Latest / The Imperfect Impulse w/Bree O'Connor / Ep. 16: Weird Little Moments

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Ep. 16: Weird Little Moments · The Imperfect Impulse w/Bree O'Connor

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to The Imperfect Impulse with Brie O'Connor.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Brie O'Connor.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm doing things a little differently today.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: I am out on a beautiful day with my beautiful dog taking a walk.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: So you may hear some extraneous sounds.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: I am not in a controlled environment, so I may get interrupted.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: This may stop and start.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: It may be a total disaster,
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: but we're going for it anyway because I just couldn't resist this day.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, I'm coming to you today from my playwright's perspective.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: First, I'm going to tell you of a very real story.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: In high school, I was sitting in my English class.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Mr. Berg's English class.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Quite a character.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Directly behind me was my friend, Ephem.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now, a little side story about how he got his name.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: It used to stand for Extremely Flabby Mark.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: I did not give him this name.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then Mark got buff, and then it became Extremely Formidable Mark.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Adam's name was as unique as his name.
• 1:20
  And I'm sitting in Mr.
• 1:21
  Burke's car,
• 1:23
  and I hear this little squeaky sound behind me.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I turn around, and there's Mark grinning at me.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I notice that he has his hands extended toward the back of my chair.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: I turn and look at the back of my chair,
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: and he has a screwdriver,
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: and he is covering a screw from the back of my chair.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I look at him, you know, I don't need to say anything.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: And he smiles, and he whispers,
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm dismantling the school piece by piece.
• 2:01
  And then I just said,
• 2:03
  could you not dismantle my chair while I'm sitting there?
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: So it was just a small exchange.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: But I thought about it a lot.
• 2:15
  It's an odd thing to do and a strange little piece of mischief
• 2:20
  that probably went
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: unnoticed as Ephraim said,
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, took screws from here or there and just went about his day.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: So years later, I'm writing my first play.
• 2:36
  My first play was a two-hander about a couple of teenagers who
• 2:44
  snuck out to meet
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: each other in a park.
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  SPEAKER_00: And both of them were in their own sort of mental health crises.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: It was the response to Columbine.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now,
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  I had a lot to say after Columbine because I looked at the FBI
• 3:09
  threat assessment
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: that was available online at the time right after Columbine happened.
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  And was shocked and sad to see just how many of those items my
• 3:24
  friends and I would
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: have kicked off at the time.
• 3:27
  And so I decided to write this play that examined the inner
• 3:32
  lives of this boy and
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: this girl at a particularly stressful moment in their teenage lives at a
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: clandestine meeting at Park.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't help but remember Ephem's weird little task.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: So at the beginning of the play,
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: the girl gives the boy a doorknob,
• 4:02
  and she tells him that it was a particularly good get because
• 4:07
  she stole it from the
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: teacher's lounge.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I felt like that was all that was needed of that little plot line.
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  It introduces her as a character and exposes a little bit of
• 4:25
  her frustration and
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: rebellion about where she's at in life.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I thought that was it.
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  Later in the play,
• 4:36
  it turns into a bit of a confessional between the two.
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  SPEAKER_00: Surprise,
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: surprise,
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  SPEAKER_00: there's some sexual tension,
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: and they don't quite know how to navigate it with one another.
• 4:47
  And it leads to her confessing an instance in which she and
• 5:00
  another boy a couple years prior
• 5:04
  had been locked in a basement together by some of his friends
• 5:11
  with the expectation
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: that they would have sex.
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  So what would turn normally stereotypically into a rape
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  situation ended up with the
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: two of them talking.
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  And with him expressing some vulnerability and apologizing and
• 5:33
  being very sweet,
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: and vulnerable with her, that he didn't like this pressure either.
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  And in an almost maternal way,
• 5:47
  she decided that she was going to sleep with him.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: And she did.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: They did indeed have sex in that locked basement.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: And what was a gesture of caring from her
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: came back to bite her in the ass.
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  There's a lot of things to do in the teenage world when young
• 6:07
  girls decide to lose
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: their virginity.
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  SPEAKER_00: Her reputation suffered and she ended up being a bit of a social pariah.
• 6:20
  So she tells him this story and that leads to the ultimate
• 6:27
  culmination of the play.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now I tell you that because
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: I essentially took these two characters as a character study,
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  SPEAKER_00: and I let them have conversations,
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  SPEAKER_00: and I let their conversation leave me where it was going.
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  SPEAKER_00: It was my first play, so I didn't really have a grand plan.
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  SPEAKER_00: I just wanted to see where their conversation took them.
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  It wasn't until I ended up in rehearsal with this project and
• 6:59
  had a very smart
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  SPEAKER_00: conversation with the actress who had wondered,
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  SPEAKER_00: why a doorknob?
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  SPEAKER_00: Why not a screw?
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  What was it about a doorknob that's a particularly ballsy act
• 7:18
  to steal something that large?
