PLAYWRIGHT'S NOTE — continued
Lou (Tyrell, Artistic Director of Florida Stage) talked to me over a year ago, when we were working on The Last Schwartz, about writing a play for six young women. He said to write something that I felt strongly about, political perhaps. This sounded like a wonderful idea.
So I set out writing a play about Abigail Adams, whom I was reading about, and just adore. I wanted some romance in my youthful six-woman play, so, Presto! Two lesbian women enter. Followed by a woman on her 125th birthday. (Okay, so the "young" part is getting stretched, but I press on.) I'm listening to NPR on the radio, and they talk about cloning, so -- Bing! Two more characters. The whole thing's going along swimmingly. It's a bit of a mess. But very funny. Well, kind of funny anyway.
And then the United States invades Iraq.
(I should just interject that I hope you haven't gotten too attached to any of those previous ideas. None of them turn up in the play. I sure do like Abigail Adams though.)
So all of the sudden I was feeling very strongly. Frothing-at-the-mouth strongly, in fact. And I'm listening to NPR again, and a report about Gulf War Syndrome comes on, and a widow of the last Gulf War is talking about her concerns for the troops who are now entering Iraq. Her husband died of this mysterious illness, and during the long fight to save him, while they went from doctor to doctor, stymied by a lack of information, they were not able to get anyone in the government to listen to them or help them. And I wondered why I hadn't heard too much about this for the past twelve years. So I started Googling Gulf War Syndrome. And the more I learned (and I started reading books, and articles, and talking with vets on the Gulf War Resource Registry), the more upset I got, and the more I started hoping that someone else was writing a play about this. Because I didn't want to. I want to write comedies. Poignant comedies. And there was absolutely nothing funny about what I was learning. But I couldn't find any other plays about Gulf War Syndrome. And most of the people I know, know nothing about it. And it seems that somehow I happened upon this, and I had better do something about it. But how? How to get in?
And then my flag fell down.