Beyond the Lemonade Stand: How to Teach High School Students Lean Startups | Steve Blank http://ow.ly/uvmJt
Posted in Uncategorized
Introduction
This purpose of this article is to help you understand what a theatrical review is and how to go about writing one. Writing a review will help deepen your appreciation of a piece of work, unravel complex structure, narrative and staging, and expose yourself to topical themes that reverbrate with your own understanding and experience of live lived.
ti
What is a Review?
A review is a your individual, informed response to a performance. That response is relayed as a descriptive, narrative argument of your experience. The review encapsulates the play’s meaning with description, analyses its various elements with argument and assembles an overall narrative of the entire experience of seeing the play. Your reader will then be able to answer two simple questions from your review:
1) Is the play worth going to see?
2) What’s it about?
Yes, a poster can answer those questions with an image and stacked superlatives but you provide a real argument based on the actual experience of being there. Doing this well will give a close-up report of the experience of seeing the play, and an aerial perspective – examining the work in its own right.
Merchant of Venice / Propeller Company at Galway’s Town Hall. (C) Termine
There are many elements in a review. The simple questions from the reader (they often have many more) become multi-faceted for you. ‘What’s it about?’ has several variations in terms of plot, context and meaning. Rather than addressing each element in turn, you can focus on the key requirements which will encapsulate the other elements.
Let’s address these critical requirements:
a) Your genuine response
b) The context of the play
Your Genuine Response
Ever watch a football match? A horse race? Event commentaries are the purest form of review, because they happen in real time and carry a very human response in the moment the action happens. Here’s one from Harry Carpenter as Muhammad Ali beat George Foreman in 1974:
‘Suddenly Ali looks very tired indeed, in fact Ali, at times now, looks as though he can barely lift his arms up… Oh he’s got him with a right hand! He’s got him! Oh you can’t believe it. And I don’t think Foreman’s going to get up. He’s trying to beat the count. And he’s out! OH MY GOD he’s won the title back at 32! Muhammad Ali!’
Read it a couple of times. Don’t you feel the excitement of the bout? You can almost imagine being there. You certainly know that Mr. Carpenter was there. He was completely engaged in the action. While your review won’t be moment to moment, it should capture your real experience.
Your emotional reaction, what you experienced during the play, is a very valid reaction – as long as you can support what you felt. By describing what you felt, the reader can come to a conclusion whether they would have, and would want to have a similar experience as you, and thus their question ‘Is it worth seeing?’ may be answered.
How do you that? The first thing is to be open. When you go to see a play, make sure that you leave yourself completely open to the experience to follow so that you can relay what it is really like to be there. When I read adjective laden negative reviews, I suspect the reviewer of being disingenuous, because no theatrical experience,for those who like to go to the theatre, even if excruciating, is all bad. Secondly, describe that experience in your own words. In Michael Billington’s review below, he describes the play as having ‘the reflective quietness of a Wim Wenders movie’. He clearly describes the experience of the play by using an analogy.
The Context of the Play
Context puts the play into perspective. This is the aerial view. It takes the artistic work and tells us essentially what the play concerns itself with in terms of the experience of being human, other theatrical works – anything outside the play itself. In the review below, Mr. Billington says that the play is about urban solitude. It’s not about a documentary film maker who comes back to Glasgow – that’s what happens. It’s a key description of the play. Usually, the play will tell you through the action what it essentially addresses e.g. The struggle of children in an adult world, seeking balance in dysfunctional relationships, man’s inhumanity to man etc. Context is very important in a review because it helps center the reader to the play. To discover the context you need to reflect on the play to find the right way to express what it is about. Context statements also help constructing an argument for a play, because you have identified what the play tries to achieve.
A review will contain four different types of statements:
A review sentence can combine several of these types of statements and they can overlap. Context and experience are covered above. Being able to identify what type of statements are in your own and other’s reviews, you will be able to evaluate the quality, bias and effectiveness of a review.
See the ‘Context of the Play’ above.
See ‘Your Genuine Response’ above’
Argument statements make assertions about the work and cite examples supporting them. They say what works, what doesn’t and why.
A frame for evaluating elements or the overall work is as follows:
1) What is the work trying to achieve?
