Revisiting Rosewood
When you walk into my room you will almost certainly notice the overwhelming presence of books and CDs. Setting aside dressers, nightstands, and closets, I have three shelves dedicated to these — an older blue bookcase, the oldest of the three, which holds many of my favorite books and some of my favorite classical recordings. The second and shortest shelf I am certain used to belong to my brother, and is about half the size of the blue bookcase. In the last year or so this has primarily been the place where I keep my plays, books about plays, and of course any overflow CDs. One shelf is dedicated solely to Folger Shakespeare Library editions of the plays of Williams Shakespeare — I own most of these colorful, conveniently-sized paperbacks, though I am missing a few of the comedies here and there. Starting as a child, and ever since, I have always wanted to someday build myself a proper library — ideally not just the collection, but also the pieces of furniture that comprise the room.
I’ve neglected the third and final shelf — it is the youngest of the three, purchased at Target, Bed Bath & Beyond, or some other chain store I’ve since forgotten. Unlike the other two pieces, this holds CDs on nearly every one of the five shelves barring a few oversized music-themed books that anchor the bottom row. I have an unusually large collection of CDs for someone my age, especially considering that many of my friends probably don’t own a CD at all. Unlike the other two units, the focus of this black bookcase is primarily for non-classical music — classic rock, pop, grunge, indie, movie soundtracks, and jazz to name a few genres.
On top of the two rows of CDs that sit on the top shelf, there is a script. It is called 71 Rosewood Drive, which I wrote for a playwriting class my senior of college. I printed it almost a year ago. There are some markings and other edits on the early pages of the script, but otherwise I’ve not looked at it in at least three months, maybe more. It was my second attempt at writing a full-length play for the class, the first was an ill-fated road-trip screenplay desperately trying to be a stage play. About halfway through my final semester and the class, I asked my professor if I could write about what I had until then referred to as my untitled “room play,” since it would take place within one room of an old house.
The play had its genesis in Berlin. I was studying there for six weeks, taking classes and absorbing the city. One of my two classes was excursion-based, meaning we spent one afternoon in the classroom, the other out seeing various sites of historical/memorial importance; Berlin’s Museum Island, the Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg concentration camp site and museum, the “memory district” near Brandenburg Gate, the Berlin Wall memorial, the former Stasi prison at Hohenschönhausen, and the now-closed Tempelhof Airport.
I was struck by the historical sites that were repurposed from their originally intended use before later becoming museum sites. In one case, our guide referenced how certain areas or pieces within the site had been restored with new materials, which brought my imagination to the day when a site might look exactly as it appeared when it was first constructed without any original pieces. I also thought about how I was one of many to experience these sites throughout their history.
After stewing for a while, I began to imagine a play that took place inside a house, with a wide cast of characters united only by their time spent in this one place. How did they use the house and its various rooms? What happened to them while they lived or passed through here? What would it be like if the place were haunted?
That’s about where the process stayed for the next six to seven months. When it came time to pitch full-length play ideas in my playwriting class, the concept for the house play did not connect as well with my classmates as I would have liked, so I tried writing something else. This didn’t work. I liked my characters well enough, but the situation of the play would not make sense within the confines of the stage. My professor gave me permission to try going back to the house play, even though I would have a lot of catching up to.
So I set to work, carrying characters over and creating new ones. The idea of a ghost remained from the original idea (his name is Tom), others now included two musicians- one composer unable to write, and his partner, a successful tenor who is beginning to take an interest in composing. I was particularly interested in the relationships of Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears, and Gustav and Alma Mahler. Britten, a composer, wrote a variety of pieces and operatic roles for Pears, who would often premiere them. I became much more familiar with Britten’s music in college, whereas the Mahlers I had learned about in the ninth grade, when I took a rudimentary classical music history class. What struck me was that Gustav insisted his wife Alma cease composing when they married.
Inspiration from these historical musical figures I molded into the characters of David and Julian. Now that I’m thinking about revising the play again, I know that they will likely not need any major changes; their storyline worked, barring some details here and there that I would like to look at once again. The other characters include two carryovers from the aborted play, and a young woman who has recently purchased the house. All three storylines happen decades apart from each other, connected by Tom, the ghost.
I won’t go into as much detail on the other characters because they are so nebulous, but Tom as a character has always fascinated me. Many of the first scenes and events from when I first started writing the script stemmed from various exercises to see what would happen — thinking about how he could enter from non-traditional places (like a window). Also, how would a ghost react to the various owners of the houses and the ways they made it their own? As I begin taking another look at 71 Rosewood Drive, I notice that I am drawn to trying to explore these characters more through various exercises that also flesh out their world — putting them in situations that do not occur in the scope of the play, but that would help me to better understand their reaction to similar events.
On a few separate occasions, people have mentioned that this sounds like Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia. I read that recently (which was the initial impetus for writing this piece), I understand where they come from, but I also disagree, at least in part. Hannah Jarvis and the other present-day characters are concerned with solving the mysteries of what happened in the house in 1809 (the hermit, Lord Byron, etc.,), while the audience watches what actually happened. While neither the audience nor one set of the characters know what happened in 1809 for most of the play, I would rather lay out the major cataclysmic event early on, and see how this affects everyone else involved throughout the passing years, and their interactions with the house and its contents.
So now here I am, nearly a year since I completed a draft, looking to revisit the house that’s occupied my mind for nearly two years. With any luck, some inspiration, and a lot of hard work, I’ll be able to go back inside the house and see what comes out.
