The Art and Craft of Playwriting

by Jeffery Hatcher

  • A good antagonist is oneself—Hamlet's inability to kill Claudius when the villainous king is praying; Hedda Gabler's fear of scandal; Shelly Levene's foolish braggadocio that destroys him at the conclusion of David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross.

  Use all these potential antagonists. But the best antagonist is always another character. Why? The heat generated by the conflict between human beings can't be matched by the heat generated by a person and an object, a person and nature, a person and an abstract concept. Recall from your own experience the battles you've fought with friends, family, rivals. Now recall battles you've fought with broken-down cars, snow and contradictory philosophical theories. There's no contest.

  A writing exercise I use to teach this point involves a conflict between two characters in a locked room. The two characters must do battle over an object that is of value to one or both of the characters. The object might be valuable in and of itself (a sack of money, a diamond ring, a famous painting); it might be valuable for its information (an incriminating letter, a secret report, a tape recording); it might be valuable for personal or sentimental reasons (a photograph, a diary, a souvenir). Each character must act to win possession of the object.

  In a recent class, I encountered three versions of this scene. In the first, a young woman and an old man battled over a painting hidden inside the bedroom wall of the old man's house. In the second, a spurned lover and his landlord argued over a love letter. In the third, two women fought over an article one of them wanted to have published in a newspaper. In each case, the exposition was handled deftly; the characters were drawn in strong, clear strokes; the revelation of the object was organic and natural; and the conflict was joined early. But each writer fell into a similar trap. Once the conflict was joined (“I need to get that painting”; “Let me see that letter”; “You can't publish that article”), the character who most wanted the object gave it up to the other—usually after saying as little as, “I don't really want to give it up, but … oh, all right!” Just when the scene threatened to get interesting.

  The first question I ask these writers is: “When did you feel the air go out of the scene?” In other words, when did the dramatic tension slacken? It slackened rather quickly. The next question I ask is: If you were the character, and you wanted that painting, that letter, that article, would you give in so early and so easily? Wouldn't you use every strategy at your disposal? Wouldn't you lie, steal, commit murder if need be? Often the writers respond to this question in the following manner: “Well, it's just a painting/letter/article.”

  “Just” is the one word you must never use when referring to your writing and your characters. “Just” is a small word. A weak word. A shrug. It means you have no confidence in the magnitude of your object and its value. It means you have a half-hearted approach to your characters. There is no “just” in Hamlet. In a “just” play, characters achieve their goals easily, or they shrug them off. In Just Hamlet, Hamlet doesn't bother with the ghost's order for revenge. He goes back to school at Wittenburg and becomes a classics major.

  This is what dull, lazy, weak, unimaginative protagonists do. Dull, lazy, weak, unimaginative characters cannot propel action forward, cannot pursue their goals against obstacles, and cannot carry the ball down the field. And they certainly can't make an audience want to come along for the ride.

  Protagonists and antagonists alike, your characters are stand-ins for yourself and your audience. Remember: We go to the theater to be entertained and to understand our world. What better guide to this world than characters who make us want to join them? It doesn't take a genius to tell the difference between a likable character and an unlikable one; between a witty woman and a dull one; between a vital, active man and a placid one. Audiences want to connect to the characters onstage. The majority of memorable stage characters are successfully rendered because the author of the play created a person who loves, desires, fears, commits crimes, seeks joy, knows sadness, and acts with every fiber of his being. Characters in plays are stand-ins for the audience, striking back at oppressive structures in life—society, morality, events, other people. We all want to be extraordinary. So create characters who do extraordinary things.

  The extraordinary can be saving the universe. It can also be giving an old enemy a second chance. It can be a duel to the death or a decision to go on a date. Many onstage acts are ostensibly minor but, in context, resoundingly major.

  A character is best seen in motion, in action, in change and evolution. Contrary to some opinions, all successful stage characters do change, as do all people. Change fascinates. “Change is,” as Oscar Wilde said, “the only sure thing.” If a successful character does not change, that character's will to maintain a status quo must be equally fascinating.

  How the dramatist displays a character in motion and moving toward change is shown through dramatic conflict and action.

  EXERCISES

  1. Create a character. A protagonist. Perhaps it's a character based on a real-life person, perhaps it's one you've imagined. In one to two pages, write a brief biographical sketch of this person. You are creating a fictional character, but don't be afraid to base this character on a person or persons from real life. Maybe the character is you. Maybe it's someone you hardly know. Choose the character's birthdate, birthplace, and where the character grew up. Choose the character's family, social and economic background. Next describe a few key events in that character's life—deaths, winning the lottery, childhood scars. Now look at your biography. Is it interesting enough? Could the events and actions you've imagined be altered to create a more interesting person? Is there any hint of that rebellious spirit so much in evidence in Richard III or Hedda Gabler? Revise the biography. Play with different possibilities, different actions and events. Has your biography brought your character to a point in his or her life where a potential high-pressure crisis is suggested? The kind of crisis that could start a play?

