The Eternal Space's Birth Certificate

Tada! The first thing I ever wrote about The Eternal Space.

I love understanding how a written work is built. A writer’s inspiration, the genesis of an idea, notes jotted down on scrap paper are my reality television. I can’t look away. The creative process fascinates me and in case it fascinates you too, I’m continuing with our origin story… in a new way. Now I have the visual evidence to back up my verbose anecdotes. Lucky us!

As a start, I’m sharing the old handwritten notes that serve as the play’s birth certificate. 

Apparently I had the handwriting of a 6th grader in 2002.

Page #1: (Above) With no name and four characters The Eternal Space was born on February 2, 2002 to a proud single father. 

 I would love to ask me what I was thinking when I wrote that section about the play’s flow. "Naked beauty?" Oh to get inside that 22 year old brain!

I’m thinking it’s a parallel to movements in a musical piece. I wonder if there was supposed to be a follow-through with the Tannhauser allusion in Scene 1? (If you've never seen the play, there’s a Tannhauser allusion in Scene 1. Click here or here to learn more about Tannhauser. Come see the show to hear the allusion.) 

Page #2: (Above) Some initial research on Penn Station. Back then this was all new information. Now I can recite it in Inuit if the need arose. I heard they have forty different words for "demolition." Little joke. 

Page #3: (Above) It took me a month to come up with one scene outline, four characters and a doomed “Possible Titles” list. Sorry you can't see them. They should read: “Once I Built a Railroad,” “Gods and Rats,” and “Pennsylvania Station.” Go ahead. Laugh. The first two are hysterical. Common sense prevailed and I went with “Pennsylvania Station” as a working title for a couple months. Also that construction worker Ben Finlay sounds like he was a good time in the making. But he gets the chop. Paul Abbott is later redrafted as photographer and construction worker for reasons I'll explore in subsequent postings.  

Page #4: (Above) If you're familiar with the play it may surprise you that it originally had two acts and Paul’s wife as a major character. Back then her name was Bethany. For those who don’t know the show, now it has two characters and Paul’s wife, Patty, is only alluded to like Norm’s wife, Vera (on Cheers). Again, I will explore this change in future posts.

 Can you believe I got a ruler out to do that? Also remember yellow legal pads? 

Page #5: (Above) Although I'm as right-brain as they come, I still love to chart scenes. Breaking down a play into visual bits of information helps me to stitch the pieces together later in the writing process. Unfortunately, I didn't finish this exercise... like I said... right brain. 

Who is David I wonder? 

Page #6: (Above) Assigning photos to scenes. Photography was important right from the start. I loved this process… and still do. 

That right there is the pile of notes, research files, books, emails and drafts that I’ve amassed as the play has grown up over the past decade. I keep them in a tin-file box in the kitchen under my lesser-used cooking utensils: rolling pin, mandolin, cheese grater, and the Eternal Space archive. To be fair, I spend most of my time in the kitchen. 

The Architecture of Writing a Play About the Old Penn Station: Part 3--An Idea Comes into Focus

My copy of Peter Moore's The Destruction of  Penn Station 

Once inspired, the next logical step in laying a play's foundation is to formulate a compelling idea.

Spring of 2002: Combing the aisles of my local bookstore, I came across The Destruction of Penn Station, Peter Moore's haunting photo-documentation of Penn’s demolition. With one page-through my interest in the station's disappearnece was reinvigorated and, as a 22 year-old New Yorker trying to make sense of 9-11, Moore’s photos made a crucial connection for me. Throughout its history New York City had lost many magnificent buildings either by force or transaction and I was certain those structural fatalities affected the city's collective psyche. 

In short: We miss great buildings when they're taken from us.  

I thought of the tremendous ache New Yorkers felt over the Twin Towers' destruction and wondered if people experienced something similar when they demolished Penn Station? Did they stand off to the side and shake their heads unable to look? Did they miss that defining New York institution when it was taken from them? Did they take Penn Station for granted the way I did the Twin Towers? 

