Here's an entry from Karla Jennings, author of The Ruby Vector, a compelling and timely play about biological weapons:
I have two weeks to lose ten pounds before getting to Chicago! Can it be done? Well, yes, if I stop eating like a pig and get my ass off the couch, but that's not gonna happen.
Regardless, I'm looking forward to being back in Chitown. I grew up in Chicagoland, and miss it. I've lived in Georgia 22+ years, but will never feel like a Southerner. I'll always feel like a Midwesterner. One thing that struck me, after living all over the place for many years, was that, in California, someone may introduce themselves with, "I work as a bank manager, but that's not what I am, I'm really a poet." In Chicago, someone may introduce themselves with, "I've written 5 books of poetry, but I'm really a plumber." For better or worse, people are more in touch with physical reality in the Midwest; gravity seems heavier there, people walk more heavily, perhaps because they're more down-to-earth, or maybe the perogi and deep-dish pizza have something to do with it.
I'm deeply curious how The Ruby Vector will turn out in LeapFest. Doing a workshop production with a team you don't know is like doing a trapeze routine with strangers; you gotta pray they have a quick grasp and also know when to let go. That's the essence of grace in so much of life.
You may ask, Why did you write this play? Okay, you didn't ask it, you're just reading this because you have to look busy at the computer or your boss will get pissed. Well, anyway, it's a question I ask myself, a lot. Why the hell am I writing this…?
I wrote The Ruby Vector because I got a tiny commission from a technical institute's drama club to write a one-act inspired by Frankenstein. I'd recently read about a Russian bioweapons scientist claiming to have created viral/bacterial chimeras -- potentially fatal bacteria containing potentially fatal viruses. It repulsed me. I found this especially offensive because I was a biology major, and love biology. What could be more beautiful than the living science? What could be more repulsive than a scientist who'd use his genius to create living death?
But anyway, when I got this commission, I met with the theater club's director to discuss what the play would be about. I pitched what I thought was a really neat idea. His eyes glazed over. So, I mentioned this bioweapons scientist, and he said, "Why don't you write about that?" I thought, Damn, if you weren't paying me money, I'd say "No!" So I wrote the one-act, which kept haunting me, so a year later I'd expanded it into a full-length.
It's the most difficult play I've ever written, because I hated the central character, Demyan Veronin, who'd dedicated his life to devising new forms of torturous, horrible plagues. But as I wrote him and his story, and researched bioweapons work and terrorism, I leaned over the abyss of nihilism that motivates so much terrorism and murder in the world, and began to understand him. I saw him as rising from the rags of people born into unfortunate places at unfortunate times, who get crushed. He survived, deformed. At his core there's nothing but pain, and the pathetic desire to be happy and loved, which he doesn't know how to accomplish because they're alien to him.
I guess you can say familiarity breeds compassion. Or, perhaps, that familiarity breeds excuse of any evil, like Pope's dictum; "Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,/As to be hated needs but to be seen;/Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,/We first endure, then pity, then embrace." All I know is that I developed a deep compassion for Demyan, and regretted what happened to him, but that's the way he was written. I might be the playwright, but that doesn't mean that everything I create in a play is under my power to change."
See the Ruby Vector, directed by Greg Werstler, 5/15 and 5/21 at 7:300pm, 5/30 at 2pm.
I have two weeks to lose ten pounds before getting to Chicago! Can it be done? Well, yes, if I stop eating like a pig and get my ass off the couch, but that's not gonna happen.
Regardless, I'm looking forward to being back in Chitown. I grew up in Chicagoland, and miss it. I've lived in Georgia 22+ years, but will never feel like a Southerner. I'll always feel like a Midwesterner. One thing that struck me, after living all over the place for many years, was that, in California, someone may introduce themselves with, "I work as a bank manager, but that's not what I am, I'm really a poet." In Chicago, someone may introduce themselves with, "I've written 5 books of poetry, but I'm really a plumber." For better or worse, people are more in touch with physical reality in the Midwest; gravity seems heavier there, people walk more heavily, perhaps because they're more down-to-earth, or maybe the perogi and deep-dish pizza have something to do with it.
I'm deeply curious how The Ruby Vector will turn out in LeapFest. Doing a workshop production with a team you don't know is like doing a trapeze routine with strangers; you gotta pray they have a quick grasp and also know when to let go. That's the essence of grace in so much of life.
You may ask, Why did you write this play? Okay, you didn't ask it, you're just reading this because you have to look busy at the computer or your boss will get pissed. Well, anyway, it's a question I ask myself, a lot. Why the hell am I writing this…?
I wrote The Ruby Vector because I got a tiny commission from a technical institute's drama club to write a one-act inspired by Frankenstein. I'd recently read about a Russian bioweapons scientist claiming to have created viral/bacterial chimeras -- potentially fatal bacteria containing potentially fatal viruses. It repulsed me. I found this especially offensive because I was a biology major, and love biology. What could be more beautiful than the living science? What could be more repulsive than a scientist who'd use his genius to create living death?
But anyway, when I got this commission, I met with the theater club's director to discuss what the play would be about. I pitched what I thought was a really neat idea. His eyes glazed over. So, I mentioned this bioweapons scientist, and he said, "Why don't you write about that?" I thought, Damn, if you weren't paying me money, I'd say "No!" So I wrote the one-act, which kept haunting me, so a year later I'd expanded it into a full-length.
It's the most difficult play I've ever written, because I hated the central character, Demyan Veronin, who'd dedicated his life to devising new forms of torturous, horrible plagues. But as I wrote him and his story, and researched bioweapons work and terrorism, I leaned over the abyss of nihilism that motivates so much terrorism and murder in the world, and began to understand him. I saw him as rising from the rags of people born into unfortunate places at unfortunate times, who get crushed. He survived, deformed. At his core there's nothing but pain, and the pathetic desire to be happy and loved, which he doesn't know how to accomplish because they're alien to him.
I guess you can say familiarity breeds compassion. Or, perhaps, that familiarity breeds excuse of any evil, like Pope's dictum; "Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,/As to be hated needs but to be seen;/Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,/We first endure, then pity, then embrace." All I know is that I developed a deep compassion for Demyan, and regretted what happened to him, but that's the way he was written. I might be the playwright, but that doesn't mean that everything I create in a play is under my power to change."
See the Ruby Vector, directed by Greg Werstler, 5/15 and 5/21 at 7:300pm, 5/30 at 2pm.
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