For the past several months, I have been working on a collaborative play-development project: the adaptation of the Willa Cather novel O Pioneers! for the stage. A few nights ago, my partners-in-art and I met for the first time since the end of last year… and officially put an end to the project.
Ultimately, the reason we decided to stop working on it was fairly straightforward: the novel, which we all appreciated, really isn’t a great candidate for adaptation. Cather keeps so much of the drama off-stage, as it were – conflicts are resolved mere moments after she creates them. Her main character isn’t really her main character, either; she longs for things, and daydreams, and frets, but does very little — it’s the classic passive-protagonist problem. And finally, the novel is almost structured like an argument, rather than a narrative: this kind of relationship leads to marriage, that kind to death, so you should prefer the former, even if it’s lonely and dry and distant. Nobody goes to the theater to watch somebody build a logical proof.
Even if it could have been adapted, furthermore, we all had to be honest in admitting another more sobering truth: we didn’t have it in us. It would have required a great deal of… something. Passion. Invention.
Naturally, as you might imagine, I felt sad. Part of my blues came from the simple fact that a novel I once loved very dearly – that I taught to at least half a dozen different classes of students, back when I used to be a professor – had become sort of hollow for me. Some people say that great literature teaches you about life; I believe that life teaches you about great literature. In this instance, life seems to have taught me that I wasn’t as discerning a reader when I was younger as I am now.
Most of my sadness, however, came from the fact that the project I’d initiated had failed. As soon as I write that last word, though – failed – I immediately hear the voice of one of the other three people I was working with, my dear friend John, who made sure that I heard him when he said that the only real failure would have been if we hadn’t tried at all.
I have shared that sentiment with others in the past, but the end of the project has challenged me to embrace it at a deeper level… and for the most part, I am succeeding. The simple truth is that you can’t be an artist without reaching dead ends. There are times when you have to reverse course, learn what you can from what you’ve done, and set out again for somewhere else. This is one of those times.
I’m very glad we tried, too; I enjoyed the hours that John, Kim, Katie, and I spent together immensely, and I should very much like to try a similar project with them again further down the road, and I believe they all feel the same way. My friendship with John, with whom I’ve worked before, is certainly deepened; my new connections to Kim and Katie, neither of whom I knew before we started, are a genuine treat. If we make art – at least somewhat – to bring ourselves closer to others, then by that measure we were very successful.
So now I will let my fields lay fallow for a short season, and tend the home fires, until I am ready to venture out again to plow and sow and reap. When I do, I hope to have equally strong collaborators by my side… and to remember that failure is never really failure, at least not if we don’t let it be.
First of all, sorry that it didn’t flourish, but secondly, how great that you have these collaborators to hand. Thirdly, puts me in mind of a project. Email to follow.
I am nothing if not blessed with collaborators who will experiment with me… and who will not think less of me and my work when the results of those experiments are less than ideal. (In other words, they’ll do it again next time.) I should very much like to count you among them, my friend — I do already, in spirit — so I very much look forward to that email!
On my first day working with Albee almost 10 years ago, he said to me, “If you are going to work in theatre you are going to fail a lot. It’s important to learn how to fail with some grace and not be an asshole when things don’t go your way. It will happen throughout all phases of your career, and if you don’t fail, you are not doing something right.” Wise words that have always stuck with me. Seems like you failed with grace here, and there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact: maybe a good thing.
I had forgotten until now that you’d worked with Albee — I remember some choice words he shared with you about my first play, which he somehow ended up liberating from you, if I’m recalling correctly. My first failure, perhaps… and my first learning opportunity.
I do always try to fail with grace — with kind words for those around me, without rancor, and with as much patience as I can muster. It’s a difficult standard to live up to, and I admire those who manage it all the time… but I must admit to failing at failing now and then, too. Luckily, I am certain that time will present me with many more opportunities to improve 🙂
James Joyce quipped, “A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and the portals of discovery.” The irony seems to remain with the advantage of retrospect: how failure reveals mistakes which lead to future discoveries. That is, if you are willing to accept it and embrace the chance to learn all you can from the experience. Easier said than done. Each time we are faced with failure, the reminder stings just as much, if not more, and the challenge to pick ourselves up and keep going never gets any easier. But if we think failure is tough, then we underestimate the greater challenges success brings. You must be able to handle the former if you have any chance at surviving the latter. At least, that’s what I think. Great post!
Do our failures heap up upon one another, each one reminding us of all the others, the chorus of failures echoing in our heads? I think this may be true for some of us. The only way to be successful, though, I find, is to cultivate an ability to tune those echoes out: to dim them, if not silence them altogether. It’s hard, and it may seem (on the surface) like willful ignorance, but it’s at least partially necessary, I’m sure you’ll agree.