Let's Talk About Tyree.

So the play I'm most in the middle of right now is called Tyree. I've mentioned it here before.

It's a challenge to myself. It's probably not a play that is going to make me much, if any, money. It's probably not a play that is going to do much in terms of building up my reputation. I say that not because Tyree isn't going well; to the contrary, I'm loving the process of writing this play. I think it's a huge departure for me, and it's changing the way I write. This play is wildly important in terms of my development as a writer, and I think it'll surprise folks whenever they finally get to check it out, in whatever form they get to check it out.

It's just...different. Very different.

I don't get it. And that's the point.

I sat down to write a sequel to my play Guernica, which hasn't yet been produced, although it was a semi-finalist for this year's O'Neill conference. I knew the play ended with more story to be told, so I decided to dive back in and see where the untied storylines would lead me. And they are leading me...someplace. I'm not quite sure where. But I'm following.

One of the big challenges of doing a follow-up to Guernica is that I'm not staying with the character of Guernica herself. Most of her loose ends are pretty much tied up in the first play. She has a mission, she accomplishes it, she's pretty set. Tyree is the character left up in the air at the curtain of the first play. Tyree though is a pretty passive character in Guernica--the trick here in Tyree is how to make her the driving force of the play, how to make her make things happen. And I'm solving that problem by...well, I'm not sure I'm solving that problem.

And that's what's so strange about this play for me. It's not flashy and full of music like Welcome to Arroyo's. It's not overtly political and loud-mouthed like The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity. It's not about a subject I'd consider myself an expert on like either of those two aforementioned plays. It's not even a tense, taut, uncomfortable power triangle like Guernica. It's a beast of its own. It's in the Pinter vein (I can't believe I would even write that sentence). It's way open to interpretation. It contains stage directions that don't even really make sense to me. This play is, quite simply, full of whatever comes out of me when I sit down to write it, whether I can explain it or not.

And ultimately, that's pretty exciting.

Tyree will be finished and ready for public consumption by January 12th, 2007--one year after I finished Guernica.