• HOME

  • Book

  • PLAYS

  • #49 MILE PLAY

  • THEATRE PROCESS PODCAST

  • CONTACT

  • More

    BlackBoxTheatre.com

     

    black box theatre .com
    • Facebook App Icon
    • Twitter App Icon

    Working for the Mouse

    (and other plays) by Trevor Allen

     

    Foreward 

    by

    Kent Nicholson

    Director, Playwrights Horizons, New York

     

    "Trevor Allen’s plays"

     

    When I was a “wee” one studying music and beginning a singing

    career which somehow morphed into a directing career, I was taught

    a song which helped me define the nature of a fugue. It went like

    this: “A fugue is an odd sort of form/it jumps it skips/it’s far from

    the norm.” It’s a catchy little lyric written to a J.S.Bach tune which

    perfectly describes the work of Trevor Allen.

     

    Perhaps it’s that early training, but I have always been attracted

    to writers whose work has an innate musicality to it. This is why

    Trevor’s work has always been of particular interest to me. It’s not

    just that he writes what he describes as “fugues,” but his plays can

    really mostly be understood best as a kind of musical composition.

    More seriously, Merriam Webster defines a fugue as “a musical

    composition in which one or two themes are repeated or imitated

    by successively entering voices and contrapuntally developed in a

    continuous interweaving of the voice parts.” When we look at the

    plays in this anthology, even the ones that don’t immediately strike

    us as following this structure, we find that Trevor unfailingly gives us

    a look at a multiplicity of voices repeating and imitating each other

    until their themes begin to transform into one larger one.

     

    In Tenders in the Fog, one of the pieces more directly attached

    to the fugue form, Trevor tells the same story through the interior

    monologues of four different characters, three generations of

    fisherman and a Selkie found off the coast of Northern California.

    And of course the Selkie transforms into a Shanachie, and serves as

    a guide, telling the audience the story and delivering up a “moral”

    for good measure. While our doomed fisherman complete repetitive

    tasks, and relive their own failures and generational conflict over

    and over, we get to listen to all three perspectives, drawing our own

    conclusions and letting our sympathies slide between grandfather,

    father, and son. Life is complex. And short. And unpredictable. And

    we often can’t see ourselves clearly because the fog can get really

    thick. By flowing through the current on this ever drifting boat, the

    reward we receive is getting a chance to cut through the fog, literally,

    and see the bigger picture of how our lives gain some meaning by

    the addition of small details.

     

    In The Creature, we get not so much a fugue as radio for the

    stage. What’s remarkable about this piece is its point of view. Mary

    Shelley wrote Frankenstein from Victor Frankenstein’s point of

    view. But The Creature flips that script and uses Shelley’s own text

    to reverse our sympathies and understand that maybe Frankenstein

    was the monster, not the Creature who wanted nothing more than to

    be human. The play never lets us forget Shelley’s original by keeping

    Frankenstein as a sometimes narrator, but really allows the

    Creature’s voice to be paramount. Again, by juxtaposing the two

    voices side by side, contrapuntally, we see a bigger picture and

    eventually have to ask if we aren’t our own worst enemies as well as

    our own best friends when we can fully admit to our own humanity.

     

    Even in a solo play such as Working for the Mouse, there’s a

    multiplicity of voices ringing out. The Mad Hatter, Alice, Peter Pan,

    Gary, Tammi, and of course the young Trevor himself. These voices

    weave a tapestry of life off-stage at the “happiest place on earth.” The

    story, as many of Trevor’s stories are, is non-linear, moving back and

    forth through the major incidents of his time as an employee. And

    while we laugh at the many indiscrete actions of the actors inside

    the suits, we also get a story of a young man who doesn’t want to

    grow up, but eventually learns that he must. It’s touching but not at

    all sentimental, in part because we see the ramifications for those

    who choose to stay behind and continue as perpetual adolescents.

    Life backstage may be fun for a while, but it starts to become a little

    seedy the longer you stay.

     

    I’ve had the good fortune to work on all three of these plays

    directly with Trevor. Building them together, watching and listening

    as he carefully places each voice side by side, overlapping, and

    orchestrating them for maximum impact. In each instance, the

    visuals were left for me to work with, deciding how best to let these

    stories be heard and helping to tell them by creating a visual world

    to support that telling. A rotating ship, changing its perspective and

    relationship to the audience as the story unfolds. A radio play. And

    a bench in front of a brick wall. That’s how we chose to do this. But

    the options are really endless. The text tells the tale, but Trevor is

    interested in how others will choose to show it to us.

     

    This isn’t kitchen sink drama after all. It’s a complex world, with

    complex problems, and a multiplicity of personalities and characters

    to fill it. These plays are interested in how these voices and disparate

    personalities interact. So it’s only fitting that a world filled with

    a multiplicity of performers and directors and designers and

    producers should all get their crack at telling these stories. I hope

    you have as much fun making them sing as I did.

     

     

    -K.N.