The Art of The Trilogy by Steven Cole Hughes
Discussed in this week’s blog:
Michael Bouchard – Octopussy – Eugene O’Neill – Slabtown – Billy Hell – The Bad Man – Kip’s Grill – Chad Afanador – Robert Duvall – The Mummy
Because of the overwhelming response to my last blog in the CRT mailroom, and the ensuing increase in subscription package purchases, it has been requested that I turn my monthly blog into a weekly one. I’ve gotten permission from “upstairs” to preempt Michael Bouchard’s weekly column, “Other Actors: Necessary?” with my next installment: the Art of The Trilogy, or as I’m calling it, “AT&Tä.”
Quick, name your favorite movie trilogy. If you said the Back to the Future, Evil Dead or Cannonball Run trilogies, congratulations! You are correct. If you answered the Godfather, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings or The Three Colors trilogies, you know who you are, you should be ashamed of yourself, and the truth will out.
Now, name your favorite theatrical trilogy. Quick! Did you say the Oresteia by Aeschylus? Or the Talley Trilogy by Lanford Wilson? Or did you say Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera, Love Never Dies, and Octopussy? No? If you couldn’t come up with a theatrical trilogy at all, don’t feel bad, there aren’t that many out there. To write a trilogy for the stage is, in the immortal words of Eugene O’Neill, “stupid.”
But why? Why is this motif acceptable for movies, framed pictures and traffic light colors, but not for the theatre? Why do comedy and celebrity deaths come in threes? Why are there three strikes to an out, three times to a charm, and three little pigs? Ancient Indians exalted the “threeway” in the Kama Sutra. Think of all of the “holy” trinities out there – The Three Stooges, The Beastie Boys, Carrie Anne Moss – the examples are endless! But not so for the theatre. Why? Why?!
The answer, of course, lies in the devil’s famed aversion to this sacred numerical sequence, but an in-depth study of the ancient connections between the American Theatre and Satan is beyond the purview of this blog, so for now let’s just stick to talking about my trilogy of plays for CRT: Slabtown, Billy Hell and The Bad Man.
Slabtown received a small, workshop production at the Denver Center Theatre Company, under the watchful eye of Nagle Jackson. Nagle passed the script along to “this guy I know in Creede. No, no, no… he’s cool,” Maurice LaMee. Mo loved the play and immediately flew the CRT private jet to Denver to meet* me. He said, “I want to produce your play,” I replied, “OK,” and Slabtown premiered at Creede Rep in September, 2005, directed by Mr. LaMee.
Slabtown is the story of Billy and Bessy, their love, his gunfights, her sexual prowess, there’s a long monologue about turquoise and Shady Brady has some funny lines right before he gets killed. That’s really all I can remember.
Billy Hell** opened in Creede in the last few months of the George W. Bush presidency and was, appropriately, about the nature of evil. Someone at Kip’s Grill said to me that summer, “Billy Hell, huh? Christian organization puttin’ that on?” I said, “No.” The play follows Bessy and Billy as they hightail it for Old Mexico. They meet a vaudevillian nailed to a cross and a one-eyed bounty hunter along the way. Chad Afanador did some black face that summer, and he also appeared as an actor in Billy Hell.
After the production won Denver Post Ovation Awards for Best New Work and Best Original Music, and Reader’s Choice Awards for Mo’s direction and Chad’s offenses, Mo agreed to produce the third installment of the trilogy sight-unseen. Then he saw a reading of the third play and said, “Um, let’s talk.” “Talk” was code for “you need to totally re-write this thing right now or I’m not doin’ it,” which I did, and The Bad Man is set to open in Creede next fall.
In The Bad Man, an Indian medicine man helps Bessy journey into the Spirit World to find Billy and bring him back, there might be some music, there will certainly be some gunfights and some lucky audience member will definitely be offended.
It’s a trilogy! It’s a great way to tell a story:
1. Boy gets girl
2. Boy loses girl
3. Boy and Girl are reunited and have a child played by Francis Ford Coppola’s daughter
or,
1. Boy learns about his power
2. Boy uses his power, but is defeated by Clubber Lang/the Empire
3. Return of the King/Jedi
or,
… I could go on all night with this. (Submit your own!)
But seriously, I love the Old West. I love telling stories about the Old West. Robert Duvall said that the Western is the American’s equivalent to Shakespeare. It’s what allows us tell epic stories about our shared past. And the trilogy format is nothing if not epic. Some of my favorite novels are Cormac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy: All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing and Cities of the Plain, from which I have stolen themes, idioms and actual chunks of good dialogue only slightly.
But seriously seriously, it is incredibly exciting to me that I’ve had the opportunity to write a trilogy of plays for the same theatre company, with the same director. We had a really cool set and lots of gunplay in Slabtown. We had horses and live music in Billy Hell. How will the CRT creative team respond to the challenges of The Bad Man: a campfire, a buffalo stampede, 250 Native Americans all on stage at once, a chariot race, a helicopter and a giant crystal chandelier (I might be willing to compromise on the chandelier. We’ll see…)?
It’s a trilogy! And if the Matrix, Mummy or French Connection trilogies prove any indicators, the third one usually sucks, so buy your tickets now!
Thanks.
*The now infamous “beer summit” has been blown way out of proportion. To set the record straight, I did have several beers that night, but Mo only had a coke because he had to “drive back”, and neither of us can recall to any degree of certainty just how many drinks the whores had.
**Where can you get yourself your very own copy of Billy Hell? Why, here, of course: http://www.originalworksonline.com/billyhell.htm
Michael is discussing. 
Michael 1:54 pm on February 19, 2011 Permalink |
Well as you seem to be reading my columns before I publish them, I’ll just let the cat out of the bag. Other actors are only necessary during rehearsal. I have the audience to listen to me after opening.