Escaping association, so that now is always always.

I am in the middle of The Language That Rises, an enlightening look at Stein's process of creation. Early on in the book, right after calling Stein's unusual forms "anarchistic," Ulla Dydo writes this fabulous description of the work:

Her rejection of the rigid conventions of language led her gradually to dissociate herself from all inflexible forms, including hierarchical thinking, authoritarian organization, prescriptive grammar, and chronological narrative -- aspects of the patriarchy. In a sense, all her work is a demonstration of possibilities of grammar for democracy. She was interested in spacious, living sentences.

That's right: Stein is all about reversals and neutralizations -- of power, of thought, of association, of meaning, of men and women. (How Bryn Mawr!) Although the near-complete dissociation that Dydo refers to can be seen much more in Stein's early work than in DFLtL, I think this is a useful excerpt in terms of thinking of character arcs (or scores). These characters are not strapped down by conventions, hierarchies, or interpretations, not by others or by themselves. Similarly, they are always present, always living, never static.

In "Composition as Explanation," Stein says of people,

At any moment when you are you you are you without the memory of yourself because if you remember yourself while you are you you are not for purposes of creating you.

The relationship between actors and characters obviously complicates this statement; we do have to maintain constant memories so that our spontaneity makes sense. Still, the characters we play, however we play them, are themselves, not themselves as tied to anything. They're always working versions, not existing (written, mythical, conceived) versions.

In thinking about characters and time, a few other quotations come to mind:

What is the difference.
Between happened to be and it has just now or just or just then it has happened to happen or to have to have had to had to happen or to me.
(from "A Play of Pounds")

[A] play is this which makes it a play to play this.
(from "Byron A Play")

All changes. Are made. By liking. It. Best.
(from "They Must. Be Wedded. To their Wife.")

I reason like this. A proceeding with necessitates that recollection perfection selection and protection rhyme and that stupefaction action satisfaction and subtraction rhyme and that dearer clearer freer and nearer follow one another a proceeding which not any one dislikes stamps a play as a wonderful beginning.
(from "A Circular Play")