Plays and Praise

Lesson 7: Revision, Applied Dramaturgy – part 5, Clarifying Character

2005-06-26T21:53:00.000-05:00

Character is a vast subject and cannot be covered befittingly in this one posting (nor, probably, in many). However, character is really inextricable from story, and since these ‘applied dramaturgy’ lessons have focused on clarifying story, it would be only natural to consider clarifying character in order to tighten the story.

At the beginning of the play, what is the character’s situation? Where are they dealing with internally? What kind of state are they in? These questions are particularly relevant to how the character is relating to the main action (plot or subplot) of the play. What is their basic moral quality? For example, one might say Oedipus is basically proud and powerful. Your characters may be complex, but in regard to the circumstances of the play, what ‘mask’ do they wear? Anger? Remorse? Eagerness? Hope?

For the purposes of theater, character is mostly about desire or intention. What does he or she want? How does the crisis in the play set them to wanting? How do they want things to go? What are they willing to do to get things to go that way? What do they do? What is getting in the way of them from getting what they want? i.e., what is their obstacle?

How do they grow or change or transform over the course of the play? Do they change, or is their character revealed? Is their outer circumstance changed? (From happy guy to sad guy or vice versa) Maybe they don’t change, but their inner nature is now made plain to the world? (For example, Moliere’s Tartuffe)

It’s important to be true to your gut instinct about the characters, but it’s also true that your character choices should be made for the sake of your premise. Let yourself be guided by your central idea, or change it. The premise is not a tree to nail yourself to. It’s good ground to build on, so specify the site you like and build.

If you find your character is very complex and wants a whole bunch of things and it just can’t be put into words, then try to think: what does the character want at the beginning of the play? Let’s say, he wants to get some sleep… What gets in his way? Let’s say, there’s a noisy neighbor. Okay, he doesn’t want to make a scene, but he has to sleep, so he calls the neighbor on the phone: Could you please quiet down? The neighbor refuses. So what does he do now? Go over in person? Call the police? He’s got an important thing to do tomorrow… He has to do something to resolve the matter, either that or he doesn't act and suffers the next day. Intentions are not worth much unless they can be sought after over the course of the drama. Wanting world peace is no use unless Jack or Jill has a plan to get it.

Also, a red flag for me is if a main character is so special or so virtuous that nothing in the play can really touch them. The purpose of plays is to show us (the audience living in the real world) what people are made of, and nothing shows that like characters under adverse and difficult circumstances. If your character doesn’t feel the pain (tragedy, drama or comedy), then why are we spending our time with them? Maybe there’s a good reason, I don’t know. Anyway, beware of superheroes that don’t have supervillains who jeopardize their control. Characters should probably be more or less evenly matched. It’s a principle called the ‘Unity of opposites.’

Lesson 6: Revision -- Applied Dramaturgy, part 4 – Crisis, Climax, Resolution

2005-06-25T11:55:00.000-05:00

The great German dramaturg Freytag made the discovery that the great plays of history followed a similar shape, which he characterized as a pyramid. The three key points of this pyramid (in Freytag’s words) were the crisis, the climax, and the resolution.

* Crisis: At or near the beginning of a play, there is a perceivable void in the world of the play, a need that must be addressed actively by the character(s). There’s an unspoken agreement (between the playmakers and the audience) that the play will end when this crisis is resolved.

* Climax: This is the high point of the characters’ attempt to deal with the crisis, to work things out. This is the peak and a turning point in the conflict.

* Resolution: At a certain point, the action that has been undertaken by the characters sets in motion (for better or worse) certain irreversible outcomes. They pass a point of no return and life takes over and the crisis can no longer be addressed by the characters either because it is happily resolved or because everybody’s dead (or something in between :-). Life creates a new stasis and the play ends.

