I've been trying to figure out what this play really is. I've felt a tremendous pressure (from myself, of course) to make this a legitimate dramatic piece, with all the important pieces: original dialogue, conflict, a structure that fits within something expected. . . But every time I sit down and write dialogue between characters, it feels very false. After all, it is the history of this place, the actual people who lived and worked in Lowell. The power of the 'industrial machine' and the implications for the labor movement. It is those big issues that interest me and every time I try to take something and make it a fictional account of reality - it feels false, and awkward. I KNOW that there is theatrical material here and I also know that the story I want to tell lies in history, not in fiction. I've been struggling with this and going back and forth but think today I've come to the conclusion that it really is ok to do a docudrama of sorts. This simply is not going to be a traditional play. It is going to be my attempt to bring alive this history, largely through the primary materials that exist.
I do worry that it will feel too much like a lecture and not like a theatrical experience. I think the trick will be to give it a logical flow and find the ways to talk this narration and theatricalize it. I could be wrong. Right now (as I'm trying to breath through a bad cold), I'm a bit stuck and feeling like this will disappoint. I keep trying to remind myself that the only person I truly need to please is myself. But............
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