Indulgences Notes on the Production
CHRIS CRADDOCK: A “MASH-UP” PLAYWRIGHT
Chris Craddock’s work often rejects the rules of traditional playwriting, drawing on a wide range of disparate sources. His plays owe much to the classics, but also depend upon cartoons, children’s tales, and a heavy dose of pop culture. Craddock could easily be dubbed a “mashup playwright;” like an innovative DJ or sculptor, he creates a totally independent piece of art from diverse inspirations. Rap, opera, and slam poetry all make appearances in his body of work.
At first glance, Indulgences bears all the hallmarks of a Shakespearian comedy. Two lovers named after minor Macbeth characters try to hide their affair from a disapproving father. Scheming advisors spread lies across the castle. Mistaken identities abound, and cross-dressing fuels the confusion. The play drives towards a hope of marriage and ultimate peace.
But Craddock complicates the classic formula with contemporary flair. Two seemingly
average men enact a modern-day twist on a favorite fairytale, “The Prince and the Pauper.” A foul-mouthed salesman, seemingly pulled from a Mamet play, stops at nothing to make his deals. Time and space jump frantically in a style that evokes Wayne’s World and contemporary science fiction. Comic chaos springs from the convergence of sources, characters, and styles.
Indulgences makes no attempt to justify its aesthetic melting pot. When Elizabethan nobles meet modern-day average joes in a bar, no intellectual explanation is needed. Rather than staging a classic in a new modern idiom (A la West Side Story), Craddock smashes multiple forms together, allowing the parallels and the comedy to speak for themselves. This technique has become a hallmark of contemporary American drama, finding expression in the works of Christine Evans, Sarah Ruhl, and Charles L. Mee.
For New Rep’s production, Warner has embraced the play’s array of sources and styles. A seedy bar rests alongside a dreamy castle. Actors trained in Shakespeare and Improv Comedy work together to highlight the play’s classical allusions and modern-day shtick. When discussing her aesthetic inspirations, Warner points to “Fractured Fairytales,” a segment from the classic The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.
FRACTURING FAIRYTALES
Once upon a time, a red-headed valley girl sold riding hoods on Rodeo Drive; a real wooden boy became an overnight TV celebrity; and three debutante pigs built megamansions to keep out their lupine suitor. Sound strangely familiar? Welcome to the world of “Fractured Fairytales,” a staple of The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show from 1959 to 1961. Created by A.J. Jacobs, the short cartoons riffed on classic children’s tales.
While such an adult take on the stories might be deemed subversive, “Fractured Fairytales” actually return many of the stories to their historical roots, the tales of the Brothers Grimm. Based on German folklore, the Grimm tales were filled with sin and lust. Just as the Grimms tweaked their source material, “The Fractured Fairytales” brought timeless stories into a modern American idiom.
The 91 cartoon shorts that comprised “Fractured Fairytales” have had a lasting influence on American culture. The subversion of children’s tales has become commonplace in
literature (Gregory Maguire’s series of Oz novels), film (Disney’s many animated fairytales), and theater (Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into the Woods). Likewise in Indulgences, Chris Craddock weaves elements of whimsical children’s stories into his own madcap comedy.
PLAYWRIGHT INTERVIEW
What role has your time with Rapid Fire played in your process as a writer? How much of Indulgences was developed improvisationally?
I have long maintained that improv is to writing what a wrench is to plumbing. It loosens
everything up and makes getting to the work possible. Writers can edit themselves to death. Improv asks us to create narrative, on the spot, in dialogue, all in collaboration with one or more fellow artists. There is no time to self recriminate, delete, spend-the-day-on-the-first-page-and-only-get-halfway. If you can bring that freedom back to your keyboard, the stiffness will come out of your voice as a writer.
All that said, I do not tend to create work directly through improv. I bring improv to my writing work as described above, but I don’t use it to generate content all that often. I use it to rework, discover, and improve my writing. Because after the first draft is done, the soul of writing is still rewriting. A good portion of my dramaturgy happens as I act and listen onstage, as I do try to be in the premiere production of my work.
Some will tell you that being a writer-director is the ultimate creative control orgy, and I guess it is. But you can get all sorts of control from the stage while you act in your own play, while still getting the benefit of your director’s wisdom.
Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet are both clearly alluded to in Indulgences. What other sources/inspirations/influences drove the crafting of the play?
Well, this is quite an early play for me, and represents a time when I was actively trying to learn the craft of playwriting. Young writers often have trouble creating distinct voices for their characters; their people all sound like them. To help solve this, there’s an exercise. You give each character a different playwright. I chose Mamet for the Salesman, Pinter for Man 1 and 2, and Shakespeare for the royals. The exercise is usually only for a scene or two, but I just kept on writing. Then rewriting. This is the result.
Some of your plays (notably Bash’d) are written to directly address a specific contemporary issue. What was the impetus for writing Indulgences?
I do try to be a bit of artist-activist. I wish theatre was more broadly experienced. Sometimes I feel I am preaching to the choir. We live in marvelous times. We have the power right now to solve all the problems of the world. So why do we continue to choose not to? Why do the rich still use up the lives of the poor? Why is climate change drowning the penniless, while rich countries who could make the difference continue to refuse to do so? The disconnect is clearly an emotional one. Art breeds compassion by its definition. Good art makes better compassion, but all of it works to this end. It tells us who we are, and asks us if we’re good enough. The difference it makes is a drop in the bucket, but if one person is to make any difference, it will always be a drop in the bucket. We must believe in the drop in the bucket, and demand of the powerful to make it rain.
Production Notes by Sean Bartley