Rubi, I had a talk with David a couple of days ago and he tells me you would like some
more specific feedback on revising your play. I mentioned when you and I spoke that I
didn’t want to interfere with the work you were doing with David on the play in class, but
he assures me that specific feedback from me will be welcome. So, here it is. You can
use these notes to help you in revising the play with David in class or, if you have
questions or concerns, please do feel free to contact me. I’m happy to work with you on
this. Again, I want to make this a positive experience for you and everyone else who gets
involved.
I begin with some general remarks and then go into some specifics that proceed in order.
The general remarks may make more sense after you’ve gone through the specifics. My
page numbering is likely different from yours, so I try as best I can to describe where I’m
talking about. I use your scene names where I can. Again, if something is unclear please
feel free to email or call me. Finally, these notes are for your use – so use the ones that
make sense to you and discard the others. Ultimately this is your play and it must
conform to your vision, nobody else’s.
I have included several notes that mention sections that I think work particularly well, but
for the most part I have concentrated on things that could use work. Please do not take
this to mean that I find more problems than good things – that isn’t the case at all. This is
a great piece of writing and as I’ve said before, I’m really excited to be working on it.
All plays go through many drafts, and notes like these are part of that process.
Finally, I haven’t heard back from Hal Ryder at Cornish – the man I told you about who
is conducting theatre research in Central America and who I told about you. I’ll let you
know when I hear back from him. I’ve done some preliminary work in getting together a
campus-wide event to surround this play, but we should talk about the Latino club you
mentioned. Finally, I would still very much like to see a V-Day program go forward on
campus. Are you still interested? Let me know.
Talk to you soon.
Dawson
Notes on
Human Borders
11/3/06
General Notes
It’s too long. All playwrights begin by writing too much – usually because they’re
figuring things out for themselves as they go along and sometimes you need to hear
something a few times before you get it. This is normal, but unless you can trim the play,
it will feel long, repetitive, and lethargic. I mention some specific places below, but you
would do well to go through the script and at the end of each page try to describe what
the dialogue on that page does for the play. If you can’t, it needs trimming. If it’s the
same as some other pages, it needs trimming.
The people in power in this play are all bad. That makes them seem like stereotypes and
it makes your play seem less like a story and more like a partisan essay. I encourage you
to look for ways in which you could make these characters more three dimensional or
even sympathetic. One useful way to look at it is to pretend that you’re the actor who has
to play that part. As an actor you’ll have to think of your character as a good person. Is
that possible with how the characters are written?
Your play begins as a play about Tony, but the focus shifts in the middle and it ends up
being a play more about Maria. I encourage you to ask yourself who this play is about
and try to structure your play accordingly. If it’s about Tony, how can you make the end
seem like more of a journey for him? If it’s about Maria, how can she come in earlier
and do something more complicated than fall in love with Tony? If you strongly feel that
it’s about both, then in a sense it’s about their relationship, and I encourage you to think
about how the scenes with other characters reflect on and shape that relationship.
Specific Notes
ACT 1
 The first scene with the cops sets them up as ugly stereotypes by showing them as
preoccupied with sex and sports. You can easily fix this by giving them something
else to talk about at the beginning. I think giving them names will help to personalize
them.
 Do you need that first scene at all? We learn nothing here that we don’t learn later
and the play might reveal itself to an audience better if we started with Charlie and
the Cop in The Interview scene. Our imagination might paint scene one better than a
stage portrayal.
 Charlie’s scene with the cop gives great, motivated background information.
 How good is Charlie at getting people to talk? He doesn’t seem very good at it here,
but then suddenly Tony gives up a lot in his ‘Four Months ago’ speech. This is a
little awkward and it makes Tony’s speech seem like the playwright telling the
audience something rather than one character telling another something. I think
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either Charlie needs to be better at his job or Tony needs to give up his information a
little more reluctantly.
I like that the scene ends before we hear everything. It’s good pacing, very filmic.
I wonder why the flashback scene with Lorenzo isn’t in Spanish? I think it would be
and I think it’d work well entirely in Spanish. Even English speaking audience
members would get it. Also, when we see Lorenzo later it might be fun to only then
let on that he speaks English too.
