weebelly.com

Theatre Games

Michael Wright in his book [amazon_link id=”1585103403″ target=”_blank” ]Playwriting in Process: Thinking and Working Theatrically[/amazon_link] begins chapter two by outlining the concept of theatre games for playwrights.

Wright outlines the approach to playwriting that he rejects:

Doctrinaire statements include saying, the conflict must begin by page 5, or that exposition has to be done in such and such a way. Nontheatrical statements are suggesting that you develop plots from outlines or work up characters from lists of traits such as hair color, politics, and choice of bath soap.

Instead, [amazon_link id=”1585103403″ target=”_blank” ] Wright[/amazon_link] advocates, per the first sentence, the use of “theatre games; activities that encourage creative and dynamic thinking, playful writing, and immersive engagement in the process of creating scenes, characters, text, dialogue, and, of course, subtext.

Wright mentions a couple of sources for the games that he advocates. The first is Viola Spolin‘s theatre games and improvisations. Wright comments that her theatre games showed him “how to work from a ‘doing approach’ finding a given scene through active discovery”rather than a detached mental process.’ The second source for [amazon_link id=”1585103403″ target=”_blank” ]Wright[/amazon_link] came from his work with Harold Clurman in the Director’s Unit, which was a subdivision of Israel Horovitz‘s Playwright’s Unit at the Actors Studio. [amazon_link id=”1557831327″ target=”_blank” ]Clurman[/amazon_link] apparently used a process whereby a group of playwrights began creating new plays all at the same time with a set number of pages to create per week and then these plays were workshopped, i.e. shared, read, critiqued, discussed, etc. This is very like the process I’ve gone through in several of my playwriting classes at CSU/NEOMFA. For several reasons, [amazon_link id=”1585103403″ target=”_blank” ]Wright[/amazon_link] and another playwright, [amazon_link id=”0435086294″ target=”_blank” ]Jeffrey Sweet[/amazon_link], left this group and created their own named the New York Writer’s Bloc. Out of this came an exercise described by Wright as the “Six Line”.

The six-line as a writing exercise is a short scene literally comprised of six lines between two characters with each character having three lines. A line can be one word or five pages and is the sum of one character’s thoughts as spoken in that one response Each week’s six-lines were based on a given topic, which was also known as ‘negotiation.’ A negotiation was defined as the matter, issue, or problem between two people who each wanted a different result and automatically led to conflict The use of an assigned negotiation helped us all because we didn’t have to think of a topic on our own

Wright asserts that writing negotiations is the “center of all theatrical writing” because it encompasses the “show don’t’ tell” writing principle (mentioned in my earlier posts) and creates characters who define meaning by both what they say and what they do that is, not only the action, but how that action is carried out. More importantly, by creating meaning in this way, the audience is forced to pay attention to all aspects of a theatrical production, not just the words that characters speakbecause the words a character speaks can be in sharp contracts with the actions that character performs: the sum of these elements adding up to a complexity and depth of meaning that is much greater than their component pieces alone.

Here is an example from Wright’s book:

#1 A Couple playing Scrabble

KAREN: There. L-O-V-E. That’s, mm, double letter. Fifteen.
HARRY: OK, and I’ll just borrow that L, and add my U, S, T. That’s triple word, forty-five!
KAREN: Fine! I’ll add my F, U, and L up here. That’s now Faithful, and that scores me thirty-six, so I’m still up by fifty.
HARRY: Yeah? Well, here’s one for you in front of your ART, I drop a P, then finish with a Y. Double-word, triple on the Y, and we’re talking seventy-eight points. Now who’s “up”?
KAREN: Yeah, we’ll see. Here, try this: in front of your ANT I’m going to add P, R, E, G, N. [A beat; she gives him a very long look.] Your move. [Beat.] Well?
HARRY: I’m thinking! [Beat.] I’m thinking.

First, going back to the quote I added to one of my earlier posts from Bob McKee’s book, Story: namely, that if the characters in your scene are talking about what they’re talking about: you’re fucked. The point being, in this case, that Karen and Harry aren’t talking about scrabble. They aren’t directly talking about what they’re talking about. It is carried behind the text, or under the text, or is to the text as the spirit is to the body: out there floating, ethereal.

