Just Another Day at the Office… That Controls the World

The gods all work in an office. It’s called G.O.D.S. They wear business casual while deciding who gets to be in love, who has enough to eat, who gets to live. I don’t actually remember where the idea for this came from. I had just watched Hercules so that probably has a lot to do with it. The whole concept is kind of ridiculous, but awesome (Well at least, I think so.) I wanted the gods to be telling the story because that’s Desiree’s reality. The gods control everything. All of her decisions, everything she does, is because of a plan they set in motion. But just look at that word they. They who? The gods are an ever present power looming over her world. It’s that untouchable, unreachable, otherworldly they that got me interested in their role in the story. My Love, My Love is magical realism so we know that at least in this fictional reality that the gods are real. We get glimpses of them at the summoning and in Erzulie’s presence as the lady with the comb. We get snippets of their characters in the dying but still beautiful earth and the constantly raging waters. But we don’t know what’s going on up there. What is running through their heads? What prompted Agwe’s rant? I wanted to answer these questions. I also wanted to run with the idea of destiny. Desiree’s actions are all the result of destiny, or at least that’s what she thinks. We took that literally. The gods control everything. They oversee all decisions. A person’s fate is the result of the gods’ ministrations, not their own free will. Erzulie plans weddings centuries ahead because she knows what’s going to happen. Papa Ge’s character especially shows that the gods are above all of this human nonsense. Establishing that and then having them struggle over Desiree’s situation shows enough of a contrast that we tell the audience that this is a special incidence- that something about this girl is unusual, special. I really like how they are in an office. I think it’s ironic and ridiculous enough that we can make a scene that had a dramatic storyline but was able to support buckets of one-liners.  

We’ve, unfortunately, lost a member. It sucks because this part was literally written for Michael, but hopefully everything will work out well in the end. (After all, my character can technically send the universe an email that makes sure it does.) I’m really proud of all of the progress we have made with our characters. When writing the script, we all got a good idea of who are characters were and what they would say, what would anger them, what they would scoff at.  We were sure early on of their identities. It’s really helped when we have been trying to figure out ways to establish our desks as ours. I think our tones are on point and we have a good sense of where we are on stage even if the stage directions are slightly ambiguous. We do, though, have an awful problem with pacing. We are all apparently incapable of saying a sentence normally. Part of the problem probably comes from running through lines at a breakneck speed to get them memorized, but seriously it was only twelve minutes. Twelve! We have eight pages of dialogue that only came out to twelve minutes. We really need to slow down and I think we can add a couple of minutes. Even if we slow down, we are going to need to add some dialogue. We got into such a groove for the scenes that we do have that we are having trouble figuring out where and when we should add lines. We made some progress today, and because we know our characters so well, I’m not too worried.

The biggest success of this entire project is the script. I’m so happy with it. I didn't think we could pull it out, but we did and we made it through. A lot of funny parts were the result of ad-libbing when we were getting a feel for the characters, but on that fateful Saturday morning when Charlie and I were working for the long haul, we made an epic eight page script. I am in love with it and our concept. I think our idea is solid and, even though we humanize the gods and put faces to them, it shows that they were in control in My Love, My Love. We get a new perspective by putting it in an office. Literally world-changing decisions are happening in something so recognizably human. It pokes fun, but also allows for our characters to express opinions on what's happening in the book and draw connections without having to monologue. I think it's inventive and hilarious and I’m mighty proud of it.