Cop 1 takes on the ‘bad cop’ role in the scene with Charlie. Again, he seems a little
stereotypical here.
When Charlie sends cop 1 for the forensic report and the cop comes right back it is
awkward. Why not have it on stage? Alternatively, have a real scene while Cop 1 is
away.
I suggest starting the scene with cop 1 telling Charlie about the appendicitis so that
the audience knows that Charlie will have to let Tony go from the beginning. That
makes us concentrate on what Charlie wants and how he manipulates Tony to get it.
The ‘Interview’ scene as a whole needs to be trimmed.
After the Interview scene we have a huge time break during which a lot happens.
Tony goes to the shelter, flees, finds a new place to live, starts college, gets a job. We
need to figure out how we can make this time passage clear to the audience. A silent
scene of Tony going to the shelter and leaving might help. Think about this.
‘The Date’ Scene really stands apart – it’s months after the previous scene and
months prior to the following scene. And it’s short. I think this will confuse the
audience. My suggestion – and it will require quite a bit of reworking the scenes that
follow – is to join this scene with the following scene with the drug trafficker. I
recommend setting it at Tony’s workplace, have Maria come in to have her car
worked on and then have the date scene. Then, when Maria leaves, have Lorenzo
show up and have the trafficking scene. This will make it so you’re not leaping
through time between each short scene – which will be easier on the audience. It’ll
also make it spookier that Lorenze saw Maria and Tony together even before their
first date.
The date scene is great in terms of language and tempo. The trafficking scene is too
long and ought to be trimmed.
‘The Relationship’ scene establishes a nice relationship between mother and
daughter, but it too needs trimming. If the date and trafficking scenes are made into
one, this could be made into two scenes: one on the date of Tony and Maria’s first
date and the other several months later (as is).
In ‘the truth’ scene Tony tells Maria a lot of things that we, the audience, already
know. It’s logical that he would, but we don’t want to hear what we’ve already seen
or heard, so this needs to be trimmed.
People who know each other really well also develop a shorthand with one another.
Tony and Maria don’t seem to have that here, and I would like to see them have it.
This would help to tighten the scene.
In “the house” I like the humor of the mother being there a lot. I would, however, cut
Tony’s line ‘That was funny.’ Stating the obvious is always a risk.
In ‘the officer’ when Charlie comes to Tony’s work the beginning of the scene seems
forced and unnatural. Why would Charlie tell Tony at the top that ‘You’re my only
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hope?’ Why isn’t Tony more surprised or shocked or frightened at seeing Charlie?
Reimagine this opening.
Charlie tells Tony freely that he is manipulating him. Would he do that? I think he
might, but
The Boss is a mean and evil guy. So, all the people in power in this play so far have
been portrayed as uniformly bad. The cops are stupid and corrupt, Charlie is
manipulative, and now the Boss is an evil bigot. This threatens to make them seem
like stereotypes and the whole play seem like a political speech rather than a human
drama. I think the Boss is an excellent opportunity to fix this though. It would be
easy to make him sympathetic – he’s a nice guy trying to help people out. Still, he
has a business to look after and if he allows Tony to ruin the business it won’t serve
him or any of the other employees. Perhaps this would even give Tony an
opportunity to do a noble thing – leave the garage before he brings the FBI and cops
in to run out all the immigrant workers. These are just suggestions. Whatever you
decide, I do think you need to show that not EVERYONE is oppressing Tony.
In ‘The Pressure’ Tony is suddenly very mean toward Maria – already physically
restraining here. It might seem like a more logical progression if you allowed him to
be only a little mean here – strictly verbal perhaps and not so volatile.
You end the act with a hug between Tony and Maria. Ends of acts are tricky. Here
we, the audience, leave our seats thinking that this is a play about how the authorities
and the human traffickers are catching up with Tony, but the last scene we is only
obliquely related to that. Essentially you are introducing another issue/theme/plotline
here – domestic violence. I understand that this results from the pressure on Tony
that is coming from Lorenzo and Charlie, but still it’s an odd place to introduce a new
theme. My suggestion is this: Add a short scene of tension between Maria and Tony
prior to ‘The officer.’ Perhaps she could come to visit him at work just prior to
Charlie – that way it’d be part of the same scene. In any case, give us a point at
which we can see that their marriage has some tension in it. Nothing big, but enough
so that when he is mean to her in ‘the pressure’ it makes narrative sense to us.
