Don't Leave the Ending to the End

The great American modern dance pioneer Doris Humphrey wrote a wonderful book called The Art of Making Dances, which directors as well as choreographers should read. In it she proposes a list of ten precepts by which dance-makers—and, I’m suggesting, theatre-makers—ought to abide, and it includes the following: The Ending is 40% of the Dance, and Don’t Leave the Ending to the End.

Yesterday we did our first stumble-through, always a tense moment for the writer-director: does this play WORK? And, what are we left with at the end? Are the individual pieces in the right order? Does the piece feel too long? These linked questions are related to that ENDING Doris was writing about.

I was also trying to answer another question: should this be a two-act work, or should we forgo the bar sales you can make at intermission, and force the audience to sit through the piece all in one go?

The actors did very well, and the piece whirled swiftly to its conclusion, at a total running time of about 85 minutes. With the addition of scene changes and musical sequences it might run about an hour and a half, maybe more, but altogether a perfectly manageable length for a one-act. But the piece is also very dense and demanding, and so I’m left to wonder: will the audience need a brain-break half-way through? Will anyone COME BACK??

I had the feeling that the scenes are well-constructed, that there is a clear through-line, and also a good emotional build that arises from the developing relationship between the main characters. But the ending? Well, the ending I have always imagined for this piece now seems to be all wrong; or at least that’s the opinion of the cast members who have to play the last scene, and of other members of the team.

I’ve sketched another ending that some cast members like, and others reject; and I’m very ambivalent about all the possible solutions to this compositional problem. The alternative endings embody at least two classic questions that arise in the creation of text-based narrative: do you leave them laughing as you go, as Joni sang, or do you insist on something much more sombre because it's more truthful? And also, whose story is this anyway?