Some actorly friends of mine got together Tuesday night for a reading of Percy’s new play, Spring: A Knoxville Sonata, which will premiere in November.

It is really fun (and by “fun” I mean amazing, mystifying, challenging, exhilarating…) to workshop a new piece. Usually, the playwright is involved in the process, but alas, our Percy is in NY.

The actors at the read through gave really valuable feedback. As a whole, the group was taken by the play’s leitmotifs and themes: wolves, hands of cards, generational disconnects and longing, alienation (physical, emotional, spiritual), the woods.

I am easily inspired by symbols, metaphors, and themes. This play has crackling dialogue and gloriously poetic passages, which I enjoy, but it is the play’s Chekhovian undertones (and overtones)—a casual reference to a mountain lion being on the loose, slightly recalling the loss of land to a hand of cards—that jolt me upright. As an audience member, those moments are the ones I most enjoy.

When a major character mentions that a mountain lion is in the area (without expressing great concern), it makes me wonder: is SHE the mountain lion? The reference acts as a filter to the rest of the dialogue: Who (or what) is the animal on the loose in this scene? Does that person even realize it? Does anyone else? How aware are we of our own behavior? A mirror is held up to life and I am forced to ask questions about my own journey.

That is exactly why I love theatre so much.

Good plays are necessarily introspective, with meaningful questions at their core(s). But it is your job as an audience member (or theatre maker) to extract the question as you see it, as you hear it. Maybe the question you extract is the one you’re most afraid of, or the one you’ve been sitting on.

Yes, good plays ask something of us—and judging from Tuesday night’s reading, I am confident Spring: A Knoxville Sonata will do so.

-SCC