Honest Endings

I just finished re-reading a play that raises a craft question for me. How do we create honest endings for situations that in reality are on-going?

Say you write a play that deals with a family's struggle raising an autistic child. Well, the autism isn't going to disappear - the issues the family faces are life-long. So how do you create an ending - a sense of closure that clearly tells you the piece is over, without creating an accidental feeling that the struggles themselves are over?

I'm looking for actual examples here. What are some plays that you've written or read that dealt with ongoing struggles and how did they end? More to the point - how did you create a satisfactory ending rather than just stopping the piece. I mean, when the lights come up, the audience goes home, but that doesn't mean there was a satisfactory ending. Just an efficient stop.

A random thought on theory: people often place theory and practice in opposition. More than one writer on this blog has said in effect: "This is fun, but I've got to go make theater now." Theory is not just abstract thought, although we often treat it that way. To create a theory is to observe phenomena and then attempt to explain the reasons why the phenomena occurs. In an incredible simplification: Darwin observed the diveristy and similarity of species. And observed and observed. And evolutionary theory was created to explain that diversity and similiarity. To come up with the reason why.

And so, when I ask for concrete examples, that's the step I'm trying to take. Instead of pontificating (which is not theorizing), I'm asking us to make observations and try to relate those observations together.

So - like I said. Endings that honor the ongoing nature of a particular struggle. Who's got one?

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The Lives Of Others

I behind the curve on this one, but I just watched the Lives Of Others last night. (ah, Netflix).

Don't read this post if you plan on watching the film but haven't yet.


Thought I'd use the Read More... feature to prevent accidental spoilage. Nice, eh?

The Lives of Others is set in the GDR. A Stasi agent, Wiesler, has bugged the apartment of a playwright and his actress girlfriend, investigating possible subversive activities. At one point in the film, Wiesler enters the apartment while the couple is out. It is a brief moment, he simply walks through the apartment, gazing at the various artifacts of the couple's life. I noticed the scene, thinking it somewhat odd. But I accepted it as evidence that Wiesler was becoming involved in the lives of his subjects.

Near the end of the film, when Wiesler rushes to the apartment after the girlfriends confession and removes key evidence, I suddenly realized the true purpose of the scene. That scene offered evidence that Wiesler could enter and leave the apartment at will, undetected.

Among many other structural gems in the play, I was reminded of a basic principle. Every moment or action that is used as evidence for a future action should have two reasons for existence. The first reason should be answered in the now of the story: "Oh, he's doing that because..." As a result, the second reason (the true purpose) will be more powerful and effective. Giving the audience a chance to come up with a reasonable rational for an action in the moment allows a much stronger turn later on.

In other words, causing an audience to ask "what the hell is going on" and answering it later is less powerful that having the audience believe they know what is going on and then changing their minds --or taking their understanding deeper.

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