Wednesday, May 24, 2023

Writer/Director Notes: "The Oneness Intended for Us All" (Enter The House Between Episode #1)

This week, we take a breath -- a brief hiatus -- on airing new episodes of our full-cast audio drama, Enter the House Between, before barreling (in late June) to our two-part first season finale.

Writers love to wax poetic about their own work, and I'm no exception, of course. 

So, I'm sharing some notes and thoughts about the audio drama and its conception at this juncture, in anticipation of the first season climax in a few weeks.

Enter The House Between is a series that considers, in realistic terms, the ramifications of the Many Worlds Theory. It ponders not merely the idea that this could be a real thing (quantum theory), but how access to the multiverse would actually work, and how, if such access existed, it would change our daily lives.

Following up on my super-low-budget web series, The House Between (2006-2009) -- which you don't have to know much about to enjoy and understand the new audio drama -- Enter The House Between finds a diverse set of characters living together with the "miraculous" technology that brings the Many Worlds Theory home on a daily basis. 

Would this technology (which we call "smart houses" in the series) be used for hedonism, self-knowledge, or for domination?  

Would those who control it, do so for the betterment of all, or the enrichment of just a few?

And, if alternate realities are real (as are the people who live there...) and a part of the fabric of our everyday lives, what is our responsibility to them as living, feeling individuals?  Aren't we just living in an alternate universe too, at least to them?

In this way, Enter The House Between sees the multiverse (which we call the Quantumsphere) not as a rollercoaster ride for crazy parallel possibilities, but as a mirror for our main characters: Astrid, Theresa, Arlo, Bill, Brick, Eris, and TJ. 

They each hold a specific viewpoint (science, religion, metaphysics, and hedonism for example) that is supported, challenged and reflected back at them in the course of these episodes.

The series is set in a world in which our consensus reality is fractured, and people don't know what is real and not real. I think our opening narration does a good job of setting that background up: 

 

I wrote the first episode of Enter The House Between, "The Oneness Intended for Us All" in late 2020, during the dog-days of pandemic and lockdown, and distributed it to our cast just before Christmas of that year, on December 15th.  After rehearsals, we recorded it in May of 2021.

This was my first story in this THB universe since 2009. The story concerns the idea that, in a world of a "real" multiverse (ahem, Quantumsphere...), there will be those who don't see other realities or their denizens as real, or legitimate, or even deserving of life, for that matter.

Instead, these individuals see all such alternate realities as false, populated by "shadows" or "demons."  They can't tolerate shall we say, the "diversity" of a universe where people make different choices, or lead different lives. They see only themselves and their own choices as right, and true. 

Now, imagine a person with that malignant, narcissistic perspective, with that egotistical, self-centered viewpoint, holding in his hand a weapon that can enforce that belief, that can destroy the so-called shadows and demons, the diversity of life itself in the many shelves of the Quantumsphere.

That villain is the cult-leader "Father" and he is the primary threat, or antagonist, of our first season, a man who believes that only his own values, and his own reality are true. 

He thus seeks, with the help of a WMD called Legion, to cleanse all the realities of ideas he doesn't like or approve of. He seeks the "oneness" of the episode title, an erasure of different values, beliefs and individuals from all realities. He desires the same mirror as the other characters, but not to learn and grow from, not to understand, but to see only his own glory, his own power, reflected back at him.

"The Oneness Intended for Us All" is 74 pages long, the length of a short feature film, and (unlike some of the episodes that follow...) did not go through too many drafts. I think we all knew where to start (with an unreliable narrator, Father, sharing his jaundiced view of the Quantumsphere.

The challenges?

First, writing in a new medium -- audio only -- where you don't have any visuals to help the audience understand what is happening. 

And second, not to rely too much on previous stories, and to effectively set this series up as its own thing.  That way, audiences can come fresh to it. They will find characters here in the audio drama with a rich history (as we all have rich histories), but also find that they are immersed in a new story and new events.

For me, my desire was for the story to feature protagonists who make bad mistakes, and try to learn from them and become better. At age 53, I am not interested in people who don't make mistakes. We all stray, we all make mistakes, are (hopefully) sorry for those mistakes, and do our best to recover from them.  I don't believe in perfect people, only in people who get up every day and try to do better than they did the day before. Our core group of protagonists here is constantly faced, because of smart technology, with the understanding that good intentions don't always lead to good outcomes.

I feel so grateful that the series cast --  Kim Breeding-Mercer, Alicia Martin,  Jim Blanton, Tony Mercer, Chris Martin, Leslie Cossor and Craig Eckrich -- have (and continue to...) so fully embody these flawed but compelling characters, and their sometimes rocky choices. These actors bring such a beautiful, and messy reality to these characters that I adore, and that for me, reflects the kind of reality I like to see in storytelling.

I guess you might call "The Oneness Intended for Us All" a pilot, because it proved to me that the ideas and characters of this universe can thrive in an audio format. In short-hand, I call this episode proof of concept.

So, if any of this background or story interests you, and you are at all inclined, now is a perfect time to join us, and listen to our first six stories, starting with "The Oneness Intended for Us All." 

Drop a like, write a review, or comment here. I'd love to know what you think.

Here's the YouTube episode:

 

And here is the episode on Spotify: 

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