There Is No Useless Feedback

[Gwydion Suilebhan]

I’ll tell you what: if you don’t know how to communicate, directly and honestly, and to listen with openness and engagement without losing touch with who you are, it can be damn hard to be a playwright.

Not long ago, I was sitting in a room with a great many folks who had gathered to do some table work on my new play. It was a low-stakes read-through: really not much more than a chance for me to hear the text as it stood and have a rousing discussion with trusted (and talented) collaborators. After the reading, we dismissed the actors—who were giving freely of their time—and the other eight or so of us made a thorough inquiry into what we’d heard. It was tremendously useful.

Before our conversation, though, as we said goodbye to the actors, I found myself wishing very much that one or two of them—good friends and really smart people—had been able to stay. So as they were getting ready, I offered that if any of them had any thoughts they wanted to share by email, they should feel free to do so. And I genuinely meant it.

And then I had to cash the check that my brain had written for me: one of them did in fact share a few thoughts.

Now, keep in mind that this person is someone for whom I literally could NOT have any more respect, as an artist and a thinker and a human being. This is an artist I explicitly asked to be included, because I knew my work would be better as a result. In fact, the work this person (I’m avoiding gender-specific pronouns so as not to reveal who it was) did in the reading was astonishing. A better cold reading I have never experienced in my life. It did make the process markedly better.

But the email? Clear indication that this person just didn’t connect with what I’d written. (Could have fooled me, given how stellar the reading was.) If it had come from anyone else—anyone, to be explicit, for whom I don’t have so much immense respect—I’d have forgotten about it immediately. But from this person? I had to sit with it for several hours.

Could it be possible that I simply didn’t know my work at all? That I was as far off as the email seemed to suggest? I honestly mulled the possibility, instead of rejecting it out of hand. I took a brief—very brief, but real—dip into despair; I asked myself, in several different ways, to consider the analysis; and ultimately I came to the conclusion that I just didn’t agree. The email, finally, was useless.

I feel quite comfortable with where I arrived. I understand (I think) where the email came from, and I have no hard feelings about the person who wrote it: none at all. In fact, I think I may actually have more respect, given the honesty and directness (and, I should hasten to add, respect) with which the email was written. Only a real friend and genuine collaborator would send an email of that nature.

How tempting would it have been to just close my mind? To be dismissive or even outright angry? To mope and feel misunderstood? When I was a much younger writer, I might have done those things, but the intervening decades have taught me that the more defensive I am, the more I am usually fighting against a bit of wisdom that’s just waiting to find me. Better to open up right away—which isn’t the same thing as agreeing, mind you—and let the feedback in, just to assess it. If there’s truth to be found, better to find it sooner, no?

In this case, the truth I found was that I’d selected a good partner, even if I didn’t agree with the sentiments expressed in the email. (And hey, maybe something expressed in the email WILL prove to be useful in a more practical way, too, as we continue working on the play.) In addition, my confidence will now actually be stronger, moving forward, than if I’d just deleted the email without thinking about it; it won’t be nagging at me while we’re in the room. In other words, useless feedback is never really useless after all.

[Gwydion Suilebhan]

Oh, believe me: actors give me terrific feedback in general. And I always keep them around for the discussion when possible. But in this case, for logistical reasons, it just wasn't.

But yes: isn't it so important to wait before responding? To think it through? It's a skill that ought to be taught, somehow, to young writers. It took me far too long to learn it myself!

[Marisela Treviño Orta]

Also, when you mentioned the actors leaving I immediately realized I always invite actors to stay, and sometimes they're the only ones in the room aside from me and my dramaturg. Since they're volunteering their time I usually feed everyone as a big thank you. I really like working with actors on multiple projects and have found that actors who become familiar with my work see things that I don't. One actor once pointed out that 2 of my plays had references to curing ojo (the "evil eye"). Well, turns out that made complete sense since I wrote the 2 plays simultaneously (no choice, they were both commissions) so naturally there was osmosis. More recently another actor pointed out that my characters who are in love often finish each others sentences. Now I hadn't recognized it like that, I knew I was doing it intentionally from a more poetic standpoint. But it made sense to me when the actor pointed it out: one heart, one mind kind of thing.

[Marisela Treviño Orta]

I had two experiences similar to this within the past 6 months or so. One, I had solicited feedback from someone, and the other came unsolicited in the form of an email. Both situations required me to suss the information being given to me to find any actual dramaturgical insights that would be useful, as opposed to opinions (someone people would just write that story completely differently and that's fine, let them write their own play) on how to tell the story. And I too have learned to sit with the information for a while before deciding what to do with it. In the first case I ended up having to articulate to myself why I was going to reject a suggestion--I had to build my own case for why my choice was the right one for the play and for me (I didn't want to just reject an idea solely because it came from someone else). Learning to deal with feedback is something I think we get better at with time. At least I hope so.