Deer (Aaron Mark)
One thing we don’t talk about much is the art we consume and how that changes the art we produce. On top of that, I’ve got a giant stack of unread plays and books that I’d really like to get around to reading, so let’s see how long we can go, huh?
I’m starting the year off on a decidedly weird note with Aaron Marks’ Deer, a play nominally about people being pushed to the breaking point, and also about a dead deer.
As a Producer/Audience Member
We’re following an older couple, finally free of all responsibilities (their daughter has finally moved out, Cynthia’s live-in mother recently died.) They’re driving out to their home in the Poconos when Cynthia hits a deer.
Things go squirrelly when Cynthia refuses to believe that the deer is dead and insists they nurse it back to health. In short order we find that Cynthia is extraordinarily resentful of her life and the people in it, while Ken appears to not know what he really wants, but is willing to go to extreme lengths (and keep major secrets) to get it.
It’s a disturbing play, not entirely grounded in reality, but I found myself drawn to the characters nonetheless. It has the edge of unrealness that a Peter Sinn Nachtrieb play usually does, but not necessarily with the same heart.
The tone and shape of the play, darkly comedic and devoted to following things to their logical conclusion, is in keeping with my style and is definitely the kind of play Pronoia would do, however the ages of the characters (50’s) and the complexity of the production (explored in the next section) prevent it from being something that we could realistically pursue.
In terms of companies I’ve seen, it fits in most with a Catastrophic production, though is perhaps too comprehensible. I’d love to see a production of this play if it ever makes its way to me.
As a Designer
Deer has one enormous responsibility and gift: the Deer itself, and the mess it creates. This character/prop needs to appear suddenly (to get hit,) ooze blood, be portable by the actors, be capable of being chopped up, and (presumably) be able to be reassembled for tomorrow’s performance.
This is an exciting challenge, though not one I would know immediately how to budget for or begin to approach. Considering the blood and dirt of this production Costumes and Scenery have their work cut out for them: everything needs to be able to be cleaned constantly and chances are you’d want to hide some squibs in the set itself so the deer doesn’t have to do all the blood work.
Any production would also need to decide whether it would want lights and sound to help shape the unreal moments. There’s a lot of opportunity in this play for anyone who wants to tackle it.
As a Writer
It’s no secret that I want people to produce what I write, so it helps to take lessons from what has been produced and published. What can I learn from Deer?
It has a clear hook, the Deer, that is easily imagined and explained to people (both prospective producers and in marketing.)
It is not afraid to be completely what it is, I didn’t talk about the end of the play in any great detail, but the Deer starts talking about a third of the way through the play, and it only keeps doubling down on the weirdness from there.
Most notably it’s not afraid to let the characters be embarrassing or to let their actions speak for themselves. They do things that are fundamentally strange and outside the bounds of what we’d expect characters to do, but they’ve been human enough to that point that as a reader I went along with it, and I think an actor could find a way to make those moments work without losing the audience.
Like I said, it is tonally similar to what I already write, and I probably could be served well by thinking of dominant imagery in my work such as what happens in Deer.
