It's not the size of your play

I had a generally good experience reading these four plays. I am a huge fan of sketch comedy, which is basically a series of very poorly written short plays. This makes legitimate short plays a real treat because they are usually pretty well written. Of the four plays, I liked each of them for different reason (except for A Bowl of Soup which I didn’t like and thought was a crock of something else). The plays were generally good representations of the writing tenants that we have been learning about in class.

I really liked The Man Who Couldn’t Dance because it gave us little bits of the plot at a time. It started out with an odd and strained relationship that gradually opened up to become a huge and romantic picture. The characters were immediately likeable, and there was no point that I didn’t believe their words. Oddly enough, I performed the “I can’t dance” monologue for a class, but I can’t remember for what class and when. I don’t think it was at U.P.S., but as I was reading the play I knew something was familiar and when I came across the monologue I was really enthused to read it. The Man Who Couldn’t Dance also had a good build and plot that was interesting and fairly easy to follow. Like we have been learning, each line of dialogue both furthered the plot and increased the characterization rather than taking two lines to do the same thing. I really liked Gail’s line near the end of the play, “I remember thinking how strange it was to be in this wedding gown. On my wedding day. Dancing with you. And you weren’t my groom.” This line gives a lot away without doing anything too overtly. In all a little sappy, but a nice short play.

The Roads That Lead Here was definitely my favorite, and I have the least to say about it. I guess this play was a concept that I found immediately very interesting. I thought the brotherly relationship was well done, and I liked the quasi-absurdist nature of the play. I found myself very easily picturing all the characters and the action.

That Midnight Rodeo was a good piece along similar lines as the dancing play. This was a very strong character play, and once the relationship and situation was established, the play just rolled itself out. I was happy with the play because it wasn’t obvious at any point. Every line was realistic, and I found myself taking a side I don’t normally take on children. It was nice not being force-fed the plot, and even though it took a long time for me to catch on to what was happening, I would prefer to not know rather than to know and be disappointed by it.

I was not a fan of the Bowl Of Soup play. I read it as something of a monologue play, and always found myself losing interest. I kept thinking that perhaps Eddie might have killed Rob, or some other plot twist, but there wasn’t really any of that. Even the part about AIDS sounded forced without any other characters to help it out. I guess soup seemed like a monologue masquerading as a play, and I wasn’t really buying it. This could stem from my liking realistic dialogue, and monologues almost always sounding forced.

I think the thing I am taking away from these readings is the slow and gradual reveal of the plot. The plays that did a great job of this were That Midnight Rodeo and The Man Who Couldn’t Dance. If the plot comes out all at once, it is almost certainly because it is forced out. I think making strong characters allows them to fend for themselves for a while before the audience catches up with the plot, and once they do they will appreciate the characters all the more. Maybe there is something inherent in really good characters that audiences recognize immediately and understand. Perhaps writing a character as compelling and realistically as you can will allow the audience time to fully comprehend what they are seeing regardless of how slow you let the plot out.

The things that I liked about fences were the characters. I liked the fact that they seemed so real. I often find myself wondering if a character I am writing for would really say any of the things I am forcing him or her to say. August Wilson did a good job of writing legitimately for his figures because I didn’t get the sense that any of the characters would have felt wronged in Fences. Even through their aging, the characters maintained what made them unique. Unlike Eurydice, almost every line of dialogue seemed wholly realistic, yet the characters continued to be somewhat interesting for the entire play.

In a play like Fences, the characters are the only things capable of driving the plot. There weren’t a large amount of deadlines or impending circumstances or devices that would push the plot in a new direction, so the characters had to do it themselves. I guess this was another example of a play whose work was done after a serious evaluation of the character list. I am not sure how I think about that style because I have always been a fan of a journey or the introduction of a new and strange character, but this play is a realistic and everyday kind of play. It is useful to think about plays that don’t have constant action because they help to develop your ability to write dialogue that propels a story rather than plot points.

Fences has an interesting structure. The best way I can think to describe it is as a set of yearbooks stacked together. We get to see a few interactions and characters before we have to look at the next yearbook. This structure fits the characters really well, but I wonder how hard it is to write such a play. As soon as Wilson finished discussing whatever he wanted the characters to say he would just move onto a new yearbook and leave the audience wondering.

