Neutral and Graduated Language

I've been inspired this week to assign myself a new mission. Perhaps you will be moved to join me in this mission.

I want to develop new vocabulary for talking about plays. This vocabulary should be neutral and graduated.

Neutral
The terminology we use to discuss plays is wedded to a particular aesthetic agenda. When we talk about character motivation or plot points that pre-supposes that those things necessarily belong in a play. Similarly when Dr. Paul Castagno uses terms like multivocality and dialogism to describe plays, that terminology arises from the language based approach. I'd like to coin new terminology that is not paired with a particular vision of structure, but rather can be used to describe the structure the play itself is generating.

Graduated
I've been struggling with a word that can capture this concept. Part of what weds terminology to an aesthetic is that the terminology is used to describe the presence or absence of a particular element. If terminology uses concepts that can be scaled, perhaps we can talk about the amount of an element. Rather than saying a particular play doesn't have a clear through line (a lack with an implied solution) we can talk about the "velocity" of the central action (a graduated or scalable term without an implied solution).

OK, but why?
I believe that finding a way to describe how a work functions is a necessary step BEFORE development (or judgment) can begin. We tend to skip the part where we engage the work on its own terms and jump straight to applying our own agenda to it. That short cut is facilitated by the language we use.

I've been juggling two metaphors in my head. One was provided to me by Reggie Lawrence of MPAACT theater. He suggested that play structure is a balloon, and that different genres are developed by squeezing one part of the structure and emphasizing another part. The basic elements are all there in every play: the differences are generated by what proportion you choose to mix them in. It was this observation that gave rise to the idea of "graduated" language.

The other metaphor that comes to mind is the language of wine. Now, I'm not much of a wine expert, so I'm sure I have a romanticized view. But from my layman's perspective, it seems as if there is a huge vocabulary that exists just to describe what the experience of the wine is. There's the bouquet, and some wines have legs, and there are fruit overtones and almond finishes and the list goes on. All that just to describe what the experience is. Not to mention the whole idea of pairings. And so it seems to me that if we could talk in some similar way about what a play is, we might better be equipped to help it get better. Nobody is going to insist that every wine should start with a hint of chocolate. And yet we do insist that every play start with an inciting incident.

But You're A Huge Believer in Story Structure
Its true. And I probably will continue to be. I've improved my own writing by embracing standard story-telling structure. But I fear that what has helped me now limits me. That what has improved my work now blinds me to more possibilities. The language we use defines our perceptual world - and I'm on a mission to open up my perception.

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U Build It, We Play It

I'm striving to read a lot more non-fiction, and have started reading non-theater blogs like Tantalus Prime. The cross currents have stirred a new idea that I'm looking to develop as a possible late-night interactive form.

It all started as I was reading The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson. The book, which covers the history of a cholera outbreak in 1854 London, made a great point about technological and intellectual advances: "Great breakthroughs are closer to what happens in a flood plain: a dozen separate tributaries converge, and the rising waters lift the genius high enough that he or she can see around the conceptual obstructions of the age." Johnson also made an interesting point about John Snow - a scientist whose work is discussed in the book. He suggested that Snow was certainly intelligent, but his great skill was in the ability to make observations in one area and apply the lessons learned to an apparently unconnected area.

That observation -and a certain feeling of staleness as I've been thinking about playwriting- has led to my leapfrogging through various disciplines, trying to get my sluggish brain churning again. I came across Unit Structures, which in turn led me to the Summer Doctoral Program at Oxford which finally led me to Scratch.

Scratch is a kind of programming language slash social site where you can snap together brightly colored blocks of code to create animations, games, stories and more. Its fun and a little addictive. You should check it out so my concept makes a little more sense.

Scratch got me thinking about story structure and the building blocks of playwriting. And also how writing and theater is supposed to be fun.

So my concept: U Build it, We Play It. I envision having a large bin of giant, brightly colored foam blocks. The building blocks of playwriting. Each block would be labeled with a different function: Surprising Reveal, Violent Refusal, Leapfrog Transition. The functions would be analogous to Inciting Incident, Rising Action, etc. They would just need to be a little more specific so we can create more than five blocks.

The audience comes in and individual or in groups build three to five towers using the story structure elements. The playwrights for the evening have say twenty minutes to translate the story structure towers into playable text. During this time the audience could be entertained by live music or a DJ - if in a bar, ample time to get your drink on.

As soon as the twenty minutes are up, actors receive print-outs of the scripts, have a moment to look over the script and then they are performed. Script in hand, on your feet readings.

I think this could be a fun time. A lot of fun and creativity can go into creating those story structure blocks. And the audience can get a charge out of seeing the relationship between the selected story elements and the performed text. In the spirit of Scratch, I could even see an online version where the structures are built on line and people can go into the theater the day their structure will be performed.

So - what do you think? And what might some story structure blocks be?

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Punctuated Equilibrium

Tracy Letts' August: Osage County has me questioning some of my basic assumptions about story structure.

Osage County is just about three and a half hours long, including two intermissions. And while I personally didn't experience the transcendent "it felt like no time at all" that some audience members have claimed, it was all in all an engaging time in the theater.

There are some production questions I would raise in another forum, but I'm trying to stay on the right side of my self-imposed rules against reviews. What interests me here is the structure of the story.

Despite the dominance of the matriarch of the family, I would say there is no true protagonist. Likewise there is no single dominant story arc, no central spine of action. True, all the action is set into motion by the family returns to the homestead - so it is sent in motion by a single action. But unlike protagonist driven work, each of the subsequent choices do not link together in a chain of causal action.

Normally, I would find these kind of story structure to be flat, meandering. But somehow, Osage County remains engaging.

One of the tactics I see is what I'm calling "Punctuated Equilibrium," to borrow poorly from evolutionary theories. Each of the characters in Osage county are locked in some sort of stasis. Throughout the course of the play, each of those characters takes a stand or makes a choice - and the stasis is broken. This periodic punctuation definitely keeps us engaged. But these choices are not chained together - in some cases they operate almost independently. As a result, instead of story structure that looks like this:



We have a story structure that looks more like this:



There seem to be a fair number of some people call "ensemble plays." I've heard ensemble plays defined as a work were the characters act as a collective protagonist. But I've not really been satisfied with that definition. Could punctuated equilibrium be a valid way to look at ensemble story structure?

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Paralogue

I've discovered a new species of short play: the paralogue.

We recognize a short play that has a dialog structure. Two or more characters talking, each having roughly the same amount of "air time." And of course there is the monologue - be it direct address, poetic, or the interior mental landscape of the character.

But lately I've noticed more and more paralogues. A paralogue is a scene with two (or more) characters, in which one character overwhelmingly dominates the scene. A recent example is Stephen Cone's "We Came Here Because It's Beautiful" present at Collaboraction's Sketchbook.

In Chris Jones' review, he suggests that the pieces juxtaposes an "erotically forward old woman with a nervous new bride." I find that an interesting take: the piece was so dominated by the old woman that I'm not sure it rises to juxtaposition.

Don't get me wrong: I absolutely loved Cone's piece. I'm just wondering what's happening here structurally. In longer works, I tend to view the Character Interuptus as a cheat to disguise a monologue. Character A holds forth while Character Interuptus occasionally interjects to give the illusion of a conversation.

But somehow the same situation seems less artificial in a shorter format. In the paralogue, the domination of one character seems less a trick and more a function of the relationship. What's more, it seems a function of the dramatic structure of the piece. I just can't quite put my finger on what the mechanics are.

Perhaps one way to ask the question is this: in a paralogue, what is it that prevents us from simply cutting the other character and running the scene as a direct address monologue?

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