2) Did it achieve it?
3) Was it worth it?
Using this frame is important for impartial evaluation. You might, for example, see a show that you had a hard time engaging with because the plot was purposely missing (absurd) or exaggerated (farce) or the genre/subject matter/style was off-colour for you but the play successfully accomplished what it set out to achieve. By commenting on this aspect you give a production a fair treatment; showing your bias while arguing whether accomplished what it intended.
The question ‘What is the work trying to achieve’ can be deduced from several places. One place is in the action the protagonist takes in the final crisis/climax. Hamlet does kill Claudius eventually but only after his mother dies. In the act he dies himself. A pyrhic victory. So what was Shakespeare trying to achieve with Hamlet? To show the injustice of fate? Hamlet ended up dead, did it matter that he delayed his decision to take revenge? Another way to deduce the play’s purpose is to look at the consistent action. In Hamlet, he constantly procastinates. In this case you could say, Hamlet is about what happens when you procastinate. Now you have arrived at two different objectives for the work. Which is right? Look throught the work itself and see if your conclusion is supported.
Descriptive statements cover a wide range of play elements from the writing, synopsis, staging, light, sound, acting etc. They can provide a synopsis or description of the stage. The purpose of descriptive statements is to describe what the reviewer sees or sums up so that the reader has a sense of place, time and motion.
A review is your considered response to a performance you witnessed as an engaged audience member. You’ve thought about the play and considered what it means in context. You’ve looked at the whole work, figured out what it tries to achieve and considered if it achieved that. The direction, acting, costume, staging, sound, light came were reflected on. You know what it is about and what other work it might compare to. You then went and wrote that response crafted with your own individual style. You drafted and rewrote your review, referring to actual quotes to support your arguments where necessary. That’s a review.
A review is not based on your knee-jerk response, your mood that day, your own morality/religion, your lack of understanding of what is presented, your tiredness, your alchohol intake,your prejudices, the number of people in the audience, the buzz, your buzz, the genre of the show, the sex, religion, colour or politics of the producer/writer/director, your friends’ opinion, the NYT/Guardian/Irish Times. No doubt any and all of these will colour your review but don’t hide behind them as your reader will sniff them out and your review will be worthless. If you have a bias, state what it is, then make your comment. e.g. ‘Eat The Rich made me sick. Well, I’m a vegeterian, so when the ‘roast’ came out in the adaptation of Eat The Rich, I made an exit.’.
Let’s take apart a review by Michael Billington of The Guardian and see how he manages to convey the essential experience of a play while putting the work in context. Note how he answers many essential questions early on. He immediately puts the play in context with his statement; ‘a study of urban solitude’. We know from this point, what the play is essentially about, what kind of play this is. But because this play has a lot of context statements, it hints that the experience may be somewhat intellectual. He doesn’t use a lot of Experience statements indicating emotionally it might be static. It could also be simply how Mr. Billington experiences theatre.
He answers some key questions about the production:
| What’s the play about? | It’s about Urban Solitude. It outlines the smoky melancholy of urban life |
| What happens in it? | A famous documentary producer returns to Glasgow to find it dark and sinister |
| What’s the tone of the play? | It has the reflective quietness of a Wim Wenders movie. It is poetic |
| What are it’s themes? | Disconnected lives, Melancholy of urban live, the predator and prey |
| How does it carry it’s themes | Through fragmented, filmic scenes. Metaphor of the bird |
| Does it achieve what it sets out achieve? | Harrower’s vision of the city as lonely hell is projected with haunting atmospheric precision. |
| What’s the acting like? | especially good performances |
Here’s the annotated review:
Review: Urban scene surveyed in a tone of quiet desperation;
Kill The Old Torture Their Young: Traverse, Edinburgh. August 13, 1998
THE second play, they always say, is the hardest. But the young Scottish dramatist David Harrower follows up the moving rural play Knives In Hens with this equally poetic and impressive [Argument: Is it worth seeing? He says yes. He will need to support this in his review]
study of urban solitude [Context: What is the theme of the play?] has the reflective quietness of a Wim Wenders movie.
[Experience: What is the tone or mood of the play? Here he is using analogy]
Harrower is not a man who raises his voice. But in the course of an hour and three quarters he outlines the smoky melancholy of city life.