(Because now we see it as part of a progression rather than out of the blue.)
ACT 2
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‘The debrief’ is way too long – it needs trimming. The issues are great, some of the
dialogue is wonderful, and the relationship is important and interesting. But it’s too
long.
Here again it is difficult but important to let the audience know how much time has
passed. I suggest letting Maria be visibly pregnant at this point. That would push it
back further than you have it now, but it would also increase the stakes with what
follows. And her mother would love to see her bely.
The beginning of the scene feels awkward. I think Mely needs to either register real
surprise at this unexpected visit or it has to have been an arranged meeting.
‘The Visit’ takes place outside their apartment. Is this the best location for this?
This scene too needs trimming.
When Maria slips and names Lorenzo it seems obvious and cruel for Charlie to write
it down immediately. Let your actors act this out – don’t feel the need to telegraph
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this plot point. The same goes for the name drop at the end of the following scene – I
think it works better if it’s not spelled out.
In ‘The Secret’ you have the boss being mean again. If you take my advice earlier
this can be a new boss at a new job for Tony.
This scene is also too long. Not a lot too long – a lot happens. But it can use a little
trimming.
In ‘The Threat’ Tony and Lorenzo exchange threats in a way that doesn’t sound real.
Does Lorenzo really plan on killing Maria? What will that serve? Why is Tony
suddenly willing to threaten back? He never has before. And if he really wants to
kill Lorenzo, why doesn’t he do it now?
When the boss fires Tony and calls 911, the scene continues with Lorenzo and Tony
but somehow the Boss disappears. How?
‘The Supplicate’ seems like a well paced scene to me. ‘The Escape’ starts well too –
it feels like the exciting climax is approaching. But I wonder if Tony shouldn’t think
of another way out. Going to Mexico won’t save his family in Mexico, and Maria has
a good point when she says that she can’t leave her own family – Lorenzo might kill
them too. Could Tony decide to kill Lorenzo, as he has already suggested? Could he
steal money to pay Lorenzo off? I don’t know if any of these are in his mind, but
going to Mexico doesn’t seem like a logical choice either.
The offstage car crash seems a little clichéd to me. It requires that the most emotional
point in the play be described by sound effects rather than human beings on stage. I
wonder if there isn’t another way to achieve the same thing.
‘The Accident’ needs to be trimmed. There’s no new information here, it’s just
misery, and at this point in the play the audience doesn’t need this much stage time to
feel the emotional impact. In fact, if you make them sit with this kind of pain too
long they tend to turn off.
In ‘The Decision’ Maria tells us that Lorenzo is in jail and that they won’t be hurting
anyone for a long time. This is clichéd, but it also resolves something that doesn’t
need to be resolved. I strongly feel that you should leave Lorenzo and his cronies on
the loose – it does nothing for your play to put them in jail. It may seen to make
Tony slightly redeemed, but too much has gone wrong for that at this point. And
when you resolve something like this it indicates to your audience that the play was,
in a sense, ABOUT this. That is, it was a play in which we waited to see if Lorenzo
would go to jail. But it’s not that play at all. So again, I’d leave this out and
concentrate on the attempt at reconciliation between Tony and Maria.
When Maria starts to leave and then pauses at the end and ‘looks up and takes a deep
breath,’ what are you trying to convey? It doesn’t seem clear now. Prior to this she
seems firm in her conviction to leave, but this seems like hesitation. Be clear. Either
she hasn’t decided throughout the scene, or she sticks to her decision and goes.
This play ends with Maria’s decision, which indicates that it’s really a play about her.
If she left and we stayed with Tony for a moment or two we might think it was a play
about Tony, but as it is it’s a play about Maria. And if it’s about her, you have to ask
why she doesn’t appear earlier in the play.