ANALYZING THE SCRIPTCHARACTER ANALYSIS

From Patterson, Stage Directing, The First Experiences (Waveland Press, 2004)

READ AND RE-READ

• To understand how a play works, the director must read and re-read the playscript.

STRUCTURE.

The heart of the modern realistic script is people in CONFLICT.

The way the conflict is arranged and developed is PLOT.

Well-written plays have a beginning, a middle and an end.

Aristotle’s elements

• PLOT is the imitation of the action...the arrangement of the incidences

• CHARACTER, the agents of the plot

• THOUGHT (THEME) is a general truth enunciated

• DICTION is the expression of the meaning in words

• SONG is an embellishment whose sense everyone understands

• SPECTACLE is the least artistic, connected least with the art of poetry

GIVEN CIRCUMSTANCES

Details playwright provides to create the world of the play• Time and place

• Social circumstances, age, sex, etc. of characters

• Prevailing mood/atmosphere

GIVEN CIRCUMSTANCES are uncovered by a careful reading of

• What the characters say

• What other characters say about them

• Stage directions

Often grouped as a series of W’s

• When, where what, who

• Why (discovered in rehearsal)

WHO

The people of the play (Characters)• Protagonist is who the play is about• Antagonist is preventing the protagonist from getting

what is wanted (Central conflict)

WHEN--The specific time of the action and its elapsed time.

WHERE--The environment of the script. Geographical and exact

WHAT--The major conflict as expressed in previous actions

Three W’s

MIDDLE

The development of the obstacles and complications that escalate the conflict

...sometimes called RISING ACTION

END

The END contains the CLIMAX and the FALLING ACTION. The action of the plot leads to the climax and falls away from it (denouement).

CHARACTER

Dramatic action and character are intertwined almost beyond separation because the action of a modern realistic play is revealed entirely by what the characters say and do and by what is said about them by others. Character, then, is the instrument of the dramatic action; that is, all action happens through what characters do and say.

ACTION TRAITS

ACTION TRAITS illustrate character. Characters can be complex or simple depending on the number of defining actions. The director should begin a character analysis by making a list of what each character in the play does. Action traits are central to delineating character.

PERSONALITY TRAITS

• The qualities that make a character unique. They are discovered through the analysis of given circumstances such as age, education, social class, environment, appearance, language, etc.

• Personality traits not specifically indicated by the playwright can be fleshed out by the director through casting.

FUNCTIONAL TRAITS

• These help to define how the character operates in the world of the play.

• Protagonist-antagonist are central characters

• Other characters help to define or contrast the central characters (Confidante, Foil, etc.)

• Understanding the traits of each character helps the director in casting

According the Stanislavski

-Encompass all of the character’s individual objectives

-Be directed toward other characters and not inward

-Reflect the inner life of the character

-Relate to the play’s large issue

-Be stated as a “to” construction followed by an active verb. For example: to find a place where I can rest…to get back home to Kansas…to revenge my father’s murder, etc.

Minor characters may not have clearly defined superobjectives.

Directors can develop a superobjective that is in keeping with that character’s functional traits.

ACTOR AND CHARACTER

Character development is a partnership between the playwright and the actor. SO--casting becomes an important tool for shaping character

MEANING

• If plot is about what happens next; meaning is the significance of those events in a wider context. This is often called theme, moral or message.

• ACTION AND MEANING. There can be many meanings to a play and different productions will emphasize different meanings.

CORE MEANING

• Look at the play’s title

• Examine key speeches

• Evaluate the qualities of the play’s major character

• Research into playwright’s background and other works

CORE MEANING should not be confused with what happens to the central character. A script’s core meaning is greater than the conflict and realization of the main character. As such, it should be stated as a broad general statement. OEDIPUS’ core meaning might be “people who let their pride in themselves blind them to reality are fated for tragedy.”

CORE MEANING

The CORE STATEMENT becomes a map for the production

For example: Glass Menagerie - “Modern urban and industrial society leaves no safe space for the fragile and emotionally needy to live.” Whenever a choice is made in production, the outcomes of those choices can be measured against the play’s core statement.