Spaghetti at The Wall: First Draft Reflections on ‘Patrons,Palermo’.
In many ways, drafting Patrons, Palermo has been a challenge unlike any writing process thus far in my career; between attempts at new styles of writing, new structures for both text and process, and drastic at-home lifestyle shifts which affected my writing headspace, it feels like a bit of a relief to have put the first draft of Patrons, Palermo down on paper officially as of just a few days ago. That being said, I am remarkably proud of the concept and content which I have produced so far in this work. While the play is far from finished, I would like to take this space to reflect on the lessons learned from this first draft of the show and to state some goals for future iterations.
First, I’d like to address the process of drafting this play over the last six months or so. As this play has been developed for UCSD’s Honors Thesis Program, I have had the privilege of writing with and for a cohort of writers on a set schedule and under set parameters. Going into this process, I think I underestimated how drastic a shift away from my normal writing process this was; I’m used to writing when and only when inspiration strikes (this is not a problem in my usual, ‘freeform’ writing practice), and it turns out writing for a deadline is a completely different beast.
A few deadlines into this process I realized that the most I’ve ever written on a specific, dedicated deadline is about forty-five pages, and that was over the course of less than a few weeks. While I’ve written full length works on two occasions with the intention of presenting them to a group of people on a certain timeline, this was the first time in my career I’ve encountered specific ‘due dates’ for specified amounts of writing during the process. I believe that because of this– and due to the aforementioned drastic lifestyle changes beyond my control– I struggled to fall into a rhythm with the process of writing this draft; I often found myself writing either one page at a time or incredibly long stretches at a time (sixty, seventy pages) with no real sense of what a ‘normal’ writing session looked like for this play.
This structural shift in my writing practice definitely kept me on my toes, and while I am looking forward to returning to my regular practice with the hope of recovering that ‘rhythm’ as I leave my time in Undergraduate education, I am grateful for the chance to have worked under these new and challenging circumstances. Writing with a cohort enabled me to shake up my practice and put my time management skills to the test.
In addition to time management, writing with a cohort has given me the opportunity to assess the questions of obligation and motivation in my writing practice. I have never experienced a long stretch of time in my writing career thus far when I have not been motivated to write; I usually have a script I’m working on, and when I finish a draft of one work is usually about the time a new draft or idea begins churning around in my brain. This motivation usually manufactures what I consider to be a healthy sense of obligation to my writing practice, and more specifically, to the play that I’m working on at the time. Writing for a cohort on a deadline, however, manufactured a new sense of external obligation which posed a new challenge for me. I literally had to write twenty pages before Wednesday, or have a revision by Friday. Interestingly enough, I feel like these deadlines made my draft take longer to complete as it often felt like I was writing to meet the deadline or achieve the goal, not writing to progress the project. This caused a sort of anxiety in me. I have yet to experience anxiety in relation to my writing, and I am curious to experiment with deadlines in the future in order to manifest a sustainable collaborative writing practice both for the benefit of my career and my growth as an artist.
Stylistically, I would also go as far as to say Patrons, Palermo is the most nuanced, complicated play I have attempted to draft so far. The play deals with a lot of themes, characters, and overarching storylines all while attempting to maintain clear inspiration from Catholicism while not being a play about Catholicism. The play has six named, speaking characters (what I would consider to be a pretty evenly weighted ensemble cast) all with their own struggles, fears, needs, and goals. While that may not seem like a ton of characters, most of my plays to date have a maximum of three characters, so this is dealing with twice as many imaginary people. Who knew playwriting could often feel like babysitting? You have to keep track of everyone, make sure they’re fed and nurtured, and ensure they get what they need (or, unlike babysitting, make sure they don’t get what they need, but I digress). One major takeaway from this draft? Six kids is a lot of kids to babysit at one time!
I am still trying to figure out exactly what this play is, but over the course of this drafting process it has become clear to me what this play is not. Patrons is not a straight drama– it’s funny, sometimes more so than it is dramatic, and I hope to keep it that way. Patrons is not a play about the patron saints of Palermo, like I initially thought; while St. Ninfa, St. Christina, St. Agatha, and St. Olive are still massive inspirations for this play and these characters, the Saints don’t appear in the show. Again, this is not a play about Catholicism– I’ve also become sure of that over this process. Patrons is also not a play about womanhood; while this might seem like a small “not” to point out, this is a pretty huge thematic departure for me. While the play still centers femme bodies, their femininity is not directly feeding the conflict of the play, and that is an exciting shift from the stories I usually tell. I’m excited to see where this departure takes me and my beloved Palermo population over the next few drafts. I think we are still on an adventure of discovery together, and I can’t wait to get to know them and their world more.
In terms of goals for the future of Palermo, I am primarily focused on honing in on exactly what this play is about and what story I’m trying to tell with it. The characters are becoming clearer and clearer by the day (and by that I mean, truly, more and more complex) which is exciting; I am really entrenched in this process of exploration right now. The play already has a lot of content, and I think I’ll end up with more before I end up with less. It feels a bit like a puzzle I’m cutting myself, as opposed to a puzzle I’m trying to put together.
Without spoilers (for those who may read this reflection who haven’t/won’t read the play), I want to challenge Agatha more from the top of the play, making her transformation more clear into the second half and the finale. I want to pin down exactly what Peter is looking for in all of this, and exactly how he gets it. I want to spice up Angelo and Christina even more, pushing and pushing and pushing them. I want Olive to be in the play more, and I want to figure out what exactly she does to assist or hinder Agatha in her journey. I want to continue to push Ninfa into discomfort and discontent, but that being said, she’s definitely feeling the most complete of them all right now. I love them all in their own ways, and I love spending time with them. It feels very much like we’re all figuring this out together.
Finally, and maybe most importantly, I’d like to address and reflect on just how tangible my UCSD experience feels in this play. This play was written for, with, and with inspiration from some of my closest friends at UCSD. Their presence feels really tangible in these characters, and I have had such a blast writing for people who I love so much. Additionally, in my Sophomore year at UCSD I was ‘commissioned’ to write a full length play for a student org that would be dissolved only weeks after I delivered the first draft to them (I want to point out, I wasn’t responsible for the dissolving… they had their own stuff going on); I was tasked with writing an adaptation of a Greek classic, and I wrote a take on The Bacchae about a group of young women trapped in the basement of a Greek restaurant. We did one reading of the first draft around my kitchen table before it got put in the drawer, with friends occasionally asking me about it.l Friends who have been asking about it, this one’s for you. In many ways Patrons feels like the spiritual successor/older sister of that play that never saw the light of day; while none of the material is directly recycled, I have felt destined to write a silly religious allegory set in a North American Mediterranean restaurant for a while. I guess, do with that information what you will.
While I don’t think this is the tightest first draft I’ve ever written, it’s certainly a first draft I’m proud of. It makes bold choices which may get cut later, or may stay and become the crux of the show. It pushes the bounds of what I’m used to writing and challenges me in new ways. The thing I’m most proud of, though, is the level of duality present in the play; I believe there is a lot of room for nuance of narrative, theme, and language to explore in future drafts based on the foundation I’ve laid in these original 97 pages. I cannot wait to see where this play ends up (figuratively and literally), and I have been so grateful for the chance to develop it over the past few months in this new and exciting way.
Stay tuned for more updates as I keep throwing Spaghetti at the wall. Salute!