The thing I am left wondering after reading this play is how does one go about creating the characters that will essentially dictate the plot of your story. Do you begin with a vague idea of plot and then go? Did Wilson start with Troy, then create Rose, then Lyons and Cory, and then added in an affair, then Bono for support, then Gabe to spice things up? I would like to learn how to do create a character string that can completely support a story before the story is written.

I'm Rydice? I'M RYDICE? EURYDICE! THATS WHO'S RYDICE.

Honestly the first thing I thought when I finished Eurydice was that I need to write in more parts for rocks in my plays. I think this play did a really great job with incorporating odd and unique characters, and making them seem completely regular by the end of the play. Thinking back, I would have to say that the strength of Eurydice came almost completely from the characters. They could have said very different things than the script called for, but I still would have enjoyed it because the combination of characters employed in the play was somehow very interesting. I would like to go through them quickly:

Orpheus and Eurydice: From the very start I was in love with them. The setting played perfectly into the idea of two true-lovers going for a dip in the pond, and all their talk about music and promising made the scene really work for me. Eurydice spoke almost exclusively in questions, making her really seem like depended on Orpheus. Their banter and movement really sold them in the first scene, and even though they didn't really have more interaction until she dies again, we know clearly that these characters are in love.
Man: Right away we hate the man. He is unnamed and horrible. In one question, "Are you a homeless person," we know what this man is all about. He perfectly plays up the 'tough-guy' role, and I can't help but detest him.
Father: He is a nice touch. The father's role turns this play into far more of a tragedy than it already is. His love of his daughter is so clear through his careful writings and teachings, and when he dips himself in the river we can't help but be reminded of Romeo poisoning himself when he believes Juliet to have died.
The Stones: With the stones, Eurydice starts to get more bewildering but simultaneously more intriguing. I immediately thought of how the costumes were going to look, but after a few lines it didn't matter. These stones were such unique characters that somehow genuinely told the rock's tale. I was put off at first at the blatant supernaturality of the stones, but once the dialogue got going they materialized so powerfully that they just became natural characters.
Grandmother: She had an interesting role, kind of like Lucky in Godot. I wasn't too impressed with this character, but it tied in the musical theme, so I guess it can stay.
Child: This was another character that became more an more real the more I read. What a fantastic idea though, right? The Child is the lord of the undeworld, I mean. This slight change is unique, compelling, and changes hugely the dynamic between the characters. The child comes onto Eurydice and we feel dirty to even think about it. Like a child with too-small clothes, this character seems to be ironically stuck in limbo between manhood and childhood, and that simple character choice molded a great deal of his dialogue.
Old Woman: This was a strange choice that brought the myth into modernity even more than the 1950s swim suits.

If I learn nothing else from Eurydice, it should be about choosing characters wisely. Eurydice did, and the play was practically written once the character list was. By choosing characters that will inherently attack each others weaknesses, the play has a constant source of tension. For instance, homosexuality paired with heterosexuality creates an instant and prolonged conflict. Different viewpoints on races or having a disease, anything that permanently affects the way a person addresses the world, can be utilized by another character to drive dialogue.

A reading from the Book of Dialogue, chapter 1

In reading the dialogues, I noticed that most of them were good examples of something that I find very difficult: writing characters that listen to each other and react naturally. The best example of this was in the Closer dialogue. The two couples were splitting up, but it wasn’t under jovial conditions. Larry and Anna had a very compelling dialogue to finish the pages, and each question brought on more and more anger to Larry. He kept delving deeper and deeper into the sexual exploits of Anna and Dan, and every fact made him want to ask more. A natural progression within the dialogue that leads to heavy emotional responses is a difficult thing to create, but closer did it very well.

The Death of a Salesman dialogue had a similar quality, but highlighted some different facets of dialogue that smack of realism. The status of a character dictates his words and actions in a scene. Willy had to keep himself in check throughout the interview, while Howard seemed fairly bored and apathetic. The words in the scene reflected exactly the statuses of the characters. The use of status permitted the scene to take on an additional element of realism, and allowed the readers to invest themselves in the dialogue. I have seen scenes before that called for one of the employees to berate their boss, which typically doesn’t happen. The scene made me feel more uncomfortable than interested because status wasn’t being respected.

