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Dreams are always a great source of material for me. I often have very vivid, very strange dreams. This dream is not so strange as others I’ve had, but it does work well with a play idea I’ve been kicking around.

In my dream the houses in my neighborhood were compressed, such that it was like we were living in brownstone apartments or tenements or something that were pressed side-by-side against one another. There were two neighbors on either side of us but somehow they represented the whole of society, and yet remained as they are now: identifiable to me personally: M & L, and P & A.

Each house/apartment had a main front window that overlooked the street, with an entrance to the side. If you’re facing the apartments, standing in the street, the large window, which I will only now describe as being a display window, for the two neighbors was on the left side, with an entrance on the right; while the display window for our apartment was on the right with a side entrance on the left.

Now, there was some set of objects that were very particularly set up in each of the neighbor’s windows that are somewhat hard to describe. They seemed Asian in character and design, and yet, we all are not of Asian origin or descent. If the object I’m going to describe can be imagined as one object it would look thus: at center is a tall bamboo scroll with some scenery painted on it: perhaps it is three to five feet in height; on the sides–well, the thing may have been framed; to the right and left of the scroll was something. I cannot for the life of me remember what, now, though. I am, at this moment, inclined to say that the bamboo scroll was to the front of a table, and on either side of the scroll (and table) were tall-backed chairs as if the dining room of each apartment had been set up in the store-front windows. But part of me says that it was not a table and chairs, but something less social and more decorative. The whole of the ‘display’ was brightly lit and made to covetous design. And that is precisely the point, for you see, we did not have one. Our store front was bare, or at least, wanting.

This is where I have tied in my other idea of the Expressionist play regarding an emerald dress: now I think it will be a vase. And the vase will be what is desired. As if the vase will save the world for the wife in this play. The husband of course, isn’t so sure. If only they could get that vase and put it in the window–clearly this would be a play that highlights the lack of communication or social depth of the husband and wife.

I’ll have to review Expressionism: Ionesco, Kokoschka…

The Mystery Play

Continuing my consideration of Michael Wright’s book, [amazon_link id=”1585103403″ target=”_blank” ]Playwriting in Process: Thinking and Working Theatrically[/amazon_link]:

Wright writes,

“I try to encourage my students to think of watching a play as being involved in a mystery no matter what the style or subject matter of the play may be. The audience is there to figure out what’s going to happen (in conventional theatre)the concepts ‘suggest rather than spell out’ and ‘show, don’t tell’ are about giving the audience the chance to try to figure things out for themselves, of sustaining its agreement by actively engaging its imagination.”

What’s Most Important

Wright goes on next to talk about what he considers the two most important components of plays: dialogue and behavior.

[amazon_link id=”1585103403″ target=”_blank” ]Wright[/amazon_link] discusses the complexity of dialogue: namely, it goes beyond what is said and how: the richness, symbolic nature, imagistic expression, etc. It includes also what is not said, or left unsaid. It include subtext. [amazon_link id=”0060391685″ target=”_blank” ]Bob McKee[/amazon_link] in his book [amazon_link id=”0060391685″ target=”_blank” ]Story[/amazon_link] states that it is commonly held in screenwriting that if your characters are talking about what they’re talking about, you’re fucked. That is to say, what characters are talking about hides or masks their motivations. This fact is one of the big flaws in my play The Empiric. There are too many times when people are saying out loud what people don’t say out loud: people hide stuff. There is much that people would rather die than say aloud. How do you show what pains a person, without having that person state it? That is subtext. That is mastery of dialogue and behavior. That is theatricality.

As examples, Wright uses “I’m fine.” Think of your encounters with people in the morning at work.

Me: “Hi, Bob, how are you today?”
Bob: (Smiles) “I’m fine.”

Me: “Hi, Bob, how are you today?”
Bob: (Scowls) “I’m fine.”

Subtext is in behavior. With regards to behavior, is your character flighty? Is she clumsy? Is she hysterical? How do any of these behaviors play out in a scene? What do they reveal about the character–without that character ever saying a word?

So give your audience something to see and figure out–let them discern what a character is about based on what that character does and let them judge if what she says jibes with what she does.

Plays are meant to be seen. You need an audience.

As Wright states,

“a play is a human event that is being observed by other humans–it is witnessed”

[amazon_link id=”1585103403″ target=”_blank” ] Wright[/amazon_link] speaks of the “witnessed present,” that any play we watch happens right now, in the present. It doesn’t matter if the play was written 500 years ago, or 20 years ago, when we, as an audience, watch it, it takes place in the present: right before our eyes.

Wright notes that,

“it’s our present at the same instant, because the problems of the characters reflect our own lives. We may not have the literal dilemmas that Oedipus struggles with but we all have to deal with issues of morality and personal integrity”

Next, Wright points out that thinking theatrically is “rooted in an awareness of the existence of the other”–that is, the play is being performed by real people right in front of you–they are aware of you, and you are certainly aware of them. This reciprocality of awareness make the event itself more real.

[amazon_link id=”1585103403″ target=”_blank” ] Wright[/amazon_link] comments that we all like to watch others. That it’s a natural human tendency which goes a long way toward explaining the ascendency of “reality” television. He writes,

“we know without hearing a word that the couple over there is arguing, or the man sitting to our left is really nervous. We read these things in the behavior of the people, but we also feel these things because we are in the same environment. When we’re in a theatre, we are focused by a successful show by the same kind of immediacy one experiences [in life]. There is no filter between you and what’s acting on your sensory receptors: we listen, watch, and feel the human struggles on the stage directly.”

4 Points on Theatricallity

For Wright, thinking theatrically means writing with all of these elements in mind:

1. to write dialogue that is crafting language: both text and subtext and delving into the inner feelings of characters;
2. creating revealing behavior that allows us to “witness the struggle with those feelings;”
3. Using the stage space in the most imaginative ways possible to engage the audience “emotionally, intellectually, and viscerally.”
4. Crucially, expressing your imaginative impulses–that is, as I said in my podcast regarding “censoring” and Intermission has said about the “editor’s mind”; follow your instincts and don’t squash what rises up from your unconscious.

At the end, [amazon_link id=”1585103403″ target=”_blank” ]Wright[/amazon_link] asks,

“The question that plagues all playwrights is how do we craft stories and people who are truly theatrical? How can we use the real potential of the space we call a stage?”

This is the challenge of Thinking Theatrically.