In ‘Playmaking - A Manual for Craftsmanship,’ William Archer says, "Specific directions for character-drawing would be like rules for becoming six feet high. Either you have it in you, or you have it not." Do you agree or disagree?
It seems to me like anything—it can be learned. With practice, anyone can get better at what they can do as far as I can tell. At least that’s the premise in John Mighton’s book The Myth of Ability. He takes math and proves that any kid can be brilliant at in. I would think it would be the same for any creative endeavour.

On a personal level, I’m not interested as much in character. With pppeeeaaaccceee, I didn’t even have any characters. I was simply writing dialogue for three voices. I didn’t want the voices to be distinguishable. I wanted the force of the actor’s personality to be the character. It was interesting when that show was staged because people would say that I wrote the funniest lines for Greg MacArthur. That wasn’t true. Greg MacArthur was the funniest person on stage.

So people would attribute that I had done subtle character writing when I had done none at all. When I was writing it, I didn’t even write character names. I just wrote dialogue.

I’m a little tired of characters because theatre is too fake right now. Most theatre hasn’t really taken into account philosophical advancements in the past fifty years and hasn’t registered post-modernism at all.

In plays, there’s this question of cohesive subjectivity that we can see that is unified in this way. That’s not how anybody experiences life. My beliefs are mutable and transmittable and who I am is constantly changing. If I hang around with somebody, I’ll adopt their beliefs and points of view. We’re permeable. And I don’t find that the way character is depicted—as we watch this three-dimensional entity that is separate from us—that it’s inaccurate or truthful.

Speaking of his work methods, Henrik Ibsen said, "When I am writing I must be alone.” Do you isolate yourself from others when you write?
I do on occasion but theatre is a highly collaborative medium. People’s feedback always shapes the final product.

Chris Abraham really shaped [boxhead]. Bruce Hunter really helped shape White Mice. Everyone on pppeeeaaaccceee helped shape pppeeeaaaccceee. Rebecca Picherack really shaped A Suicide Site Guide to the City. That play, by the way, was mostly written on airplanes, which I talk about in the show.

In conceiving a new idea for a play what point do you tend to start from?
Generally just dialogue.

In White Mice, for example, there was a mouse from an earlier play that I had written and I wanted to write something for him because it was an interesting character. I started the dialogue between two mice; I didn’t even know it was going to be about racism at that point. When I started [boxhead], it was just one guy talking to an audience about waking up with a box on his head.

It is said that Arthur Miller used to type a one-sentence controlling idea for his plays and then tape it to his typewriter and constantly refer back to it during the writing process. How important is establishing a clear controlling idea when you write or will dialogue always rule the day?
With pppeeeaaaccceee, the rule was that I could never have any conflict. Everyone had to be nice to each other all the way through the play. There was no conflict, plot, or character. Can I write dialogue that was compelling without those three things? That was the challenge on that one.

There is a wonderful phrase of William Faulkner's that goes suggests if one is to write stronger prose one must ‘kill your darlings.’ Are there any 'darlings,' meaning scenes or characters that you have had to drop from your plays in favour of story structure?
Oh yeah, constantly. There are always things that are really lovely but are slightly off topic. Or they’re screwing around with the rhythm or simply redundant.

But killing them is something that is easy to do after you’ve written a few plays and you have to sacrifice a few jokes to benefit the whole of the project.

You’ve stated that dialogue is the piston for your work. Do you ever establish a reference point when you start writing a new play?
I’m always trying to engage with what’s going on around me and interact with that in a way that on one level is aggressive but that’s also affecting some sort of movement in a direction where I’d prefer things to go. So changing the world is this idiotic mandate that I have going on.

What's more difficult for you when writing a play---starting it or ending it?
Ending it.

When you’re starting a play—it’s a blank slate, you can go anywhere. But when you’re finishing it, elements have to fall into place in a satisfying way. I can’t imagine anyone disagreeing with that.

Can Darren O’Donnell produce conventional theatre?
I have to call you a little bit on that question. I get a bit annoyed with what’s deemed conventional.

Everyone’s always calling my sh*t experimental but I’d prefer you call my work ‘theatre’ and you call that regular stuff ‘old theatre’ or ‘boring theatre.’ Make that the exception, don’t make me the exception.

No, I don’t want to write a regular play. When is the last time Robert Lepage wrote a regular play but no one ever says his plays are experimental? The same goes for Daniel MacIvor—he’s formally messing around with stuff all the time.

In light of your new book that was recently released and the screenplay that you’ve written, are you beginning to move away from theatre?
No, I’m just supplementing.

It’s hard to make a living at this thing. Especially when you work like I do and produce your own work. I’m not interested in most of what’s going on in theatre. I’m interested what’s going on in literature and visual arts.

The most fun I’ve had recently in performance areas is performance talk. This means going to a gallery and having an artist doing a slide show talking about their work. A Suicide Site Guide to the City is almost like an artist’s talk. There’s a segment where I show a video and talk about my neighbourhood. It’s inspired more by performance art than it is theatre.