NPX Weekly Round-Up: To Be A Monarch Butterfly, To Return to a Home that Never Was by Lee Harrison Daniel
A beautiful and lyrical piece that showcases yet again how versatile the art of theater can be, plus three intriguing plays that I'm excited to read!
Most of us who become playwrights are not only playwrights, or at least did not start out that way. Perhaps you started as a novelist, or a poet, or even a song-writer. Perhaps you still do all of that in addition to playwriting. Regardless, I see our past, present, and/or future writing endeavors not as a deviation from our playwriting process, but as an addition to it. A strong addition.
If you’ve read a lot of plays, then you’ve read at least one that utilized poetry, verse, and/or song lyrics. Hell, if you’ve read Shakespeare than you’ve read a play written in verse (which is just a fancy way of saying poetry). In my experience both reading and writing plays, being a poet is somewhat of an asset.
This play is no different.
The official summary on NPX of To Be a Monarch Butterfly, To Return to a Home that Never Was by Lee Harrison Daniel is:
"You said I couldn't fly, and I can
You said I couldn't fly, and I can
You said I couldn't fly, and I can"
Originally written to be performed over Instagram Live, this piece can be performed virtually or on an in person stage.
To Be a Monarch Butterfly… by Lee Harrison Daniel is a play that I would say is written in free verse poetry. I have no idea if Daniel themselves would agree, but that was my first instinct upon not only reading the play, but seeing it upon the page. The way that Daniel delineates characters is not through names, but through where on the page the words reside. The left part is one character, the center another, and the right a third. In this way the visual nature of the play itself is poetic.
I very much enjoyed the way language is used in this work— it is stream of consciousness, vulnerable, at times heartbreaking and hopeful simultaneously. This play does not take place in any real or realistic space, and that is something that I wholeheartedly appreciate as a more experimental leaning writer myself. The “point” of this play would not come across if it were in a realistic style.
To me, this short play is about feeling lost, feeling the need to change something about yourself and/or your life, and taking that first step into that new chapter. Frankly, it’s something that touches me deeply. If you’re in your early to mid twenties, you have had all these thoughts. For instance, when Daniel writes:
“I just can’t shake the feeling that the “good days” are already behind me…Sometimes I think I want to die/But I don’t actually/I just want something to happen to me.”
I think everyone from Gen X down to Gen Z have felt this deep in their soul at some point in their lives. Hell, I think I felt it yesterday.
This work is full of memorable quotes such as this that speak deeply to the experience of younger people in the world right now. Luckily, it ends on a hopeful note— one of positive, realistic change.
But the main point of these reviews is, “what can we learn from this play?”
As a writer, this play reminded me that I am allowed to be messy. That messy can be beautiful and touching. I have often written short scenes and plays in this style, where things don’t take place in “reality” and the language is not written in the style in which people speak. My latest work deviated from that, and I think that I forgot how freeing and inspiring it can be to just WRITE.
Read this play, and then I want you to just write something. Just create. Don’t worry if the play is stageable, understandable, or marketable. Just write. I’m going to as well.
Here is my official review on NPX:
This piece is lyrical and touching, written in what I would personally call free verse poetry. Daniel wrote words I had only previously thought before, and it was an emotional moment to realize that others feel as I do. A beautiful manifesto on the necessity of change.
Happy reading (and writing)!
Three other plays on NPX (that I haven’t yet read!) that peaked my interest this past week:
Riverwood by Andrew Lee Creech
the wolf you feed by Darcy Parker Bruce
Plastic Drastic by Elena Araoz
Want me to read any of these? Are there other works you’re interested in me reviewing? Let me know by responding to this newsletter!
Have a great week!
Brynn