The Art and Craft of Playwriting

by Jeffery Hatcher

  The best authors of the most successful dramas of the last two thousand years have understood that the cornerstone of dramatic engagement is suspense.

  SUSPENSE AND PLAUSIBILITY

  What is suspense? Look at the word. It's close to the verb “suspend.” In architectural terms—and echoing Martin Esslin—one might think of a “suspension bridge”—the taut emotional/intellectual cable on which an audience member is suspended; it could be shown on a graph as a line of interest between a point of departure and a point of arrival. Think of these points as information. Consider these examples:

  1. If an audience knows there is a disguised killer hiding in the drawing room, they are suspended between that information on this line of questions:

  • Who is the killer?

  • Will he kill again?

  • Will he be caught? In time?

  At the end of this line of questions are the answers:

  • John Doe is the killer.

  • No, he won't kill again.

  • Because he is caught before he strikes again.

  2. If an audience knows that the married Bob and the married Betty are having an affair, they are suspended between that information on this line of questions:

  • Will they be found out?

  • Will the affair end?

  At the end of this line of questions are the answers:

  • Yes, their spouses discover the affair.

  • No, their affair continues.

  What is vital here is that the questions posed are worthy of the audience's time and attention. To insure audience engagement, keep the following rules in mind:

  All your characters must compel the audience's attention. After all, what kind of audience members would go to the theater to watch a play about people less interesting than themselves?

  All your dramatic questions must have high stakes. They must connect to an audience's concerns, be they intellectual, emotional or spiritual. After all, why would audience members care about a dramatic question they wouldn't care about in real life? The unraveling of the mystery must matter to the audience. In some cases, the audience must even root for an answer or an outcome.

  The answer to a dramatic question—for the audience and the play's characters—is a goal. And characters in plays must pursue their goals.

  Let's look at Hamlet again.

  Hamlet is the main character. The major dramatic question of the play is this: Will Hamlet prove Claudius' guilt and avenge his father's death? The next most important questions are these: How will Hamlet prove this? And what precisely will he do when he does prove it? How will he overcome the obstacles Claudius puts in his way? Every time Hamlet acts to find the truth and solve the mystery, he comes into conflict with the other characters in the play. Their actions are designed to stop Hamlet from discovering the truth. His search for answers leads to conflict. And a conflict is the key human obstacle a character encounters as he acts to achieve his goal. The conflicts must also work hand-in-hand with the mysteries, or questions. Without conflict and obstacles, the answers to the questions will come too easily, the goals will be achieved too speedily, and the play will end too soon.

  One should note that “Detective Hamlet” answers the question of Claudius' guilt two-thirds of the way into the script. For the remainder of the play, the questions are: Will Hamlet avenge the murder? When? How? Who will try to stop him? What obstacles are in his way? In drama, the best obstacles are always those presented by other characters. If the stakes are high (the throne of Denmark), characters may be capable of doing anything to protect their secrets, their power, their wealth, their loved ones. And so, the detective (Hamlet) will come into conflict with the criminals (Claudius and his assistants). How should Hamlet proceed? What is the best, most entertaining and engaging way for Shakespeare to have his prince go after truth and vengeance?

  First, let's try some actions Shakespeare did not have Hamlet perform:

  1. Hamlet confronts Claudius about his suspicions immediately. Claudius denies his crime. Hamlet believes him. End of play.

  2. Hamlet confronts Claudius immediately. Claudius admits to the killing and goes to prison. End of play.

  3. Hamlet confronts Claudius immediately. Claudius kills Hamlet. End of play.

  All of these variations are plausible. Shakespeare could have written his play this way. But what's the problem here? None of these optional actions are very interesting. They display little extended conflict. They suggest no more than one or two actions at best. They display Hamlet as a bumbling inquisitor, not a crafty investigator. They display his enemies as fools or brutes, not sly manipulators. A Hamlet populated by such characters would not be very engaging. They wouldn't fill an entire evening in the theater. Again, these alternative Hamlet plots are plausible, but—and this is a good rule to remember—What is plausible is not always dramatic or interesting.

  Shakespeare planned a play that would extend the conflict, extend the dramatic questions, and extend the actions over the running time he needed—at that time in the Elizabethan theater, five hours. Shakespeare designed and built a suspension bridge. Shakespeare designed Hamlet as a man who would plot a strategy to catch the king. Hamlet is too intelligent to think the crafty Claudius will confess when confronted. So Hamlet uses the coincidence of the arrival of the players to lay a trap for the king. This plot takes time to detail in the play. The audience is often kept in the dark about Hamlet's plans, creating more suspense. The audience wonders if Claudius' spies will unearth Hamlet's plans. The audience wonders if Hamlet's plan will work. The audience wonders what the king will do when he sees the players' performance. One main question, many smaller questions. All of them important.

