minutes shorter than my 2004 estimate. The expanded Menage has a duration of only 36 minutes. At least, I think it does. To be more accurate, me reading Menage out loud has a duration of only 36 minutes.

I’m concerned: what are the real running times of my plays? I read them aloud, I count pages, but these aren’t exact methods. Everyone reading this now has to put on one of my plays, if only to get an accurate time length. Bonus points if you’re British.