That Persistence of Vision
An Interview with Yussef El Guindi during January rehearsals at A Contemporary Theatre in Seattle the action of the play. It really isn’t a conceit when writers say “the characters took over.” If they’re alive enough, they do. And when that happens, I feel more like a host at a party—where all the attendees seem to have invited themselves—making sure everyone has enough edibles and refreshments and sort of stepping back and letting them do their thing. Stepping in only when I need to, like when a conversation seems to be going on too long, or someone seems to be hogging the conversation to the exclusion of other people I want to hear from; or I may interject a prompt to nudge the direction and mood at certain points.
ACT: Your characters feel so real; even just reading the script, they jump off the page. What do you do to fill out their backstories/lives while planning them? Thank you for saying that. I don’t plan or overthink them, or the play as a whole. Usually, the spur to writing is the aliveness of some characters that nudge their way into my waking life. They hang out with me as I go about my day, getting ever louder and more insistent, presenting me with hints of what they’re about, where they are and what they want. Even the latter can be vague. But it’s that persistence of vision, if you will, the ever-deeper pulse of that aliveness that finally makes me start typing. Once the writing begins, the journey of the play starts to show itself through the characters. The characters determine
ACT: Both comedic and dramatic tension play huge roles in your work. Why do you think it’s important to your work to
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