On Sincerity

By Morgan Gould

I’m Morgan. I’m a director and a writer and I have a theater company called Morgan Gould & Friends with a group of 10 other artists (actors and designers) who I love and work with all the time. We make satirical commentaries on theater, on feminism, on whatever I feel like whenever I feel like it. We sort of pride ourselves on never doing the stupid thing everyone does which is write like a regular play that explores a theme through plot.

So this year in the TMT Institute, I decided to write a regular play that explores a theme through plot.

The goal was to explore and uncover why I resist being sincere so hard, so often, so deeply. I really do. I resist it.

Now, to be clear,I like a radical challenge. And for me, being radically unchallenging is actually really uncomfortable. I have never had a “reading.” I do not write “drafts” of “plays” and then “develop” them with “music” “stands.” So this year, I decided (with the generous and supportive insistence of TMT and basically every mentor I have), to write a “sincere” play. No twists. No BS. None of the usual fun things I hold dear.

Last week I showed it to a small audience of people I love and respect. Which was awful, because I’m not sure I love and respect this play, or the experiment, or writing something “real.” But it was useful. Interesting, anyway.

Even when TMT asked me to write this post, I thought about all the forms this post could take. Like, I was like, wouldn’t it be funny to interview myself or do something annoying and satirical like I usually do? (FYI, that is what I usually do). But then, I guess since I’ve spent my time in TMT Institute exploring my own relationship to sincerity, it seems like a straight up “here’s what going on post” makes the most sense.

But I confess this is difficult for me.
I find sincerity dull. Or perhaps I find it terrifying.
I think it’s a bit of both, frankly.

HERE IS A SERIES OF SINCERE STATEMENTS:

I’m just some dumb white person.
I’m just some boring college educated white person.
I’m just some regular white person who is fat, so I guess that’s slightly subversive, but come on, I own a Macbook pro and a Nalgene and an extra charging battery for my iphone, my life is fine.

There’s something here about taking up space. I’m afraid to take up space with “sincerity.” I owe the audience a laugh. I owe the audience something slicker, funnier, better. Something they can’t predict. I owe other people something valuable for asking their time. I owe them something beyond SACCHARINE sincerity.

I am not enough on my own.
I don’t have enough to say.
I have to be funny, because it’s the only thing I have that others don’t.
What if I’m sincere and it’s revealed I am
Stupid
Boring
Untalented
Banal
Regular
What if I’m sincere and I reveal to myself all the things I
Fear
Desire
Feel Enraged by
Rage
Rage
Rage

I feel sincere rage about things and sometimes I’m scared to unpack them or maybe I’m just telling myself that because it sounds more interesting than possibly confronting the fact that I’m dull and mediocre. No, I definitely feel sincere rage. That is real. I think I’m afraid of that because I’m ultimately a lazy person and I want to sit and watch TV and talk on the phone and fuck around on Facebook and have an easy life. If I let the rage out, I have to recognize the complications I have around my own identity…mostly as a fat person, a woman, a person without a trust fund. I am a person who sees injustice and does nothing to stop it because of the aforementioned laziness. If I am sincere, the rage will provoke something in me that challenges my laziness. I think I don’t want that. I think I’m resistant to what it might involve.

I also feel real desire for things I want. Which reminds me I want things I cannot have. I don’t like that feeling. I feel shame for wanting. For desiring. So burying that is often easier for me than expressing it.

Or maybe I’m just boring, which is also an awful thought.

But then, sincerely, who do I think I am?
What an annoying mark of privilege.
To be afraid of being boring.
I hate that I even think about that.
I should be lucky.
To be boring.
Then I could be happy being a bank teller.
An elementary school teacher.
A nurse.
These things are respectable things to be.
They would never please me. I hate that about myself.
If I could wish away one thing about who I am, fundamentally,
I would wish away DESIRE.
I hate desiring everything.
I hate wanting.
It plagues me.
It ensures I will always be grasping for the next thing.
And I will never get it.
Because the next thing is always next.