[Description: A single line evocative description of the play ]
And what holds the fragmented scenes [Description: What is the play format?]
together is the experience of a famous TV documentary maker who returns to his native city – Glasgow presumably – and discovers not so much Technicolor bustle as a world that, in the shocked words of his producer, is “All dark, sinister. All shadows. Browns and greys.”
[Description: Plot synopsis from the main character’s viewpoint]
That seems to be Harrower’s vision too, in that he lays emphasis on lonely, disconnected lives. [Context: Theme of disconnected lives]
Bird imagery also haunts the play and gives it its evocative title.
Paul, an aged birdwatcher who knew the film maker as a boy, describes how the dawn chorus is less a celebration than a cry by each bird to tell the others “it didn’t die in the night”.
[Description: Secondary character description and how he informs the play’s themes]
The implication is that humans, too, are divided into predators and prey and communicate only out of a desperate need for reassurance.
[Argument: He is arguing for his interpretation of the metaphor of the bird and how it informs the play’s theme of prey and predator ]
But the abiding note is one of solitude[Context: Theme of solitude]
. Robert, the film maker, sees the city through a lens darkly. Steven, his divorced producer, lives in terror of the men in suits. Heather, the TV company receptionist, fills up her evenings with regulated hobbies. Only Paul, the old man, makes fitful contact with the girl in the flat below, a hospital switchboard operator with an unrealised artistic talent.
[Argument: He is supporting his declaration of theme with supporting evidence from the play]
Unlike Knives In Hens, the play does not have a strong narrative spine.
[Description: He is saying that the play doesn’t follow traditional complicating events followed by a climax]
In structure, it is highly filmic, a series of impressionistic shots of urban desolation taking in tenements, park benches, hotels, TV offices.
[Experience: What is the effect of the structure to watch? He previously told us it was fragmented, this expands on that description]
The mood indigo music by Tommy Smith that underscores every scene of Philip Howard’s production adds to the feeling we might be watching a piece of early Antonioni.
[Experience: He addresses one of the stage elements; music and what feeling that evokes]
But if the first job of a play is to create its own consistent world, Harrower does it with poetic success.
[Argument: He asserts that the play is successful in what it sets out to achieve]
Howard’s stylish production is aided by especially good performances from Russell Hunter as the lonely pensioner who once saw an eagle flying over the city,
[Argument: What is the calibre of the acting?]
Jenny McCrindle as the frustrated artist in the flat below, Robert Cavanah as the film-making outsider who detachedly observes this modern Waste Land, and Jennifer Black as the receptionist with whom he seeks temporary comfort. There may be more extrovert plays to come
[Experience: He tells us to expect a quiet play as supported by previous statements]
in the Traverse’s bulging programme. But Harrower’s vision of the city as lonely
hell is projected with haunting atmospheric precision.
[Argument: He tells us again that the play does what it achieves to do]
(c) The Guardian 2009
As an exercise, print out three reviews and identify the different types of statement
Google the writer, production company and play or use your local library. What has the writer done before? Director? Is this a new play or old? If the text is available, get it.
Don’t look at other reviews of the same play – it will taint your view for the worse and rob you of your own, genuine, opinion.
Get the program and read it through, noting:
Have your notepad out and ready in the theatre.
If the set is visible, draw a little diagram of it. It will help you notice it more carefully. For example, Martin McDonagh has his sets inside out. You see the outside of two cottages stage left and right, but in the center is a table indicating an interior. Have your pencils sharpened, with a spare on hand.
4. Be open to the experience of play
Have an open mind and heart. Don’t pre-judge based on other people’s comments, what you’ve read, the production values, size or reputation of the theatre/company/artists.
Take notes, but not profusely – stay in the room mentally. Be alert – especially during the open and the end. Ask yourself questions like ‘What am I watching?, What is this? What’s going on? Why is that character doing that? What part of the play am I in? What am I experiencing?’
To make sense of your scribbles later, have a system for note taking. Below are some symbols I use.
