by Will Dunne
CHAIN OF EVENTS: THE CLEAN HOUSE
Because of this This happens
Matilde moving from Brazil to the US after her parents die (offstage)
• Matilde gets hired by Lane as a live-in maid (offstage)
• Matilde tells us a joke in Portuguese (I, 1)
Matilde’s job as a maid (offstage)
Matilde grows sad and stops cleaning (offstage)
Matilde’s refusal to clean (offstage)
• Lane tries unsuccessfully to order Matilde back to work and has her medicated at the hospital (I, 2)
• Virginia disapproves of her sister Lane for giving up the privilege of cleaning her own house (I, 3)
• Matilde gains time to tell us that her mother died laughing and her father shot himself (I, 4)
• Lane tries again to order Matilde back to work, but succeeds only in getting her to polish the silver (I, 5)
• Matilde gains time to imagine her parents dancing (I, 6)
• Virginia comes to Matilde’s rescue by offering to clean the house for her while Lane is at work (I, 7)
Virginia secretly cleaning Lane’s house for Matilde (I,7)
• Lane is impressed with her clean house (I, 8)
• Matilde gains time to contemplate humor and imagines her parents laughing at an unknown joke (I, 9)
• Virginia and Matilde find women’s underwear in the laundry that is not Lane’s (I, 10 and I, 13)
• Lane and Virginia clash over their different views of having a maid (I, 11)
• Matilde begins to think up the perfect joke (I, 12)
Charles falling in love with his patient Ana (depicted later in II, 4)
• Lane returns home late at night from work and discovers that her husband has not come home or called (I, 12)
• Lane the next day discovers Charles’s infidelity (offstage)
• Lane returns home from work upset, “accidentally” cuts her wrist, and reveals to her sister and maid that Charles has gone off with a cancer patient (I, 13)
Lane’s emotional reaction to her husband’s infidelity (I, 13)
Virginia gets upset and compulsively rearranges the objects on Lane’s coffee table (I, 13)
Virginia’s rearrangement of Lane’s coffee table (I, 13)
Lane figures out that Virginia has been cleaning her house for the past two weeks and fires Matilde (I, 13)
Lane’s estrangement from everyone around her (I, 13)
Lane imagines Charles making love to his new wife, and Matilde, suitcase packed, tries to console her (I, 14)
Charles and Anna falling in love (depicted later in II, 4)
Charles arrives at the front door with a woman whom Virginia describes as beautiful (I, 14)
ACT BREAK
Charles and Ana falling in love (depicted later in II, 4)
• Charles lovingly performs surgery on Ana (II, 1)
• Ana tells us how much she loves Charles (II, 2)
• Charles tell us how much he loves Ana (II, 3)
• Charles brings Ana over to meet Lane (I, 14 and II, 5)
Charles introducing Ana to Lane, Virginia, and Matilde (II, 5)
• Matilde and Ana strike up a friendship (II, 5)
• Charles and Ana both try unsuccessfully to convince Lane that they are soul mates, or basherts (II, 5)
• Ana offers to hire Matilde as her housekeeper, but Lane, not wanting to lose everything to Ana, fights to retain her, and Matilde decides to split her time between them (II, 5)
The failure of Charles and Ana to win Lane’s support (II, 5)
• Lane angrily sends Charles and Ana away (II, 5)
• Virginia offers her a hot-water bottle to relax and Lane reluctantly accepts her sister’s help (II, 5)
Matilde’s decision to split her time between Ana and Lane (II, 5)
• Matilde and Ana deepen their friendship and taste apples on Ana’s seaside balcony (II, 6)
• Matilde begins to develop a friendship with Lane and reveals that Ana’s cancer has returned (II, 7)
The return of Ana’s cancer (offstage)
Charles tries to convince Ana to go to the hospital for cancer treatment, but fails (II, 8)
The freedom Matilde has gained from living at Ana’s (II, 6)
Matilde thinks up the perfect joke (II, 8)
The emotional stress caused by recent events (multiple scenes)
Lane screams at Virginia for vacuuming her floor and interfering with her life. Virginia fights back and makes an operatic mess in Lane’s living room (II, 9)
Ana’s refusal to go to the hospital for treatment (II, 8)
Charles leaves for Alaska to find a yew tree that might help treat Ana’s cancer (offstage)
Charles’s trip to Alaska (offstage)
Matilde informs Lane and Virginia that Ana is alone and in need of a doctor. Virginia convinces Lane to help Ana (II, 9)
Lane’s house call to Ana (II, 10)
• Lane has an emotional breakdown and acknowledges Charles’s true love for Ana (II, 10)
• Lane forgives Ana and they become friends (II, 10)
• Lane invites Ana to move into her house (offstage)
Lane’s decision to care for Ana in her final days (II, 10)
• Lane calls Virginia and asks for her help (II, 11)
• Ana moves into Lane’s house (offstage)
• Virginia joins Lane and Matilde in caring for Ana and makes ice cream for the group (II, 12)
The sharing of ice cream (II, 12)
Lane, Matilde, Virginia, and Ana bond (II, 12)
The bond between Matilde and Ana (multiple scenes)
• Ana asks Matilde to kill her with a joke and Matilde agrees (II, 12)
• Matilde tells Ana “the funniest joke in the world” and she dies laughing (II, 13)
Ana’s death (II, 13)
Lane washes Ana’s body while the others pray (II, 13)
Charles’s discovery of the yew tree in Alaska (offstage)
Charles returns with the yew tree and discovers that he is too late to help Ana (II, 13)
Charles’s request to Lane to hold the tree (I, 13)
Lane forgives Charles and takes his tree so he can be with his soul mate (II, 13)
Matilde’s participation in Ana’s life and death (multiple scenes)
Matilde imagines Ana as her mother giving birth to her under a tree. Matilde reaches a moment of completion with her parents (II, 14)
