Don’t call me Hippie...I am a Freak! Really! That’s What We Said

The strangest thing about being an old Peace Marching, Manifesto Writing, Pot Smoking, Country Joe and the Fish Freak of the late 1960’s is how fast we disappeared. I noticed when I was 30-years-old that the 22-year-olds graduating from college had very little interest in the political, but had embraced the sex part with gusto. My younger New York City friends had lost track of the number of men they had sex with after  getting to 100 (not sleeping with...going up into the high seats of Palladium and mating and parting without even knowing names...a practice AIDS stopped) and yet they became very respectable wives and mothers without a thought. I barely made it to 10 real  relationships (plus one date rape) in my whole denimed, communal, Woodstock life. The disco party started as the Vietnam War disappeared and died. There was no longer a Draft to resist and people discovered credit cards when the rates were 3 percent and you could pay it all off every month for free. We actually had to pay for things at purchase...how bizarre...how bizarre.  I remember in 1969 at Ohio University, when the Pong Game arrived at the Student Union. Within 24 hours people were wrapped around the block, waiting to play that simple, boring little game. (By the way, Pong recently beat Andy Roddick in a tennis game, but we always suspected that Pong had the best return of serve.) Parents were becoming increasingly irrelevant and unimportant to the life of the generation after ours. Our parents, fresh from surviving the Depression and World War II, passed on different neuroses than the parents who slogged through Korea and only knew shopping as being at a Mall. We knew the world before plastic, but the generation born after 1956 were raised on Tang and McDonald’s. But now, like it or not, now, we have 2 stupid wars. We have a hideous economy and the rich oppressing the poor more than ever.  The party is over. We have to get back in the streets. We have to stop playing and start understanding. “One, Two, Three What are we fightin’ for? Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn! Next stop is Bagram!” Yeah, there goes Grandma again...talking about a Revolution.

I Declare February 9 The First Day of Spring 2011

We are now going to dive into the play “Bulldog” about the changes in the newspaper business. The only romanticism in this will be in praying for the survival of newspapers. There will be absolutely no male/female bonding except perhaps between the war reporters, done quickly and efficiently under a desk and then on to the next battle. The other play that I want to begin is called “R U HERE? M I?” about Social Networking. For this, I may need more discussion with other people about. I want to have the positive as well as the negative things that go on. It is also the springtime for art and performance. With the $65,000,000 “Spiderman” getting horrible reviews and yet terrific sales, never have the words “Quo Vadis?” (Latin for: “Say WHAT?”) been more relevant for the theater. And most importantly we have to plant our feet as firmly as a gimp can in the East. in accepting our age, and trying to understand what it is to be a woman. We are growing stronger, and yet we still have to look closely at ourselves because we can make a lot of our own problems, as I’ve discovered. My generation started the fight for feminism but we can’t be here to see where it goes. If we leave a mark on it, it has to be the best possible one.

My attempts at "Haiku" Apologies to the Land of Japan

Over Here! Look Over Here!
Over Here at Me! I am
Waving my Hand!

Bad Poetry Is
The Refuge Of the Whiny
Intellectual.

Frozen Water And
Frozen Heart.  Will Spring Bring a
Thaw To All Rivers?

I WIll Never Again
Offer Apologies For
The Immutable.

Why is Arrogance
And Self-Absorption Like
Catnip to me? Mom?

And words writ on computer screens are cold.

I spent the last few days studying Rostand’s form in “Cyrano de Bergerac”.  Free verse without rhyme, set to a count of ten. You can break a line, just keep the beat. Daddio. I know. I know. There are technical terms for this, but I just want the nuts and bolts; like building a set or hanging a light: concrete things that make the magic happen. I am not quite there yet, but this morning, I wrote one of the best damned pieces of free verse I have done so far, and I cannot share it because it is so very, very personal. And if there’s anything I’ve learned of late, it’s that if you’re selling this thing called Creativity, it cannot go too willy-nilly into your  Persona. Because sometimes , you will indulge in forbidden areas that only you can accept. Unskillful presentation will send the audience fleeing. If you can find  a way to touch the horror, and have them stay in their seats, then you are a legendary genius. I don’t know anyone who’s capable. The title of this piece, “And words writ on computer screens are cold,” is the one safe line and I love its mix of ancient and modern. “writ” on “computer screens.” The heat comes from the actor’s voice. From the stroke of paint. From the ink on paper. Maybe the Kindle will change this calculation. Maybe your mind can do it all. I don’t know. Perhaps words that are cold on the screen will be just as chilling spoken face-to-face.

Whoot! There it is!

OK, you'll want to see "Amour Americaine" this is the google.doc address:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PA9ljvhRFLsKs7X72oJGjjByEZa3Kf2VRjZiroM-eho/edit?hl=en

If you can't get in, message me at justy89@earthink.net with your email address and I'll set it in.

A sixth draft is not yet performance level. Not until I hear it and I'm talking to two theatrical groups about getting a private, working reading. Wow! This one is hard. "Cyrano" could be as romantic and devoted as he liked. But Siriana, as a modern woman...is she a fool...an addict? I gave her adventures and romance in her 14 year separation from Roxy.  Cyrano only lives for Roxanne, but that was the 17th Century. 1996 in New York was still confusing. Still searching for answers and pleasures and not noticing that the world was being sabotaged by the bankers. Every play I write, I open cans of worms that I must deal with. I paid a price for this play. I hope the audience gets the reward.

Let's Kick This Off Again Since we Have a New Play

I missed doing this and I am still writing plays, so let's get going with this. I have a friend who is starting a new theater in New Jersey and I might actually get a reading of the monster, the 120 page "Cyrano de Bergerac" modernization that I call "Amour Americaine". It's copywritten. It's up to the 6th draft and getting better, but I gotta hear it. There is a contest for one acts, Estrogenius (I know. I know. But they do good work) that I'm entering and I'm turning the old ReinhardRites into an essay on the theater for another contest. I am entered in a contest to be printed and basically I am hopping up and down screaming SUSAN B. REINHARD IS A PLAYWRIGHT! which you have to do so they at least know your name. I'm also going to try to do something amazingly difficult and fix a huge flaw in my personality. The compulsive/addictive/romantic thing did give me a great play in Amour, but I can't do this any more. It's too tiring and I have vowed a million times to be a Feminist. Now, I'm going to try and I have to give up Fantasyland, which will not be easy for me, the addict, but it has to be done. SUSAN B. REINHARD IS A PLAYWRIGHT! Damn it! That's not such a bad thing to be.

Let's Wrap This Up and Turn It Into a Show

Reinhard's Rules of Riting was always meant to be temporary. It will become a, hopefully, comic one woman show.  I'm not sure what the uses are of Social Networking. It is much more important to have your ass out on a wooden stage, under lights, DOING something and I'm not sure what the next step is as we roll into the opening of The Talking God reading, which has been wonderful. I sense that I may lose the person who motivated me through all this and has been a wonderful support, but perhaps that was meant to be. The baby bird (with a cane) has to get out there and fly. Sorry that I didn't understand things perfectly from Day One, Baby Brother, it was all so new to me. There's a winter coming and we may cuddle up next to the computer, but it's going to have to become a sales tool. I have to get an agent. I have to write more plays BULLDOG will be the first new one in years and I am afraid of it, flying wild. R U HERE M I? about social networking is probably going to tear my heart out, but that's what I have to give you. Honest and brutal.  That's my job and I've been falling down on it. There's only eight of you, but thanks for the support. NEXT YEAR IN NEW YORK! Yeah. Right.