The Poor Playwright
By Tim Schwanitz
2020 Winter Showcase Playwriting Award Winner
“In truth the fantasy of a good artist or thinker constantly produces the Good, the Mediocre, and the Bad, but it is their very sharp and practiced discernment that throws away, sorts out, ties together.”—Human, All Too Human by Friedrich Nietzsche, Book One, Part IV, Section 155.
Two college students sitting across from each other at a small table in a half-crowded café. Rhonda fashionably dressed, wearing a purple scarf, and reading a popular novel. T.W., wearing an ugly yellow sweater, sitting and sighing incessantly with a laptop in front of him.
Rhonda: Looks up from her book. I’ll scream if you sigh one more time.
TW: Looks like he is the one who wants to scream. It’s pointless.
Rhonda: Then stop.
TW: Can’t! It’s due tomorrow.
Rhonda: Then don’t stop.
TW: You’re not helpful.
Rhonda: You think sighing is? Just write something.
TW: Easier said than done. Every time I start, I have to stop because the plot sounds good for
five lines and falls apart after that.
Rhonda: Don’t be so dramatic. You’ve written plenty of stories before.
TW: I have to be dramatic—this is drama! It’s completely different!
Rhonda: Then write something completely different. Just put words on the page. Anything is
better than nothing. Come on, it can’t be that bad. What are you working on now?
TW: The third dead-end in a row. I wanted to make a play on the Faust Legend, but have
Mephisto be the good guy and Faust an evil salesman.
Rhonda: I don’t really recognize the names…
T.W. sighs again after realizing that he has made a nerdy literature reference.
Rhonda: …but that sounds like an okay plot. What’s wrong with it?
TW: Well, I don’t know what he should sell. At first, I was thinking airplane parts or medical
equipment. You know, something where people might die if he were to put ethics aside,
but then I realized I don’t know anything about either of those.
Rhonda: Realizes she won’t get the chapter finished today and closes her book. So just
write about what you’re familiar with.
TW: That’s the problem. All I know is books and bugs, so I was going to make him a librarian,
but that’s lame—evil librarian. Who is scared of that? Then I was going to have him be involved
in the insect trade. He was going to be a good guy at first, but then profits were going to lead
him to buy and sell endangered species. There were going to be cartels and butterfly
smugglers…
Rhonda: With a pained grin. Yeah.
TW: Yeah. Exactly. The only villain I can think of runs Big Bug. Who in the hell goes crawling
to Big Bug? Do you even realize how ridiculous that sounds?
Rhonda: To whom the absurdity is abundantly clear. Yeah.
Both silently glance around the café.
Rhonda: Still staring off into the distance. Maybe you could write something about a café. Since
you’re here.
TW: And what would be the plot?
Rhonda: Suddenly meets his gaze and talks in a mockingly dramatic voice. IN A WORLD where
a student has to hand in the opening to a play…
TW: You want me to write about myself?
Rhonda: Got a better idea?
TW: No.
Rhonda: There you go.
TW: But what’s the plot?
Rhonda: Trying to find a plot. Laughs.
TW: You’re not funny.
Rhonda: I’m serious. Mine the miners.
TW: What?
Rhonda: From a story back in high school.
TW: What does it mean?
Rhonda: The safest way to get rich in a gold rush is to sell stuff to the miners. Let them take all
the risks. Mine the miners. Write a story about writing a story.
TW: Hmm. I don’t have any better ideas, and that’s not half bad…
Rhonda: Looks at her book in the hopes that she might find out how the chapter ends today
after all. You’re welcome.
TW: Yeah, I think that’s what I’ll do. You know, the best poems are about poetry! Why not.
Rhonda: Tentatively touches her book. You can do it.
TW: Looks like he’s ready to give a long speech with generous gesticulations instead of working
on the play. Know what, I really, really like your idea. I could delve into all the issues
surrounding literary composition. I could fill it with references and allusions and puns and give
it a title that suggests one thing but means another. You know, Nabokov once said that he
always tries to “put plums” in his stories for close-readers to find. Oh, and that gives me another
idea! What if I have the author give a speech about how hard it is to put anguish, excitement,
melancholy, exuberance—all the extreme emotions—into words—how the feeble filaments of
language are like ductile threads of spider silk seeking for places to catch hold, to paraphrase
Whitman…
Rhonda: Hopes that a platitude will placate him and allow her to reopen her book. You’ve got
this! Just put all that good stuff down before you forget.
TW: On a roll. Oh, no worries! I won’t forget! This is a great idea. I’m finally excited about this
assignment. You know, there are all kinds of cool theories of intertextuality; Umberto
Eco mentions a few in his Postscript to the Name of the Rose where he says something like “all
books are about books.” So this might turn out half-decent after all; it will be better than
anything else I would have written. Oooh! And because it’s a pretty open-ended plot, I can add
in all sorts of disparate quotes and authors who wouldn’t have fit in my original bug-smuggling
plot. Hell, I can even mention all the cool insects that were going to come up like these amazing
parasitoid wasps…
Rhonda: Losing all hope…and patience. That sounds AMAZING…but it doesn’t do any good if
you don’t type it up.
TW: Boiling over. You’re right. Do you think that the parasitoid wasp would be interesting
enough? Like, I think they’re so cool and scary because they lay their eggs inside other insects,
caterpillars for example, and their larvae eat the insect from the inside out (they actually eat
around the vital organs, so it stays alive as long as possible). You know, the monster from the
movie Alien is based on them. The iconic scene where the alien pops out of a guy—that’s pretty
much exactly what they do. Then, oh my gosh, there are hyperparasitoids: parasitoids of
parasitoids. There can even be parasitoids of hyperparasitoids. They’re almost like Matryoshka
dolls with one parasitoid inside a parasitoid inside another parasitoid inside some other insect…
Rhonda: All patience lost. I think you should write about whatever you think is right.
She picks up her book and opens it. T.W. finally gets the hint, stops talking, and starts typing up a play introduction that he hopes his classmates will not find completely boring.
Bio:
Timothy W. Schwanitz is an undergraduate senior majoring in English and Entomology with a minor in Plant Science. He grew up in the Pemberton area of the Jersey Pine Barrens, where he developed a love for insects early-on. He hopes to get a PhD studying insect neurobiology. This play was selected for the Winter Creativity Showcase.