For example in Oedipus Rex: The crisis is the plague in the land and Oedipus’ commitment to not stop seeking the source of the plague until he roots it out. The climax is when Oedipus refuses to listen to his wife or to the shepherd, who counsel that he stop his inquiry; he will find the murderer and justice will be done. The resolution is when the truth is revealed that he has in fact (following Fate’s prophecy) killed his father, married his mother, and now he must banish himself from the land.

Something to think about regarding crisis: In a way, a play is a game. Just as in a game, it’s important to communicate to the participants (in this case, the audience) the rules of the game so they can follow it. When the rules of the game are clearly fixed, we can engage in and give ourselves over to it. Are the inherent rules of your play being communicated? Do we know when the play will be complete? When do we learn this?

A play although is not bound by time like a soccer match. You can’t tell the audience at the beginning: sit here for two hours and I swear you’ll be entertained. You have to pull them in within the first 10 minutes. So a play is more like a soccer match in overtime, when everything counts and we know what has to happen in order for it to be over. We’re not just waiting on the clock, we’re waiting on a certain action.

Early on in the Oedipus Rex, we know that there is a plague in Thebes and Oedipus vows to root up the cause. We have a clear crisis and we know that when he either succeeds or fails to do what he has set out to do, the play will be over. In Hamlet, Hamlet vows to avenge his father’s murder. We know that when Hamlet kills the murderer, that is Claudius, the crisis will be over. In Wizard of Oz, Dorothy needs to get back home. We know that the story will be over when she gets back to Kansas. We learn these things fairly early in the stories.

Having a clear crisis or void or lack in the beginning that must be filled is a way of maintaining a single, unified plot. It is also a courtesy to an audience, who were trained in narrative. They might not put it in these terms, but they are expert story followers. They won’t say, ‘You didn’t communicate clearly the crisis,' but they might say, ‘it’s boring.’ ‘I couldn’t get into it.’ ‘It didn’t seem to be going anywhere.’ ‘It was very slow.’ ‘I was confused.’

Not all plays need follow these ‘rules,’ but you should be aware that this is how we are trained to follow a story. The art of storytelling then is covering up the obvious mechanics and making it feel effortless, engaging and organic.

Lesson 5: Revision -- Applied Dramaturgy, part 3 -- Central image

2005-06-25T11:14:00.000-05:00

Sometimes a play will have a central image or metaphor that becomes the prism through which we see the world. Ibsen did this with “A Doll House” and “The Wild Duck” and Chekhov with “The Seagull” and “The Cherry Orchard” and Tennessee Williams did this with “Glass Menagerie” and on and on. These are just some plays that come to mind because they are named after the central image.

Here the play gains some of its unity by the changing relationship of the story to the image. For example, in 'A Doll House,' Nora has a literal doll house that (if memory serves) her father gave her and that she has kept into adulthood. More importantly, Nora is apparently still a 'doll' in the sense that men are controlling and have always controlled her, but over the course of the play we learn that she is breaking away and stepping out into the world alone. She is 'leaving the doll house' and slamming the door.

Sometimes, the waters can get very murky for an audience if there are too many metaphors, that is, if there are too many ideas competing for our attention.

Does your play have a central image, or does it have several? Would it benefit the play to concentrate more on one? Does one seem more sublime or, even more importantly, more central? Again, not all plays need one, but it's worth considering.

Lesson 4: Revision -- Applied Dramaturgy, part 2 -- the Statement of Action

2005-06-23T18:51:00.000-05:00

Here is another method you can use to clarify your play’s structure. We’ll call it the “statement of action.” I don’t know who first came up with it, but I learned it from Art Borreca, a professor of mine. It really originates with Aristotle and his requirements of the Drama.

With the statement of action, we craft a sentence that synopsizes the essential story and which should include the following component parts:
1. Dramatic situation
2. Action
3. Reversal / outcome

The Dramatic situation is where the play begins. It describes the crisis or inciting incident that makes the play start. The action is what the main character(s) do(es) to address the crisis. The third element is the end result of this action. Is the crisis resolved? Generally, there will be some sort of significant reversal and the outcome will not be as might have been expected.

