The Past Really is a Foreign Country.

"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there." L.P Hartley, The Go-Between.

So, it turns out the past really is a foreign country.

I wasn't at all surprised that I'd have a lot of research to do in writing the libretto for SIGNS OF LIFE: A Tale of Terezin, which takes place in Czechoslovakia during World War Two. But it's amazing how many little things come up that require tracking down.

Here's a few:

When did the terms "Molotov Cocktail," "canoodle," and "throttle" come into being? (1940, 1859, and sometime in the 15th century, it turns out.)

And guess what? Writing about the recent past can be just as tricky.

While I don't consider myself a "political" writer, political issues and current events intrude into my plays a lot, since it's only natural that such events would be on the minds of characters living through them. I've discovered that with some of my "contemporary" plays, this requires either constant updating, which is a huge pain, or a certain vagueness, which is . . . well, vague. Perhaps as a result of this frustration, I was recently inspired to try to address the recent past in my plays. This allows me to delve into contemporary life and issues, but in a specific historical context that doesn't require constant updating.

Sounds easy, right? Not so much, it turns out.

When not working on SIGNS OF LIFE, I've been working a cycle of (I think) five plays, that take place from the election of 2000 through the election of 2008. One would think I'd remember details about this period, during which I was an adult who paid pretty close attention to the world around me.

But it's amazing how quickly details escape the memory. For example, I remember using a cell phone in the year 2000. But did cellphones have built-in speaker phones at that time? I don't think mine did, and I'm having a hard time finding out if any did. Even Wikipedia didn't help.

Another example: a character of mine made a disparaging remark about Facebook in a play that takes place in 2003. Yeah, you guessed it: there was no Facebook in 2003. So, now the character makes no such remark.

When Shaw wrote Arms and the Man in 1894, did he have this kind of trouble writing about events that took place less than a decade earlier? Or is the fast pace of technological change in the internet age the cause of my vexation?

Now, one might ask: do any of these details really matter? Is Julius Caesar any less of a play because one of the characters mentions a clock tower, something that hadn't been invented during the age of Caesar?

The answer is, of course not. But critics give Shakespeare a pass. They claim his anachronisms are intentional! The rest of us aren't so lucky. I once had a critic complain that the American flags featured in my depression-era musical ELIOT NESS IN CLEVELAND contained fifty stars, at a time when our nation's flag boasted only forty-eight. (I have always been amazed at this critic's ability to count so fast. The flags were only on stage for a moment. But critics do have amazing superpowers.)

So, we do our best as we navigate the foreign country we call the past.

See SIGNS OF LIFE: A Tale of Terezin off-Broadway, February 16-March 21, produced by Amas Musical Theatre!

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