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Hymns To The Obvious - A Play Written by Robert Weinstein · the arc.fm

• 0:03
  I write characters
• 0:04
  the way that I wish they existed in the world, It's so realistic.
• 0:09
  But it's not reality.
• 0:10
  I think there's a truth in it.
• 0:34
  If you want to read Robby's play, before you listen to the rest of this,
• 0:37
  There will be a link to it in the description,
• 0:41
  and if you have ten minutes, you will get to experience
• 0:43
  the full array of human emotions.
• 2:04
  I know you, she said.
• 2:05
  That shouldn't just be between us.
• 2:07
  You need to say that out loud, too. Yeah.
• 2:10
  I hate plot so much, but I love stories.
• 2:14
  That's awesome.
• 2:14
  And it's so true.
• 2:17
  Yeah.
• 2:19
  the fact you just have instantly handed me
• 2:20
  something that has kind of no plot,
• 2:23
  but lots of story is tickling me to no end.
• 2:27
  I love this play so much.
• 2:30
  what's the story to both of you two?
• 2:33
  since there isn't, like jumping off buildings.
• 2:34
  Plot, plot plot.
• 8:09
  You have the phrase singing hymns
• 8:13
  in the church of the obvious.
• 8:16
  It's such a mythical, apocryphal sounding phrase.
• 8:21
  I want to hear how you got to that, because it is magical.
• 12:06
  When and how do you know
• 12:07
  when something is finished?
• 12:48
  What was that moment for this?
• 12:50
  For him.
• 12:51
  So the obvious.
• 14:20
  I know when I'm willing.
• 14:23
  once I take the first step to make it a reality.
• 14:31
  That's very funny, because I was walking through a gigantic,
• 14:35
  cathedral to capitalism today called Hudson Yards.
• 14:39
  Surrounded by
• 14:40
  people who are very good at business and very good at corporate things.
• 14:44
  And I just kept mumbling, wow, I am not good at business.
• 14:48
  So it's very funny to hear you say, oh, coal is good at business.
• 15:06
  but, like,
• 15:25
  It also.
• 15:30
  just because of like
• 15:44
  I forgotten what I was going to ask you.
• 15:48
  Everybody, Oh, the voices in your head.
• 15:51
  I'm wondering how you, Affect.
• 15:55
  How the dialog ends up sounding to other people
• 15:58
  in the real world.
• 16:02
  Yeah.
• 16:02
  Let me ask that again.
• 16:04
  It's, you know exactly how you want dialog to sound in your head.
• 16:09
  You can hear it in your head in a certain rhythm, in a certain cadence,
• 16:12
  or in an exact rhythm and an exact cadence.
• 16:16
  But once you've written something and once you're interacting with it,
• 16:21
  and once actors are speaking it,
• 16:24
  it may not sound the same.
• 16:28
  How do you either deal with that tension or how do you affect.
• 16:33
  The final outcome of how it sounds with how you wrote it in the first place?
• 20:38
  but. my friend.
• 20:40
  You have done a bookend and repetition.
• 20:43
  How dare you! Oh. Yeah.
• 20:45
  And then,
• 21:35
  this bit of repetition and the idiosyncratic nature of it
• 21:39
  is the number one thing about the play that makes it such
• 21:43
  a perfect representation of the format of a play itself.
• 21:46
  Like in their, I wish I knew this for real, but like this
• 21:50
  the Greek sense of there is something innate in a form,
• 21:55
  and there's the perfect idea of this form, this recurring bit
• 21:58
  that you do is very close to, like the perfect form
• 22:02
  of a play.
• 22:10
  loved it.
• 22:11
  Because it's not realistic in many ways.
• 22:14
  Like if you walked into a town and people actually did this, you're like,
• 22:17
  what's. Why?
• 22:23
  Oh, really?
• 22:24
  I grew up in freaking
• 24:43
  In a more complimentary
• 24:45
  way, I should say that my notes about this was.
• 24:49
  It's so realistic.
• 24:51
  But it's not reality.
• 27:50
  Let me ask
• 27:51
  Robbie's question in a different way as well.
• 27:56
  How would you go about writing a wizard?
• 27:58
  And what would the wizard sound like in your head?
• 29:11
  Yeah.
• 29:11
  What's your favorite line from your play, Robbie? Wow.
• 29:39
  I have never met someone who hates ducks.
• 29:42
  I've been attacked by geese multiple times, and yet I don't.
• 29:45
  I know, duh,
• 30:08
  It's in.
• 30:09
  Character.
• 30:11
  It's a perfect natural title.
• 30:14
  now my favorite line is going to sound pithy, but, Janice
• 30:17
  the grandmother has just called somebody a moron.
• 30:22
  Very bluntly, and it's been noticed.
• 30:25
  And Janice clarifies with
• 30:28
  she knows where I stand.
• 30:31
  those blonds, as I've heard a character be.
• 30:34
  But keep it realistic within the world.
• 30:37
  And I always want my characters to be blunter and blunter.
• 30:40
  But they teeter off the deep end of believability.
• 30:44
  When I get to that. Something like that. So I loved it.
• 30:48
  Is recording is through an iPad
• 30:51
  and sending a message from a nursing home back to somebody a normal thing?
• 30:55
  Or is that, like, a huge story decision to say these people are so just.
• 30:59
  She's so disconnected from her granddaughter
• 31:03
  that they are not going to pick up the phone and call.
• 31:41
  Well, they definitely.
• 32:52
  Yeah,
• 32:53
  you know, or someone who can really be bothered by it, but I,
• 32:57
  I mean
• 33:07
  it was not a book.
• 33:09
  Call.
• 33:10
  It was the opposite of poking holes.
• 33:12
  It was saying it's such a distinct choice, because obviously,
• 33:16
  There's no way in on unearth. that.
• 33:17
  You didn't have the thought.
• 33:19
  People pick up phones and call each other.
• 33:21
  You're not helping.
• 33:22
  Stop talking. These two people just said he. Didn't.
• 33:26
  don't.
• 33:27
  Obviously nothing.
• 33:29
  Obviously. No. Jabroni.
• 33:31
  You wouldn't think,
• 33:35
  I actually did not
• 33:52
  Does it help if I say No.
• 33:55
  that it came off as profound?
• 33:58
  Yeah. It did.
• 33:59
  I agree, it felt like a very
• 34:14
  I'm so sorry.
• 34:16
  Obviously,
• 34:36
  What do you mean by a media?
• 34:37
  I'm sorry. I.