A dramatic question is a question in the mind of the audience as they go through the experience of watching the play. It should change and develop. At the start of Hamlet, the dramatic question is ‘Will the ghost appear?’ then ‘Why did the Ghost appear’. These are often hook questions that keep the audience engaged and is not explicitly stated on stage. By keeping track of the dramatic question, you will come to the central question that dominates the play. In Hamlet, the central question, is ‘Will Hamlet revenge his father’s death?’ Knowing the dramatic questions will allow you to track the underlying action and see if the central question is resolved or dealt with. If it is not, there is likely a problem with the work.
Write a 5 page review in longhand immediately on leaving the theatre in a separate notebook you used in the theatre. It doesn’t matter if it is gobbldeygook, it will save your bacon when you get to writing it up later. Go somewhere quiet. Don’t spend too long on it.
You are required to write an article that relays the experience, informs and provokes. As opposed to the adjective laden capsule review (200 words or less) you need to provide concrete examples, quotes from the script, summarise the plot and take the reader on a journey from the top of your piece to the end. You must provide genuine insight derived from your personal world view interacting with the single performance you encountered.
Answer these questions in your review:
1. Context: What does this play mean in the real world? What is this play a comment on? Man’s cruelty to Man, Urban decay etc. Understanding the context of the play in relation to the world we live puts a lens over the work that can draw it right into focus.
e.g. ..”‘n Friel’s play about the oppresive but frail ascendency… ‘ or “The familiar Irish living in London trope’
2. How does it deal with its subject matter? How does the writer/director work with the structure, language, physicality to achieve their aims. e.g. ‘Writer x starts at the end and ends at the beginning to place us in his inverted world of the ostrich’
3. What works/What doesn’t? If something doesn’t seem to work, provide clear examples. Don’t generalise.
‘The ending did not arise out of anything before and seemed tacked on. The fact that the entire episode was Elvis’ dream robbed us of any significance of leaving his guitar in Galway’
4. How did the performers engage with their characters? Was their anything unique in their interpretation? Did they dig deep to find interesting nuggets in the subtext. Refer to peformers by full name at the first instance and thereafterby Mr or Ms. E.g. Sean Whelan does a terrific Richard III and got a bellylaugh when he stuck a finger into the decapitated man’s head in the bag. Mr. Whelan’s sneer cut the laugh short’
7. How do the tangible elements(set,light, sound, costume) influence the quality of the work. In fringe theatre, these effects are often minimal or expanded on by setting the play in the street, a caravan etc. e.g. ‘ Climbing into the sleeping bag with the other audience member to see two puppets carved from carrots was somewhat claustrophobic but perhaps that is what Beckett was really driving at’
8. What did the Director do to influence pace, staging, interpretation? If the Director has presented us with basic blocking, the text often fails to rise thematically. Could you see all the action? e.g. ‘I never saw Jane Eyre herself; though played by a midget, it was the large armchair from which she delivered her soliloquoy in Act II that was the problem’.
9. Assert an argument about the work – it’s the point of the review. Based on the criteria above and others, argue for the individual and overall work . Clear assertion is key to criticism, even if that assertion is ‘I have no idea what this play is about’.
10. Arrive early to pick up your press ticket. Have your pen and pad out so you don’t have to dig into your bag. Sit somewhere where you will have a little bit of light and a clear view of the stage but don’t put off the actors with your scribbling. Pencils are better than pens because they don’t leak, and you know how much you can write with a sharpened pencil. The very act of sharpening a pencil has a corresponding effect on the mind.
12. Style is up to you; simple language, ornate, rhyme – anything. Have fun with it. Look on
http://www.broadwaybaby.com for examples but your own voice is more important. See other reviewers of all types food, art, architecture, film as well as theatre in the Guardian, NYTimes, Independent if you are looking for inspiration.
13. Sum up the plot, but don’t give away the ending.
Template for Writing a Review
If you have never written a review and are stuck, you could use this template to frame your thoughts.
