Ping Pong Play
Because we all deserve to live on the edge of our seats!
FIRST of all: I had no idea last week’s Long Read about literary manager stuff would be such a hit. I’ll be sure to scatter in some more of that kind of stuff in this newsletter from here on out. Thanks to all who got in touch about that post! If there’s ever a question you’re burning to ask, just post it in the comments or reply directly to the email version of this newsletter and I’ll ruminate on your question!
Secondly, I think this is just a Saturday newsletter now. I enjoy sitting down for a quiet hour or so on the weekend and putting together this lil guy.
Alright. So. The main course
Someone should write a play that’s not just about chance, but is predicated on chance. Per the title of today’s newsletter: someone should write a play about a ping-pong match. (Or pickleball, depending on the space.) And here’s the kicker: let the actors actually play the game, and have the outcome truly up in the air until a winner actually wins.
Does that mean the dialogue depends on the action? Yes! Would that be a tone of work? Oh yeah! Would you have to get real crafty about how to structure the script? You sure would!
It should go without saying that the stakes of this ping-pong game (match? Meet? I think it’s match…) should be extremely high. Although (and this is a bonus literary manager thought) probably not “fate of the world” high. More like…extremely high personal stakes.
This would certainly be easy to couch as a “gimmick” play, so the challenge is ripe for whoever someday decides to take this on: how to make a genuinely captivating story, such that the ping-pong game feels like it makes sense within the context of the story, and not the story is built to fit the ping-pong premise.
Y’know, or lean into the gimmick.
Isn’t in interesting that a sports game of any kind can make the spectators’ hearts race? Isn’t it interesting that the shape of a great story is the same as a great, say, basketball game?
You’ve got two household both alike in dignity, say, and they bring whatever special skills and talents and “personal stakes” they may have. Someone takes the lead. Maybe they keep trouncing their opponent, or maybe the underdog strikes back!! There are SNAFUs and miracles along the way, and then (in the very best games) it all comes down to the final few minutes (seconds!!!) and someone pushes through the final buzzer with more points than the other. Someone wins!!
Sports plays so often tell the story of what happens off the court, in the locker room, in the press room—anything and everything but the game itself. There’s a good reason for that: sports are unpredictable. They make great fodder for movies because you can do multiple takes of the 3-point buzzer beater until you get something you can cobble together in post. But on stage…it either happens or it doesn’t. And you can’t really rely on an actor to make the 3-pointer every time, eight times a week.
So why not lean into the element of chance? Why not structure the play around the…sure, let’s say “gimmick”…that you never know “which” play you’re going to see when you walk into the theater? It’s double the thrill because you get a story and you get to watch people play ping-pong: with all the SNAFUs and miracles included.
The question for you, writer, is what’s at stake in your ping-pong play?