Second, part of the theatricality of this scene lies a) in the fact that they are doing something physical: in time, space, etc; and b) the thing that they are doing they are doing aloud and, while they are literally spelling everything out for the audience, the audience still has to add everything up to get the meaning and what is implied by the activities of the two.

Third, the scene builds tension. The first exchange sets the pattern and the relationship; the second ups the stakes in way Karen and Harry relate within their society; the final exchange raises the ‘game’ to a whole new levelone that ‘check mates’ the other and removes the relationship from the world of college parties to the world of child-rearing, parenting, and adulthood.

Fourth, the words each speaks, the location of the exclamation points (their enthusiasm), their sense of humor, sense of irony, snideness, revelation of interests and what is important to themall of this ‘dialogue’ and ‘behavior’ reveals characterbut it is revealed only in discerning it actively, not by having it told explicitly.

Regardless, this, as [amazon_link id=”1585103403″ target=”_blank” ]Wright[/amazon_link] admits, is only an exercise, but this could easily be a way of developing a dramatic moment in a play that you are already writingthis play is about Karen and Harry and you need a way of showing the dramatic revelation of her pregnancythis certainly would be a more engaging way of doing it than find some argument or reason to logically wind them up and have Karen blurt it out to silence all things that could be said after it, etc.

In the podcast I did for Jonah’s Theatrically Speaking show I mentioned the exercise that Mike Geither distributed which led to the play that will have a reading next week at Cleveland Public Theatre. That exercise runs as follows:

Five to fifteen pages.
The speaker from the monologue you created tonight is involved in a two character scene. All of the following must occur:

One character has a secret.
A musical instrument is heard or played.
One character has a nickname.
There is a kiss.
One person sings.
For at least ten lines, they must communicate with single, one-syllable words.
A secret is revealed.
One character makes a paper airplane.
Something spills.
Something must be sold.
A history is recounted.
Someone prays.
Someone rubs his/her/its hands together.
One character touches the other’s face.
At the very end of the scene, a third character enters.

Very like poetry in meter or within a rhymed system, the act of constraining your writing and forcing yourself, technically, to do certain things sparks creativityit demands inventive solutions to rules that, in this case, you must abide or meet. But more, this approach to writing forces you to think about possibilities you never would normally consider. I, for instance, never would have a character pray. It is not because I am opposed to prayer. It is because, while I prayed throughout my childhood like a good little boy, I rarely do now. So in this regard, how does having a character pray connect me with the character? What dormant emotions, images, longings, and connections from my childhood are stirred uplike sediment on a river bottom? What does this bring to my writing? What does that bring to my characters? How does this deepen them, strengthen themand what does it do for my writing as a whole?

As [amazon_link id=”1585103403″ target=”_blank” ] Wright[/amazon_link] remarks:

“This active process allows the writer to explore the play, the characters, events prior to or following the play, and so onall in a very theatrical way because the exploration itself is through playwriting.

Follow-up

I just was reading Intermission’s site again and she has done something cool, she uses a box that “displays qualities about the character or meaningful aspects of the play,” but this time she’s used a mask. That is supercool. But beyond this, she notes that she uses a collage to think about her characters and the play and that kind of approach has to create some really original insights and develop powerful connections between characters, events, attributes, etc.

I have decided to get serious about this blog. Uh oh… I don’t know exactly what led me to this conclusion. I was sitting around Saturday night and found myself suddenly in blogger land. I was reading articles about how to configure my WordPress blog so that the category showed up and not the obscure ?=58 number thing; and how to modify the metatags in the page; how to use Feedburner to boost your hits and track who’s looking at your site; and then “top ten” or “top twenty” things to do to make your blog work–one of them being: stay focused on what your interest is, don’t be all over the place. Well, my interest in playwriting and playwrights. So, by God, that’s what I’m really going to start focusing this thing on. Not that I’ve strayed, but I have been emphasizing reviews and that sort of thing more lately than just thoughts on playwriting itself.

