Parenting and Playwriting

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Until very recently, my children had never seen one of my plays. They’re too young to appreciate the kind of plays I usually write, and I mainly work out of town. Laying down a lot of money to bring a child to a foreign port to see a play she won’t really understand hasn’t held much appeal. The children know I’m a playwright, and they’ve held my published plays in their little hands, but I don’t know that it means much to them, other than when I’m on my computer, they hear some variation of run along, play by yourself, Mommy’s working.

There are three instances in life when I strongly suggest you tamp down expectations: receiving a present from your in-laws, opening a theatre royalty check, and introducing your children to a play you wrote.

My ignoring them at home doesn’t seem to bother them much, but working away from home certainly does, as I’ve discussed before. I was gone quite a bit last spring, missing a choral recital and an academic awards ceremony. The Professor had to stand in for me at a pre-school Mother’s Day tea. The girls were fussy with my absence, and the mild Professor annoyed at the extra parenting duty during the onslaught of end of the semester grading.

I decided the best remedy would be to fly everybody out to California the day after school ended to see my first play for young audiences, OZ 2.5, a new play inspired by The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and produced by South Coast Repertory. I imagined seeing my work on the stage, especially in such a vibrant, accessible way, would put some missing pieces of the puzzle together for the girls. Yes, Mommy works out of town a lot but look what she does! There’s Kansas, where we live, and look, a tornado and flying fence, and wow, now we’re in a colorful video-game called OZ, with a talking animals, a wicked witch, flying monkeys, and a big tap number (did I mention it was liberal interpretation?). Oh my, doesn’t Mommy have a wondrous, magical job?

There are three instances in life when I strongly suggest you tamp down expectations: receiving a present from your in-laws, opening a theatre royalty check, and introducing your children to a play you wrote.

I’m being a little disingenuous. Laura, five, loved the play. She wanted to go backstage immediately afterwards and take pictures with all the actors. She posed on the set and touched the magical silver shoes on the prop table with awe. For days afterwards, in the Tin Man’s robotic voice, she quoted with perfect melancholy, “It’s harder than I thought to have a heart.” To this day, whenever we see an image from The Wizard of Oz, the movie, she quotes my play instead. Have I ever told you that Laura is an extremely bright child, destined for great things?

When I ask Lizzie, eight, what she thought of the play, she pauses. “It was good,” she said. “But not great.”

I tell her, “Lizzie, if you’re going to criticize a play, you need to be able to make an argument for why you didn’t like something.”

She replies, “I didn’t say I didn’t like it. I said it was good.” She pauses. “But not great.”

I restrain myself from outlining the six Aristotelian principles of drama and demonstrating how my play excels in every single one. I ask instead, “How do you think it could have been better?” Lizzie shrugs. I continue, “I really need your help with this, honey. How can Mommy improve her playwriting, if you don’t tell me what could have been better? I mean, it’s really unfair of you to criticize something and not provide an actual argument with evidence to back up the argument. You don’t want to be a sloppy critic, do you?”

She says, “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

Laura, my dear, my darling firstborn, gorgeous, blue-eyed, brilliant, stork-legged, flailing-armed girl, you want to know what’s good but not great? That flower collage you glued together in first grade that hung on the library wall. That was good but not great. Getting a medal for participation in field day. That, too, was good but not great. Coming in third place in the annual coloring contest? Also good but not great. And no, I didn’t make your chorus recital, but I heard all about from Daddy, and from the sound of it, I feel pretty confident in calling the performance good but not great.

I didn’t say that, of course. I let her change the subject to roller coasters or the Penderwick books or bumblebees or whatever was on her eight-year-old mind at the time, because I am, after all, a good mother.

But not great.

Have your children seen a play you’ve written or helped to create? What was their response?