They keep playwrights in boxes. It’s true. For the most part there’s room to turn over, room to breathe – there’s usually a hose or two attached somewhere, one for oxygen, the other for waste. There’s a slit at eye level where they can pull back a latch and then a panel and shine a light in. It fucks with your corneas, but the blindness is temporary. I think. Also, when they go, you have the blue angels dancing in front of you for a while. Which, you know, is something. If they want to fuck with you they take you out of the box – the purpose of which is realistically for your discomfort, not for theirs. If they want to feed you, they have various means to make the experience more or less pleasant, depending on their mood.

And of course you have to write. You have to write, if only so they’ll keep you in the box.

For reasons entirely unknown – some subtle differential in the machinations of the universe – occasionally you get a production. Don’t ask why. There is no why. You live in a box so (first of all) shut up, and (second of all) what is this why? You want to go back in or not?

It happened to me. Summer of 2006. They took me out. There was some play, they were putting it on, here, sit down, write an introduction. So I did.

Later, I remembered that it was all connected to a poem I had written a few years before. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it at the time, or when I’ll be out again, so I thought I would leave both here.

Thank you.

copyright,  © 2006 Moby Pomerance

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