Transcript from conversation between Charlotte and Max on February 23, 2010.In Caseus, over some Boucheron, Charlotte is writing in a book. Scriabin’s “Mysterium” is playing in the background.

MAX:

You can’t do that! efface.

CHARLOTTE:

What? (Hi!)

MAX:

Starting in media res is a total XXXXXXX.

CHARLOTTE:

You did it not me. (Can I tell you a secret?)

MAX:

It shows that you are not actually XXXXX building characters and

a compelling emotional landscape of their objectives and

obstacles. wipe out.

CHARLOTTE:

Yeah, this whole exercise is just a bad idea. I despise writing about

writing, or rather, reading writing about writing. (This is a stage

direction.)

MAX:

The grammar will be clear in the written text. expunge.

W

CHARLOTTE:

Is clear? (So the audience cannot hear it being spoken allowed, but I

guess it could be coloring the actresses’ performance, if she is any

good, I guess, but,wait, ok…)

MAX:

Is clear. expunge.

A bomb goes off in Cambodia in forty years earlier; they feel it in the

soles of their feet.

CHARLOTTE:

XXXX! I have also used the XXXXXXXX awful Victorian device of

found text. (I am also Charlotte, but the writer Charlotte, the meta-

Charlotte.)

MAX:

So, are they watching us leaning over a script you are writing that

defines our actions in leaning over the script? scratch out.

CHARLOTTE:

I Does that count as determinism? I don’t know what they have in their projected

senses. XXXX! It is idiotic to posit a theatrical scene to be read as

visual text. (But not really because this language is cadenced and

cute in a way that she totally isn’t.)

MAX:

Closet Dd(?)ramas are a totally valid form. Bloom would probably

have us believe that all of Shakespeare should be read not

performed. obliterate.

CHARLOTTE:

But look, I can do things totally XXXXXX for the stage. (Wait, but

do you want to know the secret?)

Charlotte blinks in and out of existence three times.

MAX:

You can’t do that! (They can do it in Control Group XXXXXXX it!)

CHARLOTTE:

As long as they out there can still suspend disbelief in the little

XXXXXXXX world they are creating then it is allowed. I can even

go back retroactively and edit efface the text that had defined us

to this point. erase. (‘Cause I have to be really careful of protecting

my image around here.)

MAX:

And only that which script convention requires reading allowed

will be expressed to the audience that the reader of a play also sub

liminally projects. He says normatively you’re not broken if you don’t do this.

CHARLOTTE:

Sure. It could also be seen as a tautologically defined piece of

theater, but that is also a facile solution. (… Haha, aren’t I a tease?)

MAX:

Wait, so what does it mean?

CHARLOTTE:

It is a test, buddy. (This is all totally empty and meaningless!)

Charlotte writes the words “Exeunt.”

Charlotte writes the words “Exeunt.”