  The film director Alfred Hitchcock, known as “The Master of Suspense,” once described suspense as “the addition of information.” Hitchcock explained that if you show a group of men eating lunch at a table under a clock, and suddenly a bomb blows them to pieces, that's a surprise. Surprise is good, but its shock lasts just moments in the minds of the audience. If, however, in an earlier scene, you had added the information that someone planted a bomb under the table and set it to go off in three minutes, then when the men come in and start to eat, you've purchased at least three minutes of suspense. If you add the information that one of the men is a new father, you've raised the sympathetic stakes. If you add a scene where one of the men drops his fork, thus necessitating his looking under the table where the bomb is planted, you've created more suspense, more pressure, more hope and more drama.

  Suspense—often misunderstood—means knowing more, not less about a situation. But the crafty playwright always holds back the most vital information and the final, most important answers until the very last moment.

  DRAMA VS. THEATER

  At the beginning of this chapter, we noted that while drama and theater are inexorably linked, they are not interchangeable.

  Let's look at the definition of the word theater. It's derived from the Greek word theatron—a “place for seeing.” Literally, then, the word refers to the “place,” the structure for the performance. The entire building, or the stage itself. But theater is not simply a place. Theater is more than a setting for “seeing.” To focus exclusively on theater as either a place or a vantage point for viewing would be to leave out the larger definition the term has taken on over the course of its history.

  Theater is pretending, make-believe, dress-up games. Theater is “play.” Theater makers and audiences have always understood the vital part make-believe plays in our lives and our societies. Every child understands the need to pretend. As children and later as adults, we learn through our pretending. We understand the roles of society, the minds of our fellow human beings, and our own hearts by trying on the costumes of others.

  In its largest sense, theater is the human arena for our understanding of the human condition. It reveals human truth by showing that truth onstage. For over two thousand years, theater has thrown a powerful spotlight on th
e actions, shapes, sounds and meaning of existence. In theater, audiences gather to witness thoughts and emotions, shapes and sounds.

  For our purposes, let us define theater in this way: (1) A place for seeing; (2) the stage itself, or auditorium; (3) the building in which a theater is found; (4) a theatrical company; and (5) the sensory appreciation of live performance.

  This last definition, having to do with the senses, may be the most important for us to remember.

  Is theater only found in the Theater? No. Theater can be found in real life. At a political convention. At a wedding. In a courtroom, at a party, at a riot or at a funeral. Places and events that bring people together in a performance ritual; events that, through their re-enactments, lend understanding to our lives. Events that include role-playing. Events that repeat themselves and gain meaning by repetition. In the theater, we gather to observe and involve ourselves in a ritual that is both completely familiar and completely new.

  Theater takes place in that space—the mind, the senses, the imagination—between the stage and the audience. Theater is flair. Theater is life with quotes around it. Theater is a collective conspiracy on the part of the players and the audience. The audience “suspends its disbelief.” For the duration of the performance, the audience will believe that Peter Pan can fly; that the events of an entire day can be depicted in two hours; mat a male wearing a dress is actually a woman; and that two men holding sticks in front of their faces are actually prisoners behind bars.

  Theater is a place where—because it's live, taking place right in front of the audience—we know anything can happen. Theater takes place in the present tense—characters performing actions now; good theater is not about what has happened or what will happen, but what is happening. If drama involves an audience with characters, stories and ideas, then theater is a “show” to dazzle that audience. Drama is the steak; theater is the sizzle.

  The first time prehistoric man put an ostrich feather in his hair and danced around in front of his friends, that was theater. The first time he asked a friend to help him show how he battled an ostrich in conflict, how he finally defeated his foe and reached his goal, that was drama. In time, these performances became necessary to their audiences. They celebrated their society, explained their people, depicted adventures and explored ideas. These performances honored their gods and celebrated their harvests. Eventually, they required organization, planning and rehearsal.

  When you're writing a play, you must keep both a sense of the theatrical and a sense of the dramatic. But with which should a playwright begin? Drama or theater? The initial impulse for a play can come from either, but for a play to succeed, that impulse must be firmly grounded.

  Plays are about people.

  Start with Character.

  We'll return to character in the next chapter, as part of the six elements of Aristotle. For now, consider the subjects discussed in this chapter and work on the following exercises.

  EXERCISES

  1. Make a list of dramatic actions, actions you've witnessed or experienced from real life. Actions such as a fistfight or a marriage proposal or a business maneuver. Then develop your list by answering the following questions: Who performed the actions? What did the actions tell you about the person who performed them? Were the actions part of a larger context, a larger situation? What did the actions tell you about that situation? About the world? What ideas about people, life and the world strike you when you contemplate the meanings of these actions? Write down your answers to these questions next to the corresponding dramatic action.

  2. Select one of the actions from above. Write it down. What earlier action could have precipitated this action? What reaction could follow it? You're not writing a play here, but you are identifying actions that have the potential for dramatic action linkage.