In dialogue, I have noticed a slice of fantasy. Not supernaturality, but fantasy in the wording. When I was first getting into plays I absolutely hated Neil Simon and Tennessee Williams because I kept saying to myself “nobody would say that!” when the characters would act. I am just now realizing that plays and playwriting aren’t trying to show us the real world. If we wanted that we could go to a coffee shop or an office building. Plays are trying to show us something else. It may be human in all respects, but the world we are seeing is not our world. For this reason, Neil Simon’s characters can say anything they feel like saying because they are in their own world – a world in which my day to day interactions would seem as foreign as theirs do to me. It then struck me that in plays, the characters are allowed to do things that I would like to do, but can’t because I am bound by the laws of this world. In Closer, Larry asked Anna a series of questions that, although I would secretly and masochistically want to know, I would never have the guts to ask. In that way, dialogue allows the audience an outlet for their own desires and passions. It acts in a “well if I can’t, at least somebody can,” kind of way. Shakespearean dialogue may be so enticing to the reader because it is so beautiful and untouchable. Even if someone practiced their whole life, they probably wouldn’t be able to converse in Shakespearean English like the characters in the plays can. Watching dialogue is a way for the audience to live out their fantasy of being like the characters on stage, if only for a moment.

The dialogue samples we read also maintained their subjects very well. When I am trying to write dialogue I find I can never keep character, subject, and relative realism consistent – one thing always drops off. The dialogue we read seemed to do a good job of maintaining a balance amongst the three. If I was asked, I think I could describe in a few words the subject of the dialogue. The same can not be said for all dialogue, and a departure from either character, subject, or realism is typically difficult for me to become invested in.

Monologue reading and ill-gotten thoughts

I thought that the one aspect that differentiated a good monologue from a bad one was heart. Characters interest me the most when they are speaking from experience and truth, a quality which many of The Vagina Monologues and The Laramie Project’s characters seemed to have. I particularly like a monologue that seems like someone is telling me a secret – something that they are dying to tell someone, and the monologue that they are giving is their only outlet. The Vagina Monologues especially were begging to be heard. The words were forcing themselves out of the characters, and that necessity drew me inexplicably to the speeches. There is often a fine line between a character with heart and a grandiose monologue, and it may come from characterization. It is easy to hear the difference in real life. If the speaker is nervous that people won’t think they are genuine or smart, the result is often a pompous speech that has lost much of its meaning. I didn’t feel that this happened in the Vagina Monologues, or very often in The Laramie Project or Sonnets for an Old Century.

Some of the speeches in the Laramie Project didn’t have the heart that the Vagina Monologues did because the speakers had to maintain continuity with the story and had to direct their feelings toward an interviewer. This makes me think that whenever possible, a monologue should be about the most emotionally important thing to that character. The Vagina Monologues and the Laramie Project naturally create that connection through a strong emotional bond with their subject matter.

The monologues in the reading all gave me the “oh, that’s why” feeling once I finished them. The beauty of a monologue is the internal story arc that is opened, explored, and closed almost immediately. When a speaker is talking it becomes a game to figure out what they are talking about. All of a sudden and without warning the speaker reveals fact after fact, breathing life and explanation into an enigma Before I have had the time to decide how I feel about the character, the monologue is over and I am left feeling like a part of me has been removed. Most of the monologues I read followed that pattern or a similar one.

I don’t like Neil Simon plays because the characters seem contrived. Their words are so perfect and balanced that they rub me the wrong way. I didn’t connect to Sonnets for an Old Century as much as I did the other readings for the same reason. People don’t often repeat the beginning of a phrase and vary the end over and over again. It sounds nice, but ultimately means almost nothing. Stories aren’t usually linear in someone head, so when the linearity was pristine it made me gag a little. People are imperfect. They stumble over words or say things out of order. Confusion is a reality. I like to struggle because it makes me feel like I have a real connection with a character. If the meaning, story line, and metaphors are packaged up with an instruction manual, chances are I'm not going to enjoy it.

I like monologues because of the self-exploration. In the audience I am a spy looking into someone’s life. They are pouring personal secrets onto the stage and I am lapping them up one after another. I am on a stakeout in their bedroom and I am privy to all of their imperfections, insecurities, and self blame. I am saying nothing about myself to reciprocate. Hearing something truthful and deeply, personally emotional is my goal as a listener, and I feel cheated when the speaker uses this time as a soapbox to show how smart and passionate they are. A good rule of thumb for me is that if the character wouldn't dare say their monologue in polite company or on a first date, it is probably a decent monologue. Safety and security must be shed to make way for heart.

WILLIAMS OUT

Gettin' stoked

Oh, I'm totally stoked. Dangerously stoked. Hey, somebody watch out for this guy.