Breaking the linear chain of events. The play begins with Matilde telling a joke in Portuguese to the audience. This event has no direct cause or effect in the story and thus functions as a preface that introduces Matilde and sets the stage for comedy. Her other monologues—imaginings of her deceased parents joking and laughing—tie to the story’s throughline only as random effects of the free time she gains from not having to clean Lane’s house. While these imaginings contribute to Matilde’s quest to recover from grief, they have no direct impact on the other onstage characters and thus exist outside the chain of events. The dramatic function of these flashbacks is to show Matilde’s need to cling to an idyllic past that exists only in her mind and to help us understand her need to emulate her parents by telling jokes.
The linear sequence of events is broken again at the beginning of act two when the story reverses to depict past events: Charles and Ana falling in love, the cancer surgery he performs on her, and each one’s reaction to these developments. Even within this flashback sequence, events are not chronological. The surgery, which occurs after they fall in love, appears onstage first so the act can begin with the magic realism of an operatic operation. The linear sequence of events is resumed in act two, scene 5, which begins as act one ended with Charles entering the house offstage and calling: “Lane?” The repetition of this line helps us understand how the timeframe has been manipulated.
The nonlinear approach to Charles and Ana’s love story adds to its emotional impact, helps us understand the transcendent nature of this love,
and may make it easier for us to maintain empathy with an impossibly romantic couple whose actions have destroyed a marriage. The approach might be compared to that of a poem that reconfigures ideas and experiences to focus on what matters most and harness its visceral power.
In breaking the linear chain of events, the play occasionally employs simultaneous action, as in act two, scene 7, when Matilde, in the living room with Lane and Virginia, describes a recent fight between Charles and Ana on the balcony. We see both events happening at the same time. The missing boundary between past and present is highlighted when a spice jar tossed by Ana in the past results in a cloud of yellow spice in Lane’s living room in the present.
ANALYZING YOUR STORY
You can learn a lot about your plot by summing up what matters most and by exploring the chain of events that moves the story from beginning to end.
SHORT SYNOPSES
• In one sentence, what happens in the story? Sum up the main event with a focus on the main character and what he or she wants.
• In one paragraph, what happens in the story? Add details to the summary so that it reveals more about the situation and conflict.
• Review your two synopses as descriptions you can use when communicating with potential producers of your play. How well does each summary capture what matters most about the play? How interesting will it be to someone who doesn’t know the story?
CHAIN OF EVENTS
• What are the key events of your story?
• Analyze each key event:
• What previous onstage or offstage event is the primary cause of this event?
• What other events, if any, have contributed directly or indirectly to this event?
• What is the most important future event that will occur as a result of this event?
• What other events, if any, will also occur later as a result of what’s happening now?
• Do all of the important turning points in the dramatic journey happen onstage? If not, which ones happen offstage?
• For any key offstage turning point, is there is a compelling reason for not showing this event onstage? How would the story be affected if this event moved from offstage to on?
• For each key onstage event, why is it important to show this happening here and now? How would the story be affected if this event moved from onstage to off?
• Analyze the throughline:
• How is each onstage event different from the other onstage events in the story?
• If two or more events feel redundant, which might you eliminate? How would this affect the story?
• Think about how the events of the story connect from beginning to end. Are there any gaps, or missing events, in the chain? If so, where, and what is needed to fill them?
• If new events need to be added, what should they be and how would this affect the story?
• If you have an onstage event that does not tie to another onstage event as either cause or effect, how necessary is this unconnected event to the rest of the story?
• If an unconnected event were removed, how would the story be different?
CHARACTER ARCS
Two critical points in a character’s life are the moment he or she enters the play for the first time and the moment he or she exits for the last time. The character’s opening action and words create a first impression that can influence our perception of the character as the story goes on. The character’s final action and words create a final impression that often stays with us after we leave the theatre.
In Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire, for example, Blanche Dubois enters carrying a valise and dressed daintily in white “as if she were arriving at a summer tea.” However, she has just stepped into a poor section of the French Quarter at twilight, where locals sit on the rickety steps of an old building. Blanche looks shocked and out of place as she tries to explain how she ended up here: “They told me to take a street-car named Desire, and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at—Elysian Fields!” She is thus introduced as one who is lost and looking for a desirable destination.
