To Drink or Not to Drink? –
Oct. 17, 2019 – Drugs and alcohol aren’t the only addictions being plumbed for dramatic effect. “Octet,” a well-received a cappella musical by Dave Malloy that opened at the Signature Theater Company last spring, is set in a 12-step program for internet addicts. It’s a topic Malloy found himself writing about after noticing his own increasing time online. “I tend to make work on things that I’m obsessed with,” he said.
Although he isn’t in recovery, Malloy said he visited a variety of addiction groups for research, including those dealing with sex and love, which commonly overlap with people who are addicted to pornography.
“What I was most moved by in going to recovery meetings was just the empathy in the room, the way that people listened to each other,” Malloy said. “Just the process of seeing yourself in all these stories was pretty powerful.”
An internet-based recovery group was featured in Quiara Alegría Hudes’s “Water by the Spoonful,” which won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 2012. As his title suggests, the playwright Adam Bock said he decided to set his recovery play, “Before the Meeting,” outside the actual 12-step process, though the central character — an older woman working hard to keep sober — delivers a 25-minute monologue to what seems like a group of fellow drinkers.