 © Estate of Peter Moore/Licensed by VAGA, NY

But for me, a man born twelve years after the physical building was wiped off the map, Penn Station lived in Moore's meticulous 3-year documentation. He brought it to life as he captured it dying. 

Photography was the key!

A photographer and his documentation of the station's demolition would become the focal point of the drama. From that idea I had the tools to conceptualize and build a play. 

The Architecture of Writing a Play About the Old Penn Station: Part 2-Inspiration

A play, like any building, starts with a moment of inspiration. 

I liken this moment to three shots of scotch on an empty stomach. It hits you hard and stays with you far longer than you expect it to. For The Eternal Space it involved a quick glance at a photograph. 

The tale in brief...

Winter. 1998. My second semester, freshmen year at Fordham University saw old high school friends trekking up to the Bronx for visits (the bars up there didn't card). On one occasion I decided to pick-up a guest coming in on NJ Transit. It would be my first trip to the infamous Penn Station and I was not prepared for the sad travesty that awaited me. 

I quickly discovered that nothing about the station worked.  It was counter intuitive to common sense, packed with hundreds of ornery people trying to negotiate its labyrinthine corridors, and it smelled like a mall tossed under a landfill.

Coming from the 1 train, I mistook the LIRR terminal for the entire station three times. THREE TIMES!  Fool me a third time and I'll be forced to stop at a subterranean McDonald's for a diet coke to drown my despondency and reevaluate my need to be such a nice friend. Which happened.  

Finally, I discovered the antiseptic Amtrak concourse but found no friend. I was in the wrong place. She was waiting in the New Jersey Transit terminal down the hall... When I realized this mistake my brain was already hurting: "Another terminal? What genius buries three major transit hubs under Madison Square Garden?"

But I recognize now that Providence had another plan. After trying to decipher the awful Arrival/Departure board to track down said friend, I turned around (looking for a restroom) and saw a black and white photo trapped inside a plexiglass frame.

The picture showed a massive train station waiting room that could have doubled for an ancient cathedral. It was ethereal; gray yet smeared over with a foggy washed-out white. It hung like a ghost (forgive the cliche) in its surroundings. For a moment, I thought I was the only one to see it. No one else noticed it and it seemed so out of place amid the busted ceilings and garish fluorescent lighting. 

I was lost in it... and the continuous narrative in my brain was forced to turn to a fresh page. The writing stopped and, for the first time in years, my thoughts stood still. 

When the record started again the first line read: "That must be in Europe." The line that followed: "Christ I wish I was there and not here." By then I had my nose pressed up against the plexiglass. Imagine the shock when I spied: "New York Pennsylvania Station, 1910" typed out on a yellowing slip of paper near the frame's left-hand corner. 

"BULLSHIT!" I shouted out loud. That earned me a look or two from some folks who deserved a few looks themselves. 

I went back to the safer volume of thinking: "That must be a New York in some other dimension. What idiot would replace THAT with this dump?" Outright anger followed: "Why in bloody hell would the entire nation be forced to enter the greatest city in the world through this New Jersey-Turnpike-rest-area of a "train station?"

Further investigation turned up two other photos corroborating the crime I would soon uncover: A far superior train station stood in place of the hellhole I found myself lost in and I wasn't going to rest until I figured out where it went. 

You may think: that doesn't sound like an inspirational moment. You sound angry and also a little dumb with directions. Yes, that may be so, but in the moment I saw that photo I knew something bigger had barged into my life. 

If that had happened today, I would've taken a picture with my trusty iPhone and tweeted it out with the message: "Does anyone know anything about an old Penn Station?" Or I would've Googled "Old Penn Station" read the Wikipedia page and promptly found further reading. But when something hit the 1998 Justin upside the head, the 1998 Justin wrote a play about it.

The idea wouldn't crystallize for another three years and I'll save that tale for next week.