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Written
in 1980
Doubles
came about as a result of three things:
First, I wanted to write my first original
play for the stage. I had adapted
M*A*S*H, but wanted to create my own
characters.
Second, in the fall of 1980, I had just
finished playing six roles in the San Jose
premiere of Bullshot Crummond, and had a
great time doing so. I wanted to write a play
in which the entire cast could each play
multiple roles.
Third, I wanted to make a musical version of
the comic strip B.C.
This
unlikely combination of goals led me to my first
dramatic anthology. I initially started playing
around with the B.C. idea but found it
would be difficult to sustain over a full-length
musical. I liked the idea of cavemen, though.
It's rarely been done in theater.
So I decided to make Doubles a sort of
comic history of men and women with each scene
in a different time and place. This would allow
the multiple roles for each actor.
Then I decided the thrust of each scene would be
a step in the male/female relationship:
Discovery, Courtship, Marriage, Separation,
Reconciliation, Death and Re-Discovery.
By the time I was finished, the running time
worked out to be about two-and-a-half hours. I
performed some radical surgery and cut the
entire Reconciliation scene. I added Some
Supreme Being and Lenny to act as commentators
on the action and to allow a break between each
scene.
It was first produced at my old high school
(Leigh High in San Jose, CA) and later premiered
in 1998 at the Santa Clara Players. The mayor of
Santa Clara played Some Supreme Being (a
pre-recorded role), and she was terrific.
Doubles was my first original stage
effort. I learned a lot about playwriting in
creating it: what works, what doesn't--and how
humbling it can be reading your early works
years later.
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