  3. Recall an incident from your past, one that had a profound effect on you, changing the course of your life. Write the story of this incident in “Once upon a time” fashion, like a fairy tale. Write it down in a few sentences or paragraphs. When you've finished, identify the actions that took place in the story. What actions caused these actions and in turn caused others? How did you use actions to tell the story of this incident? Did you tell the story in linear sequence, or was there a reason to tell some parts of the story out of sequence? What role, if any, did chance, coincidence, accident, fate, the weather or dumb luck play in the story?

  4. Find a story in the news—a story still ongoing (an election campaign, a war, a murder trial, a custody battle, a fight between the president and Congress). What are the conflicts, large and small, inherent to the story? What dramatic questions surround the story? What is at stake for the “actors” in the drama (politicians, defendants, parents, children, people)? What are all the possible outcomes to the conflicts? What will the struggles and their outcomes tell you about the people involved and our world in general once the conflict is concluded? Write down your answers. Make the thoughts concrete.

  5. Choose a theatrical event from real life—a ritual activity well-known to you, such as a wedding, a funeral, a court case, etc. What do you define as theatrical about the event? What do you learn from people and society when you partake in or witness that event? What actions occur every time one of these events takes place? And what parts of the event lend themselves to a specific dramatic, theatrical experience onstage? Answer each of these questions in a few sentences.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Six Elements of Aristotle

  Aristotle's theory of drama, his Poetics, was written over two thousand years ago. Aristotle was writing primarily about classical Greek tragedy in the fifth century B.C., but his blueprint for a play is as useful now as it was then. Most successful plays still follow Aristotle's dictates and include his six elements. Keep them in mind as you write your play. The six elements are translated variously from the Greek as

  action or plot

  character

  thought or ideas

  language, diction or verbal expression

  music or song

  spectacle, image or visual adornment

  For our purposes we will choose the following definitions but alter Aristotle's order:

  character

  action

  ideas

  language

  music

  spectacle

  Most playwrights today believe in the primacy of character. Aristotle did not. He believed plot, or action, was the most important aspect of the play. In one large sense, he was right. When viewed from the perspective of the audience, the plot is the most important aspect. When an audience recalls a play, what stays in the mind more than anything else is what happened—and that's the plot, the action. The audience perspective is absolutely vital to keep in mind, but the composition of a script by a playwright does not necessarily follow the same order as in its viewing and appreciation by an audience. An audience may remember the actions first, but the playwright must start with character.

  CHARACTER

  Remember one of our simple rules from the previous chapter: All your characters must compel the audience's attention. While it's been said that audiences often go to the theater to see reflections of themselves, they don't go to see duller reflections of themselves.

  A compelling character can be a king or a carpenter, a monster or a marriage broker. The title the character wears doesn't matter. Interest is engendered by what a character does. The most interesting character in your play is the person with the greatest needs, the biggest problems, and the greatest potential for action. She may be seductive, funny or flawed. He may be courageous, cruel or kind. The first test is yourself: Does your character interest you? They have to fascinate you. So an initial question you should ask yourself is, What kind of people fascinate you in real life?

  What Makes a Character Compelling?

  Your aim is to create characters an audience wants to spend time with. Your aim is to create heroes, villains, and every complicated variation of
human nature in between—people your audience will want to join on a journey, root for, gasp at, pity and boo. Passive characters are never interesting. Playwright Marsha Norman, in her interview at the end of this book, says mat the most interesting characters are those who “take control of their own lives.” In most plays, that control is hard-won. It is the result of struggle.

  Most characters who compel our attention and interest are sympathetic. But an audience isn't fascinated only by good-guy heroes. Other great characters found in the history of drama include “The Villain” (Claudius in Hamlet; Roy Cohn in Tony Kushner's Angels in America); “The Love Interest” (a girl if it's Juliet or Ophelia; a boy if it's Romeo or The Glass Menagerie's Gentleman Caller); “The Friend of the Hero” (Horatio in Hamlet); “The Catalytic Character” who comes into the plot at a key moment to act as a springboard for a new development or action (Polonius, whom Hamlet accidentally murders, in Hamlet; the sickly Horace Giddens on whose heart condition so many financial futures depend in The Little Foxes); “The Comic Relief” (the porter in Macbeth); “The Messenger” (every Greek play ever written); “The Surprise, or Deus Ex Machina” (the disguised witness in Agatha Christie's Witness for the Prosecution; “The God Who Saves the Day at the Last Minute in a Greek Tragedy”); and scores of minor characters.

  What is the key relationship between the audience and a character? Identification. Audiences want characters who will take them on a journey both foreign and familiar. Characters in situations the audience recognizes—births, courtships, marriages, affairs, divorces, illnesses, battles, professional struggles, deaths, financial and family crises. Characters who act out and personify the hopes, dreams and ambitions of the audience. Characters who are the audience's agents in the fictional world of the stage, acting out our desire for romance, for revenge, for retribution, for control.