All Part of the Risk
You cannot copyright an idea. It can simply be taken. I learned this not ten days ago. There I was, on my way to take the mutt for a walk, when a neighbor jumped off the elevator to ask me if I’d read the latest New York Times article about a specific opera that share’s a name with my solo show. In another world, I nodded yes, not knowing what she was on about, yet after the pooch peed I came home and immediately Googled this opera and its director and my heart sank. I collapsed to the floor in anger, sadness and fear. ‘He ripped off my idea,’ I wailed. For years no one has touched this story (opera), too complicated and dark for anyone to tackle. Yet now, right when I have my ‘debut’ so to speak, someone mounts it with the exact theme I extrapolated. Inconsolable is not the word.
To recount the rollercoaster of anguish I rode in the ensuing days would be pedantic and solipsistic. Hell, even I got exhausted by my melodrama, but what I will say is this: it fucking sucks when something you have worked your literal blood, sweat, and tears to create, is lauded without your name in the byline. It is a frighteningly precarious time for the arts in the United States. Things were never great, but now the death knoll sounds closer than before for American artists. We who have taken this ridiculous vow to create are scared. Will there be enough to go around? It was maddeningly difficult before, how hard must we hustle now? The questions are infinite in their soul crushing nature. So, when something that we thought was our original idea, gets ripped off by a bigger name, to make an even bigger name for themselves, come to Jesus we do go.
And I did just that. I looked at the past five years, all I’ve sacrificed, the struggle and the extraordinary loneliness I’ve endured to make this piece come to life; The actual life tragedies I’ve endured and overcome to call myself an actual survivor, and I questioned ever bit of it. Why? Why? Why had I done this? Why had I taken this route of penury and creativity? Why had I not kept running and searching for something more concrete? And like a call from the heavens the answer I received was: because it is your story to tell. Artists ‘borrow’ from each other all the time, yet at a certain point the re-interpretations becomes inauthentic and real people’s stories get trampled on for the sake of a splashing review.
The story of Salomé is ancient. With just a few verses in the Bible, the tale of a not fully developed girl’s torment has captivated writer’s, painter’s and musicians. Oscar Wilde did a pretty good job which Strauss played beautifully off of. Then Rita Hayworth gave it a go and few others besides, until an opera company in Santa Fe, New Mexico poignantly touched upon the essence of her being. They did it with sincerity, understanding the psychological distress of a young child, and respectfully reinterpreting it for a work of the stage. I never saw it, but I applaud their director a decade on. I never knew of this production when I started writing my show. I didn’t need to, because Salomé is my actual given name and the abuse these opera directors allude to, I actually lived.
Wachstafel(Tabula Rasa) image: Wikipedia
