A fake play about real life
I’m a big believer that most ideas, even the good ones, don’t have a lot of value if you’re not willing to work on them. A lot of people think a good idea has some inherent value, some worth as a concept itself, but it does not. You cannot sell someone an idea for a movie without having to first write or make the actual movie. It’s always about the execution, never the inspiration. Ideas are a dime a dozen.
I enjoy noodling ideas to see if I want to pursue them. I take notes. I jot down details. I’ll even design fake ads and posters. These are just exercises that won’t mean anything unless I decide to actually do them, and even then, there’s no guarantee I will land the trick. It’s just a little daydream to keep my mind from getting into too much trouble, which is valuable and useful, but still merely an exercise. It’s practice, not the big game.
The Inspiration
I had this idea for a story the other night. It came to me as a line that I believe to be true. “Everybody loves a good bank robbery.” Americans have been fascinated with bank robberies for as long as there have been banks. There are countless stories about bank robberies and bank robbers, both fictional and real, and we never seem to tire of them. It’s practically a cottage industry.
Even as I wrote the line, I thought, “That’s not only the title, but the premise.” What if a bank robbery occurred, and no one was all that bothered by it because we don’t think of them as real? Money is an abstraction to most of us. We don’t actually believe anyone is really hurt when a bank is relieved of its cash. The government will just print more. No one we care about will be affected by it. It seems a bit like a prank that someone in a position of authority somewhere will be upset with, but which doesn’t affect real people. It’s a victimless crime and the perfect setting for a story.
But was it a short story? A novel? A movie? I have always loved a self-contained movie that mostly takes place in a single location over a limited period of time with a small cast. Think “Twelve Angry Men,” the classic tale of jurist drama, or “Interview,” the American remake of the 2003 Theo van Gogh film starring Steve Buscemi and Sienna Miller. Except for a few opening scenes, the entire film takes place over one night in a single apartment.
Even when it’s a film, you could imagine it being done on the stage because there is no need for elaborate settings, car chases, or crowd scenes. A manageable story where the action is all in the dialogue. It’s all about the interpersonal relationships.
So, what about a play?
The Premise
Set in a small town bank, where everyone clearly knows everyone else. From the bank robber to the bank manager, the customers to the sheriff, not only is each of these characters on a first-name basis with every other, but they all have deep histories and shared pasts. Individual storylines with various subplots involving characters who have their own personal histories and intrigue play out within the larger framework of a bank robbery. As if a traditional bank robbery turned into a Breakfast Club-style discussion about life.
In the end, nothing is stolen, and no one goes to jail. Everyone simply leaves the bank, going their separate ways, with the manager locking the door to the bank and walking home. Just a day in the life of a small town.
The Play
Now, my friend Warner, who is an actual theater director, will tell you, it takes a lot more than a script to produce a play, and this isn’t even a script. It’s a premise, at best, but really just an idea based on other ideas.
We’ve all seen plenty of bank robbery stories, from “Dog Day Afternoon” to “Inside Man” to “The Town.” Nothing new there. Often, there is some bit of intrigue in how they go about it, but in a movie like “Dog Day Afternoon,” it’s a human interest story about two bumbling idiots, not slick professionals with skill and planning. We’ve also seen plenty of dialogue-heavy films that mostly take place in a single location. The aforementioned “Breakfast Club,” of course, but also “Clerks,” “The Hateful Eight,” “My Dinner With Andre,” “Rear Window,” and ”Reservoir Dogs.”
There’s nothing wrong with working with a known structure or premise, because it’s all in the execution. It’s what you do with it that matters. What is the real story we’re telling? What are the real dramas that take place inside the story? How many of them are there?
The Exercise
I am reminded of a funny short from 2014 called “The Gunfighter,” which was written by Kevin Tenglin and narrated by the stoic Nick Offerman. The film is set in a western-style saloon full of cowboy movie tropes, and the gag is that all the characters can hear the omnipotent narrator as he spills the beans on everyone involved. Each character, and their relationship to the other characters, is revealed to the viewer, even as it is revealed to the characters themselves. The efficiency with which the dynamics are revealed is extraordinary and a testament to introducing tension and drama in a compact space.
Rather than trying to outline a story framework, building backstories on the various characters and relationships, and creating a three-act structure, I think I want to be surprised by who shows up after the bank manager unlocks the doors in the morning and turns on the lights.
Our bank robber is masked when he walks into the nearly empty bank that morning, but the manager recognizes the young man immediately and calls him by name. The frustrated young man tears off the mask and demands the money. The manager does not seem the least bit worried about being robbed by this young man and urges him to be patient while he makes coffee.
Other patrons begin coming into the bank, one by one, only to have it explained to them that they are in the middle of a bank robbery, to which they respond with bored curiosity and wait calmly to see what will happen next. They get to be part of a bank robbery, after all, and who doesn’t love a good bank robbery? No one locks the door. No one tries to leave. No one calls the police. They all set about the task of dealing with the issue at hand. Eventually, the Sheriff shows up, but even he doesn’t seem to know what to do. They’re in it, and they have to get themselves out of it.
So, that’s something for me to think about.
Warner had a good note, which was to also think about what time period this should be set in. I wasn’t thinking about that at all. I suppose I was thinking it was modern, but I sometimes make the mistake of conflating small towns with simple and low tech, forgetting that any bank today has all sorts of crazy surveillance technology and everyone in the place would have a smartphone.
My immediate reaction, then, was to set it in the 1970s, but I don’t like the clothes, so now I’m thinking of setting it in the 1950s. That gets you a nice mix of men in overalls and suits, the women wearing simple dresses, everybody has a nice hat, and the bank robber can look like James Dean in jeans and boots with a clean white tee. It makes for an easier, cleaner set design as stand-ins for the bank.
All of this is meaningless unless I write the story, but maybe it contributes to the subplots or overall narrative somehow. It continues to fascinate me as a thought exercise. It’s fun to introduce a character and discover what it is they want.
Everybody wants something.