[Headline; One sentence description of the play]
[Title of play, director, actors, venue, dates and times]
[Opening Sentence;, an angle into your review. It could be a question. What would you do to get ahead? (Richard III) ]
In [author’s name] play [title of work] about [put context statement here] [what effect does this have on the characters in it]
[describe the genre, comedy, tragedy, drama etc]
[short plot summary that leads from the context statement or what happens to the characters]
[describe what the writer/director was trying to achieve and argue whether they achieved it or not]
[describe the experience, what you felt]
[What was the acting like (as distinguished from likeability of the characters). Name some actors that stood out for good or bad. Support your statements]
[Extended piece on context, if relevant. For instance if it is a political play that is relevant to today’s world, discuss. Support with examples from the play]
[comment on the set, sound, lighting, costume if they had a significant role]
[Wrap up. You could answer the question asked at the opening, or describe the overall experience. End on a strong note.]
Other Sources
This is not a complete list but may help. Don’t worry about getting it wrong; a review to be nothing more than a starting point for discussion about the work. There is a book called ‘Theatre Criticism’ in the Hardiman library from which some of the above (the argument) is based on, if you want to read more. If you enjoy reviewing there are plenty of upcoming shows and festivals.
Michael Billington of the Guardian
Go to everything that moves because the more you see, the richer your opinions become. It’s crucial to read widely, and not just about the theatre. Absorb the past masters of English prose. Criticism isn’t just about expressing opinions. It’s about being able to write with whatever grace and fluency one can muster. A final thought: always write as if your work is going to be published, either in print or online. If you have enough tenacity and stamina, one day it will be.
Always be honest to your own reactions
– Back up your arguments with some concrete examples
– Mix analysis with vivid description of acting and design
– Try to put a play in context: either the author’s previous work, the theatre’s track record or the larger context of life
– Structure the review so that it comes to a well-argued conclusion
But don’t:
– Fake a response: the reader can always tell
– Pretend to have seen what you haven’t
– Insult people just for the hell of it
– Offer an unregulated stream-of-consciousness
– Take too much notice of what your friends or the people around you think
– Let your phone go off during the show.
From The Guardian Newspaper, Tuesday 8 July 2008, Michael Billington
Hobson had a fundamental critical principle – to create a record of the productions that he had witnessed based upon his emotional reactions. This view remained consistent throughout his career as a theatre critic from 1929 to 1988. Certain critical leitmotifs emerge from his reviews:
Theatre as a Riot in Perpetual Motion?
What the media is slowly turning to, after front page outrage decrying thuggery, criminality and insanity, is the root cause of the recent riots in London. How is it, they ask, that a single incident can ignite such enormous social unrest? It’s perplexing, there’s no single answer, the debate is unending they say.
Difficult questions are abundant in theatre and one of the reasons I continue to return there because the answers are often provocative. There are times however, when the questions are not so compelling and the answers not so fruitful but from these too, there is something to learn.
Two shows I saw last week brought this to mind. But first, let me tell you about a time when I attended a court case in West Virginia. After everyone was ushered in and took their place, the murderer walked in. He walked past my friend’s family without a glance. They stood, as the rest of the court did, in total silence, as he went to take his place in the dock. I could only imagine what was going through their minds as the person who took the life of their child and brother, walked calmly past them…in physical reach.
As I watched Stephanie Jacob’s The Quick at Tristan Bates (until 8/13), a moral play on the forgiving possibilities of both criminal and victim, I was struck by the lack of theatrical truth in her premise; that it is possible to forgive. It is not that we can’t do that or that we do not have the capacity but that the kind of truth this play seeks is a banal, middle-class kind of infinite justice mechanism that is not theatrical truth. Simply, it is not interesting to present such a simple question and answer in theatre. So while the dramatic question may be somewhat compelling (will he forgive, will she change?) there are no lingering provocations once that question is answered. I mean, when I left the theatre the play did not carry on in my mind with new thoughts and questions springing forth.
A totally different play but worth discussing in the same vein is Rosencrantz and Guildernstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard at Theatre Royal Haymarket until 8/20. While this is a comedy about two boyos who discover that they are part of a plot to have Hamlet killed in England, it contrasts with The Quick in that the premise (who were R & G, really) is answered in the first act. After that, if you don’t find sitcom style ooo-errr kind of comedy a bucket of laughs, you are waiting for the Dead part to come as swiftly as possible. It takes two hours. However, this R&G is a treatise, because the two minor characters in Hamlet are essentially you and I, in a funny way, as we too are minor and thus it is a note on our own mortality and purpose. So here we have a case of an interesting idea but very weak dramatic question.
