Water by the Spoonful: lessons learned from the play

Got this from the Burbank Public Library yesterday, along with about a million other plays. This is supposed to be a great family script, so excited to read it. 

Lessons learned will be on next page.

Written by Quiara Alegria Hudes

OK. This script is another example of a family that was impacted by tragedy, and the effects that that tragedy had moving forward.

But they tease all of that out over the course of the play, so we don't know the details of the dark past until we need to. 

Talking about the fact that Odessa was a crackhead and that she gave Elliot up to her sister when he was a baby. Also the fact that Odessa left Elliot's little sister alone when the girl was a baby and then the baby died. 

These facts BREED RESENTMENT, and that resentment is explored, expanded and processed over the course of the play.

We've seen that formula used in so many of these great plays. Rabbit Hole. The Spoils. Osage County. SO MANY. And it happens in TV too. 

We need to always remember that. We need to always remember to write from INSIDE those resentful feelings. Because people are so rarely present in conversation - - so often they're filtering it all through their resentment (and their relationship with whoever is speaking) before they respond or act. 

Also like many other great pieces of writing we've studied on here, this script used secrets (and how they are revealed) in a powerful way. Yaz doesn't know that Elliot suffered from addiction forever.

But beyond that, and maybe this is a way to re-contextualize some of what we've been thinking about, secrets are kept FROM THE AUDIENCE. The audience eventually learns the secrets, but only when the writer wants us to.

Just like the characters keeping things from each other in the play creates tension in their relationships (tension that is later resolved), the writer keeps things from the audience and creates tensions in THAT relationship.

Maybe that is some high falutin bullshit right there, but it's interesting to consider the way secrets are used in every way in these plays. 

​Secrets are fuel. Resentment is fuel. The past is fuel. Peoples dashed hopes and desires are fuel. Expectations are fuel. Lies that characters tell themselves and other people -- those are fuel.  

Every good story needs FUEL. And it's not about seeding in some bullshit about "oh look at how this can go five seasons, because now they opened a store together" or something like that.

It's about LOOK AT ALL THE FUCKING FUEL. Look at all the tension. Look how there will obviously be more. Look at how that breeds comedy and drama. 

Look at the lies and the complicated relationships.

This play, like all the others, has such a strong command over showing the audience the part of humanity that we want to see. The stuff we dream of eavesdropping on if we could get a live feed of our neighbors houses. The chatter that seems mundane except for the tension and the disconnect. The understanding that we're leading to an explosion. The explosion and the quiet that comes after.

We HAVE TO KEEP THAT IN MIND. What conversations do we want to overhear? What information do we need for those conversations to bring us to the edge of our seats? 

​Let's just do that.