Masterclass with Douglass Maxwell

I'm squeezing Doug Maxwell's lecture in in the wee hours of the morning, on the heels of Liz Lochhead's entry.  He was hard to find, having found the Hume Lecture Hall late after a long walk in the rain (has anyone noticed that Scots don't much care for umbrellas?) I passed a pawn shop with three guitars to choose from, plenty of vintage shops- all with a cause - many hospice charities - little Indian, Pakistan restaurants, a butcher with meatpies in the window (where's Johnny Depp and Helena Bodman Carter?) and sturdy brick and mortar churches with black iron fencing parading as Fringe play venues.  Douglass Maxwell gave us gems about playwrighting starting with all his rejection letters - he's like that Frenchman in "Man on Wire" who traversed the World Trade Towers in the 1970s on a tightrope.  He explains his voice as comedies with a tinge of sadness.  He says things like "The Play becomes a vague shape on the horizon" when you start writing it.  Then, "The play will tell you" and the characters start as "primary colors" then they become filled in.  While he believes in the mystery of the play, he's workman attitude and energy are evident.  Crafting a play requires many redrafts, yet he says "Plays should be parboiled, not hard boiled"  Through experience, he tells of early recognition followed by swift criticism - but he seems to like to live on the wire.  Scottish theater is about "newness and invention" so he is reinventing structure and what that thing called a play is.  He then handed us the balance pole and said jump on as we broke off into groups to fashion a play.  Even the most shy of us got up and we had time because our meager plays were the quickest productions ever!  Theater writing is visceral - worry about the theme later; in fact, it will take care of itself.  When the lecture was over, the sun was out and we proceeded to our writing groups.  To make sense of it, he is an artist in motion.