The ‘dramatic statement’ for Oedipus Rex might go as follows:
* Confronted with plague in his land [situation], a proud king, a great savior of his people, seeks to save his land and people by finding and ridding the land of the source of the plague [action], only to discover that he himself is the source [reversal]

Here are some other examples from other plays.
* Finding themselves faced with imminent resettlement, a married couple, representing both sides of a civil conflict, struggle to stay together in the face of escalating tensions, but end up succumbing to the same divisions in their marriage that wreak such havoc in the country.
* Faced with a life of oppressive normalcy, a young artist instead follows his dreams and voice, and ends up triumphing in the face of difficulty.
* Convinced that an unjust punishment has been given to their son, the Winslow family seeks to clear the boy’s name, and end up endangering the stability of their own upper middle class livelihood.
* Diagnosed with an advanced stage of cancer, an eminent professor struggles to face her condition with the same tools she has honed for her life’s work, her wit, but ends up discovering that her wit has only been a way of hiding from death and from divine mercy.

Try this for your play. Like the premise, this can be a difficult process, because it will force you to really narrow down what story your play is telling. Partially, in writing this statement of action, you will be choosing what story you really want to tell in your play. Try to fit it all into one sentence.

Lesson 3: Revision – Applied Dramaturgy, Part 1 – The Premise

2005-06-22T21:16:00.000-05:00

The idea of the ‘premise’ is taken from “The Art of Dramatic Writing” by Lajos Egri (so please refer to that book for a more detailed discussion.)

According to Egri, a play should have a simple argument, a central idea at its heart which is the source of the play’s unity and which the writer should consciously bear in mind when writing a play. (He thinks you shouldn’t start without one. I tend to think it’s better to think about it after the 1st draft.)

An example he gives is Shakespeare’s MacBeth. The premise of MacBeth is
* Ruthless ambition leads to its own destruction.

The premise generally follows the following formula:
* “Quality A” “leads to” “State B”

The premise does not always need to be stated as such, but this formula will generally work for you and will help promote more active, unified plays. Some other examples:
* Othello: Jealousy destroys itself and the object of its love
* Oedipus Rex: Pride goes before the Fall
* Hedda Gabler: Egotism leads to self-destruction
* Wit: Hiding from Reality in Life yields a painful separation process in Death.

Notice that the first component of the premise equation – ‘the Quality’ – is the main characteristic of your central character as revealed in the play. For example, MacBeth is ruthlessly ambitious, Othello is jealous, Oedipus is proud…

Notice also that the verb in the middle is active (Leads to, yields, destroys, goes…). Beware of static verbs such as ‘is’ or ‘has.’ The reason for this is the ‘leads to’ implies action or change over the course of your play. It is only through someone acting ambitious that life for the characters takes the course it does.

Notice, finally, that the last component of the equation – ‘the State’ – is where the play ends. For example, ‘MacBeth,’ ‘Othello,’ ‘Oedipus’ and ‘Hedda Gabler’ all end in destruction. (Some plays do have happy endings, really – a play could have the following premise: Marital fidelity leads to harmony)

Try crafting a statement of your play’s premise, the thematic backbone of your work. This may take some time and thought. It may also feel like your play doesn’t fit into this mold. If so, just ask yourself if it should. Perhaps not. We don’t want cookie cutter rules for playwriting, but try it and see if it works for you. Notice that most of the examples above (and the ones Egri gives) are either tragedies or dramas. Comedies may be harder to fit into the mold.

Lesson 2: Revision -- Seeing beyond the Script to the Play

2005-06-22T19:41:00.000-05:00

Have you ever looked at old maps from the 1500s and 1600s when Europeans were first trying to figure out what the New World looked like? It’s really fascinating, because of 1) how completely off they were when it came to things like proportion and the size and shape of the interior of the Americas, and 2) how well they get other things such as the coast line and other features discernible from the sea. It makes sense, right? This was a new land, until now a completely undiscovered place. There were no satellite pictures. There’s only a coastline that they had encountered and conjecture.