  2. Create a concrete goal for your character. A want. A need. A desire. Just one. Concrete, not abstract. Write it down.

  3. “Character is action; action is character.” Create an action that tells us what kind of person your character is. (Example: A young boy steals a purse from an old lady.) Write the action down. Is the action connected to a concrete goal? What does it show you about your character? Does he get what he wants? Or does he run into an obstacle?

  4. Create an antagonist for your protagonist. Although we noted that an antagonist can take many forms, for this exercise make the antagonist another person. Create another biography. Rework your biographies in a way that will bring both your protagonist and your antagonist together into the same room or space. Now rework the action from exercise number three. Place both characters in the same action. What happens when both people are aware of the concrete goal? Define the conflict in one sentence.

  ACTION

  Plot is the arrangement of actions designed to tell the story of a play. The simplest way to describe any plot is to list every action of the play, starting with the first moment and moving to the last. Plot, as we have noted before, depends on tension and suspense, created by the playwright's organization of actions and information and by the playwright's posing of questions. In constructing an effective, intriguing plot, a playwright must create, prolong, subvert and satisfy audience expectations.

  In literary theory, this arrangement of actions is called the “strip tease.” While one doesn't want to emphasize the sexual aspect of performance more than is necessary, it's important to note that theater and sex, drama and romance, share certain aspects: There is initial interest; followed by a development of attraction; followed by an involvement with the subject; followed by the setting of a goal; then a pursuit; with obstacles to overcome; generating suspense and tension (all enjoyably frustrating); finally ending in success and satisfaction.

  This is a gross oversimplification of the parallels, but a dramatist who does not see the similarities between sex and drama will probably not m
ake the connection between a lot of life experiences to art. It's amazing to note the number of real-life activities and experiences that resemble drama, in shape, in sequence, in their expectations, suspense and satisfaction. Plots are constructed to re-create this sense of experience along recognizable lines, whether or not the audience is consciously aware of the parallels. On an unconscious level, plots are a working out of life patterns, patterns based on the experiences and expectations of human beings. Sex, eating, sports, war, trials, birth, even the aging process.

  Our youth is exposition; who we are, where we are, when we are, what we are going to do. Our maturation—for most people 75 percent of their time on earth—is the conflict and rising action. Who among us does not expect that the great middle period of our lives (from our late adolescence through retirement) is fraught with questions, tensions, conflicts, tests, failures, resolve, successes, climaxes and understanding? Our old age is resolution—when conflicts, for the most part, are resolved, and we make our peace with the world. If we see life as having this shape—or at the very least desire this shape, crave this order from our chaotic lives—then it stands to reason that playwrights will design plots along the lines of that perceived shape.

  Actions vs. Activities

  It's easy to confuse effective dramatic action with activities. Activities are the dramatic equivalent of busy-work. They may look like actions (a fistfight) and they may sound like actions (a shouting match), but if they don't cause a reaction, then they're not actions. A dramatic action is an act performed by a character which in turn causes another character to perform yet another action. Good drama builds a chain of such actions from the beginning of the play right up to the end. If the fistfight doesn't lead to anything, it's not an action. If the shouting match doesn't change anyone, it's not an action. But if the fistfight prompts one of the characters to plot his revenge, or if the shouting match causes one of the characters to leave her home, they're vital dramatic actions.

  Plots and Subplots

  Can a play have more than one plot? Yes. But be careful here. In his Poetics, Aristotle wrote about the “Unities.” One of these is the “Unity of Action,” meaning that a good play has one central plot, one dramatic through-line. Good drama needs a solid spine to hold it together. But many plays also have one, two, three or four subplots. It's risky to write a play with lots of subplots; too many plotlines can make a play blurry and confusing. The dramas of Anton Chekhov contain multiple plot-lines, but there's always a central plot to bring all the other lines of action together. In The Cherry Orchard, it's the sale of the estate. In the nineteenth-century French farces of Georges Feydeau, we may see numerous mistresses, gigolos, hotel clerks, maids, detectives, furious spouses and errant gendarmes—each pursuing his own goal—but in the end they all intertwine and connect at the central love-triangle, the most important plotline of the play. Subplots are best observed in larger canvass plays with a greater number of characters—Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, William Congreve, Kaufmann and Hart, and many American musicals.

  We know what the function of a main plot is. It is an arrangement of actions designed to tell the story of the play. As we'll detail more fully in the chapter on Structure, the plot propels the characters forward from inciting incident to point of attack, posing dramatic questions, prompting goals and obstacles, leading to complications, taking advantage of other actions, surprises, revelations and reversals, as the characters move through the play to a crisis, and then race forward to the climax.

  The function of a subplot is twofold:

  1. To provide a separate and much smaller plot with its own forward action, moving toward its own climax and conclusion;

  2. To provide dramatic and thematic resonance to the main plot.

  A perfect example is King Lear. The main plot concerns Lear's decision to divide his kingdom into three parts. In doing so, however, he demands that his three daughters profess their love for him in court. His evil daughters Goneril and Regan praise him effusively, but his beloved daughter Cordelia refuses to acquiesce to his grandiose wish. Infuriated, Lear banishes her, and his kingdom is instead divided between Goneril and Regan. Eventually Lear is stripped of his army, and escapes into the wilderness as Goneril and Regan plan a battle against Cordelia who has returned to rescue Lear. At the climax, the armies converge, and Lear dies cradling the dead body of his beloved Cordelia in his arms.