WHY AM I EVEN WORRYING ABOUT THIS. WHO CARES WHO CARES ABOUT THEATER
OR ANY OF IT
WHO
CARES
WHOOOOOOO CARES IT’S SO STUPID
THIS IDIOT THING WE DO
I HATE THAT I CARE ABOUT THIS IDIOT INEPT STARFUCKING BULLSHIT IDIOT THING
But I do care
WHYYYYYYY
WHY DO I CARE ABOUT SOMETHING NO ONE WILL READ SEE OR DO BECAUSE IM NOT AN ANOINTED STAR SO I WILL NEVER BE PRODUCED ANYWAY AND WHO CARES ABOUT BEING PRODUCED WHEN MOST THEATERS ARE PRODUCING PLAYS I LOATHE AND DESPISE????
WHY DO I EVEN CARE ABOUT THAT
I MAKE MY OWN WORK
I HAVE A COMPANY
WHERE I CAN DO WHATEVER I WANT
BUT DO I EVEN WANT THIS DUMB THING THAT IS “THEATER”
WHY DO I WANT IT WHEN ONLY 50 PEOPLE SEE IT AND THEY ARE ALL JUST LIKE ME—WHITE AND COLLEGE EDUCATED AND MOSTLY BORING
WHO IS THIS FOR
WHAT IS THIS FOR
AM I JUST DOING THIS BECAUSE WHEN I WAS 19 I DECIDED TO? AND NOW I JUST DON’T SEE A WAY OUT
WHY DO I THINK I SHOULD BE SOME ANOINTED STAR
WHO THE FUCK DO I THINK I AM
I’M NOT SPECIAL
I’M SINCERELY NOT SPECIAL
WHY AM I DOING THIS STUPID THING
I HAVE SO MANY SKILLS I COULD RUN A BUSINESS OR TEACH CHILDREN TO READ
I’M SO SELFISH
SPENDING FUNCTIONING PERSON SKILLS ON THEATER THAT NO ONES SEES
I COULD BE MAKING A DIFFERENCE SOMEHOW
AND I DEFINITELY KNOW MAKING STUPID DOWNTOWN THEATER IS NOT MAKING A DIFFERENCE
NOT TO ANYONE
WHAT AN EMBARRASSING AND SHAMEFUL WASTE

But here again.
I’m scared of desiring something.
I’m scared of showing how badly I want people to listen to me.
Because that feels stupid.
It feels unnecessary and selfish.
And yet.
So many things are unnecessary and selfish and most people are fine with them, so why am I thinking I’m so above being unnecessary and selfish?
Think of all the wastes of time out there…
Why is it such a crime to add to the chorus?
FUCK YOU.
I’m going to be unnecessary and selfish just like everyone else.
If I’m not special, which I’m not, them dammit I deserve to be just as unnecessary and selfish and everyone else.
And!
I won’t even use
Viewpoints
Puppets
“choral” moments
“movement”
live feed
or fucking poems

I’m not even going to do half the stupid shit most people do that is dull and boring to me.

So maybe it’s ok. To take up space.
Maybe it’s ok I feel weird about taking up space.
Why not me, though?
Why does the Wooster Group get to take up space?
Or Annie Baker?
Or like, Alex Timbers?
Why not some fat stupid bitch who spends too much time on Facebook?
Why the fuck not?
I mean. Who decides who gets the arena?
Why can’t it be me?

Directing is easier than playwriting because when I’m directing if it is boring it is usually not my fault. Or not entirely my fault. I do not have to commit. I can be committed without committing and that’s less scary. Directing is easier than playwriting because it’s not my words or voice or vision and if I make like, a fun transition everyone thinks that’s great. But mostly if the play is bad, I am exonerated. People blame the playwright. But when I’m the playwright…then, I’m to blame.

Directing is competence.
Writing is vulnerability.
Being vulnerable is not fun. I would rather watch HBOgo.

I’m grateful to David and my TMT fellows for making me see that I need to consider why I am afraid of sincerity. Why, when actually, I love it so much and cry at movies and even commercials. I think it’s because deep down, those sincere things I love—seeing people happy, in love, adjusted, satisfied, fulfilled, completed…I think I feel those things will never apply to me. And so I’m scared to take them seriously because of having to deal with why I will never have them.

I will probably never write a “sincere” play again.
I will probably never write a linear play again.
But that said, I do feel like I just beat a new level of Super Mario. Like, I leveled up.
I checked off a box.
And now maybe in my next satire, I will be less afraid to bring the rage and desire.
I think that would be an interesting layer.
Like I’ve found a new design element.
Rage design by Morgan Gould.

I’m writing this post to avoid writing to avoid desiring.
It’s exhausting.
But, as I just said to my best friend on the phone when I was avoiding writing this post to avoid writing to avoid desiring, I’m lucky that on a Friday at noon I can be sitting here thinking about these things instead of working as a bank teller.
I do think I prefer this to that.
Even if I wish I could be happy as a bank teller.

I hate myself for thinking all of this.
I hate myself for writing it down.
I feel so emo and dumb.
I’m sincerely full of histrionics.
And actually, I’m sitting in a Starbucks in Los Angeles and it’s gorgeous out and everything is fine and I am blowing everything out of proportion.