Her dramatic journey ends eleven scenes later with a very different image. A disoriented Blanche is now being led away to a mental institution by a gentle doctor, whose arm she grips tightly. “Whoever you are,” she tells him, “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.” This exit from the play suggests that Blanche has finally found a refuge, though it is clearly not the Elysian Fields she had expected.
For most characters, the before-and-after points of the dramatic journey imply the arc of action, or transition, that he or she undergoes as a result of story events—for example, from lost to found. As we experience the final impression of the character in comparison to the first impression, we may gain a better understanding of what the story has been about and how the character has been affected.
■ DOUBT: A PARABLE
Sister Aloysius Beauvier
First impression. Our first view of Sister Aloysius is a serious one. As scene 2 begins, she is at her desk wearing rimless glasses and writing in a ledger with a fountain pen. Shanley describes her as “watchful, reserved, unsentimental.” Her first line in the play is a response to a knock at her office door: “Come in.” It’s a simple enough opening, but it shows us that Aloysius is ready for business.
Final impression. When we last see Aloysius, life has changed dramatically. She is now outside in the garden, a “no man’s land” in the shadow of the rectory, where she has no power. As the lights fade, she is bent with emotion and, instead of browbeating the nervous young Sister James, is being comforted by her. Aloysius’s last words express her inner turmoil: “I have doubts! I have such doubts!”
Character arc. Regardless of how Aloysius’s final line is interpreted, her words suggest a woman whose dramatic journey has taken her from a place of absolute certainty to a place of devastating uncertainty. Something big has happened, and, seeing how such a strong figure has been undone, we may go out of the theatre questioning our own certainties.
Father Brendan Flynn
First impression. Father Flynn first appears in scene 1, where he presents the classic image of a priest in his traditional place of authority: the pulpit. Dressed in green and gold vestments, he is delivering a sermon to his congregation. We see him here in isolation. He is the only onstage character, and the only words we hear are his monologue, though we will later learn that Sisters Aloysius and James are among those listening in the congregation offstage. Flynn’s opening line is the question the play will tackle: “What do you do when you’re not sure?”
Final impression. Flynn’s last image in the play is quite different from the opening one. Dressed now in a black cassock, he is alone again, but this time in someone else’s place of authority—the office of Sister Aloysius—and he is on her phone calling for help with his final line: “I need to make an appointment to see the bishop.”
Character arc. Flynn begins his dramatic journey as a powerful man imparting words of wisdom and ends onstage as one who has lost power and is now in flight. We will learn in the final scene, however, that his loss of power is only temporary. In the offstage world, he will soon receive a promotion from the bishop and become the pastor of St. Jerome, another church and school. His overall arc, therefore, is circular: he begins and ends in a position of authority.
Sister James
First impression. Sister James enters the play as “a knock at the door.” In effect, we hear her before we see her. This begins to establish her low status in this world. When the door opens, the impression is reinforced by the image we see. It is not the sight of a confident teacher walking in to discuss a problem with the principal. It is instead only part of a person—a head poking in cautiously. Her first line is a question that establishes her deference to the principal: “Have you a moment, Sister Aloysius?” James is so timid that she must be told twice to come in.
Final impression. We la
st see James in the garden with the emotionally wrought Aloysius. James is now asking another question: “What is it, Sister?” It’s the question that prompts the play’s final line, and it shows us James in a new role: comforting the woman she once feared.
Character arc. James begins her dramatic journey as an insecure and inexperienced teacher terrified of her superior. By the play’s end, James has gained enough confidence to become her superior’s caretaker and to feel a bond with her through the doubts they share.
Mrs. Muller
First impression. Like James, Mrs. Muller enters the play as “a knock at the door.” However, she must knock twice, and more loudly the second time, because Aloysius is listening to music on a transistor radio. Mrs. Muller is the kind of person who will keep knocking until someone lets her in. Unlike James, Mrs. Muller does not poke her head in. She waits for the door to be opened for her, then enters confidently in her Sunday best. When asked if she is Mrs. Muller, she utters her first word in the play: “Yes.” She has come here at the request of Aloysius in scene 5 and is ready for a showdown. Shanley says of her at this moment: “She’s on red alert.”
Final impression. As Mrs. Muller exits the office, her final words are “Nice talking to you, Sister. Good morning.” This farewell has a crumbling impact on Aloysius, because nothing could be further from the truth. It has not been a “nice” talk, and Mrs. Muller does not wish her well. To complete her final image, Mrs. Muller leaves the door open behind her. This puts Aloysius in a vulnerable position, both literally and figuratively. Literally, the open door will allow an enraged Flynn to storm in for their climactic duel. Figuratively, the open door suggests that Aloysius has suffered a loss of defense, a setback that will be important to the final scene of the play.