  The subplot involves Lear's prime minister, Gloucester. Gloucester's legitimate son is Edgar; Edmund is his bastard, born to another woman. Edmund manages to convince Gloucester that Edgar has plotted to kill him. Edgar flees to the wilderness disguised as “Poor Tom,” a madman. Gloucester is captured by Goneril, Regan and Edmund; he is blinded by them, and thrown into the widerness—where he is found by “Poor Tom.” The blind Gloucester doesn't know that this “madman” is his son. But Edgar protects his blind father until Gloucester's death.

  Obviously, the themes of the subplot—rejection, forgiveness, parents turned against children and children against parents—complement those of the main plot. What's most important, however, is that the action of the Gloucester subplot connects with the Lear main plot and propels it forward. Here's how:

  • the bastard Edmund joins forces with Goneril and Regan;

  • Goneril and Regan capture and blind Gloucester;

  • Gloucester and “Poor Tom” meet Lear during the storm;

  • after Gloucester's death, Edgar tosses aside his “Poor Tom” disguise, battles the villainous Edmund to the death, and leads Cordelia's army to victory.

  The subplot takes up approximately one-fifth of the action of King Lear. The main plot takes up the rest. The plots are brought together not only to make a thematic point, but to drive the action toward its climax and conclusion. A subplot must assist the main plot. It must help.

  In The Front Page, for example, the main plot concerns Walter Burns trying to get Hildy Johnson to stay on his newspaper long enough to write the story of the Earl Williams escape. But early in the play the villainous sheriff and mayor are alone onstage in the jail's press room. Williams has just escaped, and the police are gunning for him. The mayor wants to make sure Williams is killed. Then a man enters. His name is Pettibone. He has a message from the governor. It is a reprieve for Earl Williams. The mayor can't let this reprieve be delivered. So the two corrupt officials send the simple, sweet-natured Pettibone off on an “assignment”—to visit a “house,” a bordello the mayor controls. Pettibone trots away, not knowing that his visit will cause the reprieve to arrive too late. This is a short scene, a page or two. Very soon thereafter we return to the action of Walter Burns and Hildy, the rest of the reporters, and the love story of Hildy and his fiancee. Earl Williams shows up in the press room, and Hildy hides him in a rolltop desk. The police arrive. Williams is discovered and taken off to be hanged. The mayor and the sheriff think they're about to put Walter and Hildy in jail.

  And then Mr. Pettibone—drunk, but still reeking of civic duty—returns to deliver the reprieve and announce that he can't be bought! Walter and Hildy realize what's happened and turn the tables on the sheriff and the mayor. The Front Page's Pettibone subplot, while taking up very little time in the play (two or three pages), has returned to connect with the main plot and it has changed everything. Pettibone's two entrances are fortuitous actions, both of which propel action. In the second entrance, his return saves Walter and Hildy's skins, saves Earl Williams' life and saves the day. It's a wonderful example of an efficient and beautifully used subplot.

  Think of a subplot as an action that runs parallel to the main plot and then zooms forward, changing its angle, to enter the main action near its end. A subplot, although experienced sequentially (Example: A Lear/Fool scene, followed by a Gloucester/Edmund scene, followed by a Lear scene, followed by a Gloucester/Edgar scene, etc.), is a little like a service road that runs along a major highway and then suddenly feeds into the traffic.

  A CHOICE OF ACTIONSr />
  Characters in plays, just as do human beings in real life, have choices. And the choices our characters make, like the choices we make in life, define character, propel further action, and lead to conflict and resolution.

  What is important is that a character's choices—inevitable, fatal, foolish, crafty, wise—be believable. How many times have you heard audience members say of a moment in a play, “That didn't make sense” or “That wouldn't happen” or “He wouldn't do that”? Audiences bring their experience of the world to the theater. They compare the theater's “mirror up to nature” to their own reflections. When you're constructing a plot, you must consider the plausibility of your characters' actions in the light of your audience's comprehension of real-life human behavior. You must also consider these actions in light of the audience's understanding of the characters you've already created, given the history and circumstances you've assigned them.

  A man may be a perfect husband, a good father, a benevolent citizen, but he kills his brother. Why? A hardened criminal may lie, cheat, steal, even kill; but he is arrested while escaping from a burglary one night when he stops to save a woman from a burning building. Why? A meek housewife may obey her husband, speak only when spoken to, and bake cookies for twenty-four hours a day, but she starts a prostitution ring. Why?

  At first glance these character sketches might not seem to fit the actions described. The biographies don't match the actions. But history, psychology and biography tell just part of the story. Circumstance tells us the rest. The perfect husband knew his brother was abusing his girlfriend; the girlfriend wouldn't go to the police; the husband couldn't prove anything, so he killed his brother before he could kill his girlfriend. The criminal saw the woman in the burning building and thought she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. The housewife needed money, had no training, no experience, no other way to get it. One day a man offered her money for sex; she saw a way to get the money.