There are two things that have brought me “back” to my point of origin…well, maybe three. 1) Jonah Knight’s ridiculously cool offer to allow other playwrights to take up the mic and do a show on his podcast Theatrically Speaking; 2) hitting Technorati after my marathon blogger night and finding some cool playwright sites that I now feel compelled to read and connect with; and 3) again, my desire to actually create a successful blog that deals with something I feel very passionate about.

I scoped out a few playwright blogs and was pretty interested in the whole “Authority” ranking that Technorati uses; but I found out pretty quickly that the “authority” is not related in any way to the content. It clearly is more of a time and endurance rating and friend rating, as the “authority” one seems to have is directly related to when the blog was started. One that had a high authority for a ‘playwright’ and ‘poet’ wrote two paragraph long entries about tv shows, ddt, juvenile gossip bordering on slander, and long articles about his own plays (in third person). Another seemed more interested in his kids than anything else. All of which is fine, but it demonstrates the point that blogs whose subject matter becomes watered-down and slides off the point will quickly lose their power–but not authority, clearly.

One blog that I did find through Technorati that I have found very enjoyable so far is Intermission. The first entry I read was entitled Pocket Notes, and had some good moments, including the one where the in-laws stare at you as if your an idiot while you try to recover from the invitation to morning Mass and also try to hold a play idea in your head all at the same time. Who hasn’t been there? (Jews, Protestants, and Atheists pipe down.) But the point is the same and depressingly comic. I found the evaluation of the various notepads enlightening and am now deeply covetous of the Miguelrius, which I shall have to purchase. When I was carrying notepads I stuck with the cheapo .25c Memo pads with the plastic spirals at the top. They fit nicely my back pocket and were insanely cheap. Of course, they fell apart after a beer or two was spilled on them.

Then there was the opera clip from Britain Has Talent, or whatever that show is. My wife showed me this clip and I was as thunderstruck as I think anyone in that audience was. Truly amazing. So, now I’m beginning to bond (mentally) with this person. Then the links come, which include Theatrically Speaking, so we’re on the same page now. And then this whole playwriting process thing opens up:

“And so, I am writing the new play, amazed by its ferocity in spewing forth onto the page. There are elements which my Editor’s Mind balks at, trying to dictate other ideas or directions. I know my muse well enough by now, to go with where the story and the characters take me. They are usually right. My Editor’s Mind is usually wrong, wanting to go someplace familiar and safe…I always do that when I’m writing. Shove the Editor’s Mind aside, and choose the path that’s scary. You know scary, don’t you? It’s the thing in your stomach that churns when you are not in control.” ¹

And all I can help think is how beautifully put that is. There are several things that strike me about this. First, I’m dumbfounded as I just finished doing a podcast for Theatricallly Speaking and I talk about the necessity of uninhibited writing, of letting the words flow onto the page and the mad rush of it; I also speak of what is referred to above as the “Editor’s Mind” that is, the internal critic or the “internal censor,” but the description above is a bit more precise and I know exactly what is being referred to. This is the problem of my most recent play, loosely titled A Howl in the Woods–the one that’s getting the reading at CPT in Little Box. Two times after extensive re-writing I have hung an ending on the play. The first time I knew it and asked aloud, when do you stop writing and start directing something toward a goal? And when are you pushing something too much and need to stop? I had no real answer, and this time the director called me on it. He was like, “I really like the play, there was so much that was unexpected and there were new ideas coming out at every turn, and the transformations of the characters (they go through many) were great, etc., and then there’s the ending…” I said “Sorry to disappoint you.” And he shrugged and then admitted, “you did, a little bit.” And why did that happen? Because I stopped listening to my unconscious mind and caved to my conscious mind, my “Editor’s Mind” the one that said to my inner voice “I know where this is going better than you do, so step aside.” Well, it doesn’t know better. And I need to learn the valuable lesson described in the Intermission blog entry: to listen to my muse; to go where I don’t feel safe and smug; to “choose the path that’s scary.”

Thanks for the good advice.