In an early draft of a play, we often get some things right on – maybe some dialogue, or a critical exchange – while other things are more elusive, such as a character that doesn’t quite seem believable, or an ending that doesn’t feel right.

I like to think of the Play as being different from the Script. The play is like the terrain itself. What you are getting at with your story is really an emotional/ psychic/ spiritual region that you are discovering. It’s like a new world and the purpose of the play is for you to invite us to experience that world. The script, on the other hand, is the map that allows us to enter and to understand that world. In a way, you could say that your play never changes, while the script may change quite drastically.

Some practical advice that grows out of this distinction is this: Don’t get too attached to the words that you have on the paper. They are not the play, just as the lines that the mapmakers drew on paper were not the New World. The play is the complex of character, relationship and action. The play is the new, just-being-discovered land and it’s your duty to learn about it, and to try and faithfully represent it. Again, the purpose of revision is not to be true to your script, but to be true to the play, to the reality that you’re trying to describe. Therefore, don’t worry too much about your precious words. You may spend hours crafting little trinkets that are gonna have to be tossed anyway.

So, what our job is now is to look intelligently at the terrain we are trying to describe. Let’s determine its boundaries. Let’s give it a name. This process we’ll call dramaturgy. What will follow is some tools to gain perspective and proportion on your play.

Lesson 1: Patience with the work, a story recounted by Thoreau

2005-06-21T10:53:00.000-05:00

The work of writing plays is an art, and as such it requires time and attention. No matter how much time you've spent writing so far, no matter how pages you have, no matter how many drafts you've gone through, your work and your craft will develop on its own schedule. The following relevant tale is related by Henry David Thoreau:

“Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed…?”

“There was an artist in the city of Kouroo who was disposed to strive after perfection. One day, it came into his mind to make a staff. Having considered that in an imperfect work time is an ingredient, but into a perfect work time does not enter, he said to himself, It shall be perfect in all respects, though I should do nothing else in my life. He proceeded instantly to the forest for wood, being resolved that it should not be made of unsuitable material; and as he searched for and rejected stick after stick, his friends gradually deserted him, for they grew old in their works and died, but he grew not older by a moment. His singleness of purpose and resolution, and his elevated piety, endowed him, without his knowledge, with perennial youth. As he made no compromise with Time, Time kept out of his way, and only sighed at a distance because he could not overcome him. Before he had found a stock in all respects suitable the city of Kouroo was a hoary ruin, and he sat on one of its mounds to peel the stick. Before he had given it the proper shape the dynasty of the Candahars was at an end, and with the point of the stick he wrote the name of the last of that race in the sand, and then resumed his work. By the time he had smoothed and polished the staff Kalpa was no longer the pole-star; and ere he had put on the ferule and the head adorned with precious stones, Brahma had awoke and slumbered many times. But why do I stay to mention these things? When the finishing stroke was put to his work, it suddenly expanded before the eyes of the astonished artist into the fairest of all the creations of Brahma. He had made a new system in making a staff, a world with full and fair proportions; in which, though the old cities and dynasties had passed away, fairer and more glorious ones had taken their places. And now he saw by the heap of shavings still fresh at his feet, that, for him and his work, the former lapse of time had been an illusion, and that no more time had elapsed than is required for a single scintillation from the brain of Brahma to fall on and inflame the tinder of a mortal brain. The material was pure, and his art was pure; how could the result be other than wonderful?”

Thoreau, Walden 430-432

First words

2005-06-19T23:19:00.000-05:00

Well, I've entered the blogosphere. This is a way to begin to dialogue about plays and about the Drama Circle and its mission, and to leave a record that might be instructive to others who are interested in this same work.