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  I gave it some thought and was a little surprised that actually
• 7:31
  the doorknob gift
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  SPEAKER_00: had way more meaning than I had intended it to have.
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  SPEAKER_00: And perhaps you've caught on to this already.
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  But the idea that she would give a doorknob,
• 7:46
  the very thing that was locked,
• 7:48
  during the event that sort of shapes her fears and misgivings
• 7:55
  about relationships
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  SPEAKER_00: and about getting close to someone and about sex in general.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And she gives him a doorknob.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: This can have so many meanings.
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  SPEAKER_00: It can represent her fears.
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  SPEAKER_00: It can represent her trust.
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  SPEAKER_00: It can represent
• 8:18
  you know,
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  her own vulnerability,
• 8:21
  her own willingness to get past her hurdles with him.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: This ultimately by stirring the ass at the end of the play,
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: but,
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: well,
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  SPEAKER_00: someday someone will read it.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: But I didn't recognize the power of that symbolism.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: It was totally unconscious.
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't think I'm that smart.
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  It was the very smart actress who was looking to figure out
• 8:54
  what could be going on in her mind.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: And even though the character is not necessarily aware of the symbolism,
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: the actor needs to be in order to make choices about it.
• 9:09
  here's the thing we as human beings are pattern-seeking
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  creatures we try to make
• 9:16
  sense of the world by finding meaning and pattern inside things
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  that is essentially
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  that is the art of storytelling is finding patterns and
• 9:27
  connections now are those
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: things meaning that is up for debate but
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: Storytelling is a struggle to make sense of the world.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: Where does this lead us for today?
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  And I don't tell you this to hold myself up as an ingenious or
• 9:52
  anything like that.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: The play is a men's first play.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's not the point.
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  SPEAKER_00: The point is the process of following the little things.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: And letting them live and breathe inside your work,
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  SPEAKER_00: even if they don't necessarily make sense to you.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because the process will bring meaning to what you have created.
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  Especially if it's something that you are chewing on as a
• 10:27
  storyteller,
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  as an artist.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: I use memory a lot in my work.
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  SPEAKER_00: because it is the thing that I draw from.
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  SPEAKER_00: My idea,
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  my challenge for you this week is that if some little moment is
• 10:43
  hanging out in your
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: imagination,
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  SPEAKER_00: if you revisit it for one reason or another,
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: your brain wants you to understand that moment.
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  SPEAKER_00: It wants you to bring context to that moment.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it may not
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like,
• 10:59
  that story about FM dismantling this holds little context for
• 11:04
  me personally in my
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: real life.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: But I was able to add it to this character.
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  And it ultimately opened up the play in new ways that I didn't
• 11:19
  or couldn't
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  SPEAKER_00: understand at the time.
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  SPEAKER_00: The instinct.
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  SPEAKER_00: for finding patterns,
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  SPEAKER_00: for finding meaning,
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  SPEAKER_00: for finding through lines is essentially the storyteller's work.
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  SPEAKER_00: It is the mark of a good actor.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: It is the mark of a good director.
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  It is the mark of a good playwright that you can get into a
• 11:47
  room and a conversation
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  SPEAKER_00: about these seemingly random things
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  SPEAKER_00: in story and string them together to create meaning and Jessica.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Discovering what the doorknob meant was a collaborative effort.
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  And that moment may not have ever had that meaning had not that
• 12:13
  particular actress.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: Name of Annika Marks, bless her, she's so delightful.
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  SPEAKER_00: She was the one who came up with that concept.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I think she was 100% right.
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  SPEAKER_00: Explore those little moments.
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  If something's nagging at you,
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  if an image returns to you over and over again,
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  don't dismiss it.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I think most artists are compelled to
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  SPEAKER_00: follow those little obsessions through.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm probably not telling you anything you don't already know,
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  SPEAKER_00: but I think it's really,
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  SPEAKER_00: really important that we follow through with those moments,
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  SPEAKER_00: even when they don't immediately make sense to us,
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  SPEAKER_00: or even if they just feel like a tiny detail.
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  SPEAKER_00: Allow those things to grow.
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  SPEAKER_00: Water them.
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  SPEAKER_00: See what happens.
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  SPEAKER_00: See what happens in the moment of collaboration.
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  SPEAKER_00: In collaboration, we often don't realize what we have on the table.
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  That's why having good,
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  smart collaborators can help illuminate your work in a brand
• 13:35
  new way.
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  SPEAKER_00: Follow that little nugget of information.
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  SPEAKER_00: That little character trait.
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  SPEAKER_00: That strange moment.
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  SPEAKER_00: See where it takes you.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then bring it to your team.
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  SPEAKER_00: And figure it out together.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's my message this week.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: On the Imperfect Impulse.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: I kept it under 20 minutes this time.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: Aren't you proud of me?
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: We will talk to you again next week.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Go find those
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: weird little moments.
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  SPEAKER_00: Until next time,