Week #5- Perfect Memory-Play

This is an idea for a play I’ve been knocking around in my head for the past few years. I never really created an outline for it. I wrote the first scene a few times but it never really seemed right. It’s more of a broad concept than anything else.

The overarching concept is to explore the idea of memories, specifically which memories we choose to hold onto and which get flushed. I want to explore this using the device of a character that has a completely perfect memory. He can literally remember everything.

My idea is to open the play with the main character in college, waking up hung-over after a party. It turns out that while he was drunk the night before he started relating literally every moment he spent with a girl he had a crush on down to the minutest detail. It ended up really freaking her out. Even better maybe we’ll show this scene in real time as the opening scene. Either way the next morning he’s contacted by someone who was at the party who is working in a neuroscience lab. This person tells him that it’s completely impossible for a person to remember that many things. They do some tests on him then discover that he’s an anomaly, a person with a perfect memory.

From this moment on we follow the main character through his entire life. There will be scenes from his life played out as well as monologues given as if he’s being interviewed by the neuroscience department that’s been studying him.

Our hero’s life should be very much like our own. He can remember everything, still there are things that stick in the front of his mind and the things he can’t let go of just like anyone else. He makes many of the same mistakes that anyone else would but when asked to remember them and reflect on them in his interviews maybe we can find a little more insight.

I’m open to any input on this or even someone just stealing the idea and doing whatever they want with it. I’ve written a few little scenes here and there but nothing very solid.