10-minute Trajectories

It's weird. This whole ten-minute play thing. I've never heard of anyone going to a night of theatre where they saw 10-minute plays (and I'm excluding Directing-Class One-Acts and school one-act festivals). Maybe it's just because I'm such a pleb that I wouldn't have heard about 10-minute play festivals. Meh.

I thought that the trajectory of the plays we read (and I mean plot, character development, overall story) was much different than what I'm used to reading for this class. There is so much back-story, and even story-story to convey in such a short amount of time. I don't know if was just me, but all the plays we read for today seemed somewhat underdeveloped. It seemed like these should have been scenes of more complete plays. I really liked "That Midnight Rodeo" because it seemed like it's own complete play. It's weird, my first two years I did almost exclusively one-act plays. Maybe I've just gotten used to thinking about full-length plays.

It's important, I think, to create such full characters in such a non-full story. I think a lot of that comes from the off-the-page work; i.e. all the stuff the playwright knows about the character, but doesn't necessarily show up on the page. For example, the author might now that this character's favorite kind of jeans are Levis, or that his wife's biggest fear is losing control of their house. I mean, all of these thing are important anyway, but when you have so little time/room to develop, it's important to go in with these things in mind.

Another thing; I think that you have to have in mind where things are going, because you don't have any room for the characters to write themselves as much. That is, it seems like you should come into the project with pretty clear ideas for the characters, rather than wandering around the story, letting the characters fill in the blanks. When a play needs to be so tight and concise, there isn't much room for that kind of stuff.

I think there was more, but I can't really remember, since the internet logged me out as I was trying to post it last time. So if I think of it, I'll put it in later. Sorry 'bou' tha'.

KG

Amadeus Annotations

I loved this play. Oh my gosh. I thought it was incredible. I thought it had everything a play needed: humor, tragedy, character development, plot development, suspense, everything. I liked this so much more than Vanya, because the characters were just as strong, but stuff actually happened. I really wanted to find out what was going to happen by the end (even though I already technically knew, because I'd seen the film before).

My playwriting teacher in London said that character drives plot. I've never really understood what this meant until I read Amadeus. In this play, the characters motivations really determine what happens in the play. It is such a clear example of conflicting objectives and how they clash. I think that most of the time, when I write, I have a few characters, and they do stuff for a while, and then something happens. The plot isn't usually determined by whether or not they achieve their goals/objectives. I think it's usually some kind of outside force. And I think it would help a lot more if I had my characters' motivations be the driving force behind the plot.

Since we're talking of character development specifically, I'll just mention that I thought the pacing of the play was interesting. The entire first act is exclusively character development. Nothing really happens until the second act, and the reason why the audience cares what happens in the second act is because of what has been established in the first. It reminded me of the movie "Match Point", a thriller by Woody Allen. The first 3/4 of this 2+ hour movie was exclusively character development. NOTHING HAPPENED. But it kept me hooked until the point of no return, after which I was on the edge of my seat for the rest of the ride. I think the exact opposite would be The Da Vinci Code. This book gave you the point of no return on the first page. And character development mattered very little. All Dan Brown had to do was make the protagonists likable enough to make the readers want them to win, and not the bad guys. But other than that, it was all plot development.

I read the preface by Shaffer, and I thought it was so interesting how many endings this play has gone through since its opening in London however many years ago that was. Alternative endings have always been a bit weird for me. Even on the extra features of DVDs, I like the one ending, because that's how it should be. It wigs me out when movies start to become "choose-your-own-adventures." It was just weird for me to think of the play with so many different endings. I'm afraid that I'd like one over the other, and that one wouldn't make it into the final cut. It's also weird for me to think about as a writer, because while it's awesome to have a range of options for where the play can go, sometimes options suck, and it's nice to know how this current project is going to end. Sometimes options suck, because you have to choose, and choosing is hard.

Ok, I think that's about it from me. Woot.

KG

Vanya Vexation

Ok, so this isn't exactly an accurate title. But it's alliterative, so who cares, right? No, I do have some bones to pick, but that will come in time. I've never been a huge Chekhov fan. Everyone says that he's a brilliant storyteller and creates marvelous characters. BS about the first point, fair play on the second. He is good at creating some interesting characters, but so many of his stories are ridiculously boring. And to me, the interesting characters don't outway the banality of his storylines. Some people say that they can watch interesting characters doing nothing all day, and it would still be interesting. I guess that doesn't work for me. I guess I just have a pretty low tolerance for listening to the Russian aristocracy sit around and complain all the time (thinking mostly of Cherry Orchard and Three Sisters here). I guess one lesson I take away from not liking Chekhov is that I actually want my characters to DO something.

I have seen two productions of Chekhov that I've liked - Ivanov and Uncle Vanya. Ivanov was different from the rest of the Chekhov I've seen, because the title character isn't spending the entire play complaining and moaning about how life is so unfair to the Russian Aristocracy. He is legitimately unhappy, and he has no idea why. He's in a mid-life crisis, and he wants to fix it. Uncle Vanya is also a bit different, because the play actually goes somewhere. There is a plot arch and a visible sotryline. Unfortunately, it wasn't a very interesting storyline for me.

But I think Uncle Vanya was an perfect example of how even with a fairly uninteresting story (I did NOT like this play the first time I read it - I did read a different translation the first time, too), if you have a good directer and a good cast, you're going to get a good show. This, I think, is evidence toward my theory that a good performance can outshine a bad script, but a good script will hardly ever shine through a bad performance (just look at all the crappy productions of Shakespeare out there. That guy is a legit playwright, and there are still some miserable performances). That being said, I would much rather see a good production of a good script than a good performance of a bad script. Now, I'm not saying Vanya was a BAD script, I'm just saying it's not as enjoyable a story as other plays I've seen/read. It's definitely a testament to the cast and director of this production of Vanya that I wasn't bored during this play. Not once did I think: ok, when is this going to be over? They kept me hooked the entire time, and considering it was Chekhov, this IS impressive.

Kurt Walls was talking about the attendence of the shows, and how it's so hard to get students to come see Chekhov. I totally get him there. I mean, I'm a theatre major and I don't want to see Chekhov. But I guess here's what I want to take away from Chekhov/Vanya - I want my characters to be as human as Chekhov's, but I want a little more plot (or INTERESTING plot, at least) than what Chekhov usually provides.