In sum: The Quick had a strong dramatic question but weak theme while R&G had a weak dramatic question but interesting theme. Neither worked very well as a result. Both plays, though very favourably reviewed far and wide, are interesting lessons in theatrical integrity: that our questions should be both difficult to pose and the answers perplexing and provocative. High standards, yes, but the reason why I go. I don’t have the answers but I sure look to theatre for the questions.
Posted in structure, Uncategorized
Tagged london riots, Stephanie Jacobs, stoppard, Theater, Theatre
I wanted to edit a script I’d written years ago, but could only find a PDF version of it. Spent half the day trying to copy and paste with loss in formatting etc. I found an add-on for Open Office but it imported it into Draw. No good.
Then the answer came to me as I was uploading a file to google docs.
Docs does it automatically!
If you don’t use google docs to store your scripts online, you’re missing out. It’s a great way to access your work on the road and keep versions organized – and convert PDFs to Word.
Too many hard disk crashes have taught me to rely on online backups as well as CD-ROM.
Go to http://docs.google.com to upload with your account. When you click the upload button you’ll see at the bottom a checkmark to convert a pdf.
Swell!
Elements of Drama: The Meaning of Premise
A question regarding premise was asked of writer Orla Higgins after her reading of her short story, The Thin Blue Line . The question prompted me to consider a question about meaning. How do we draw meaning from story? To understand this I went back and had a look at premise, a key element of drama.
Premise definitions:
It is the meaningful act by a person that causes change in themselves through a battle with an opponent.
Premise is what the drama is about.
It commits the story to one sentence and evokes its essential meaning.
The premise is Aristotle’s unity and an essential part of story.
It answers the question, what is the beginning , middle and end?
The dictionary defines premise as ‘A proposal from which a conclusion can be drawn. Or A proposal from which an argument is based.’
The premise of The Thin Blue Line is ‘A girl discovers her own sense of self while waiting for a pregnancy test’. Is my premise of her story accurate? Her story is the conclusion or argument. Her story argues for the girl’s reflection which draws her into maturity with a thread as thin as the line on the pregnancy kit. The dictionary definition means a story which proves a point, or a story which the characters actions show an argument and from which conclusions can be drawn.
But in order to prove this idea, you need to have a unified proposal. Not a half sentence but a full sentence one that states what the proposition is and the sum of the proof.
The power in premise is the story that we then draw meaning from. A solid premise gives a story a certain life of its own, like a creature that is vibrant and changeable and from which we can repeatedly draw meaning.
A Premise has three parts at minimum :
1) The protagonist
2) Their Action
3) The Result
A prince delays revenge for his father’s death and loses his own life and those he loves – Hamlet
Expanded parts:
1) The Protagonist
2) Their need
3) Their action
4) The Battle/Opponent
5) The result
The purpose of premise for the writer is to emblazon the central idea of the story so as not to stray and lose the unity of the tale. For the reader, it allows cogent understanding of what happens in a story. Given that Story is what happens and the meaning we draw from what happens, we can talk about a story itself being of being:
1) A set of events – What happens.
2) What the sum of those events mean.
Lets look at meaning first. For meaning to be received by the audience, it needs to be expressed. The meaning is what is received based (usually) on the last act decision and action made by the protagonist. This also gives us the theme. Theme is also the expression of the premise. For a story to be meaningful the audience themselves must be somewhat transformed by what happens – which is astounding because it is not actually happening to them. What this means for a the writer is that you can’t just tell the meaning, because that won’t transform anyone, it will just lecture them. The transformation is done by the mimic of action by a character in the story who themselves are transformed. They are transformed by taking a series of actions and going through some catharsis during or after a battle. We too will follow that journey at least emotionally. That is our transformation, an emotional one.
A definition from Creative Screenwriting magazine:
Story creates the deeper understanding about human nature that we experience when we hear or see what has happened to another human being. Whether it’s an incident in the life of someone we know, the true-life experience of someone in the news, the adventures of a fictional character, or the heroic life of a compelling historical figure, we are fascinated by the progression of events that a human being encounters, and this progression of events is called plot. However, what engages our imagination on a human level is how the main character reacts to this progression of events, and this cumulative insight is called story
What happens in a story is that someone has one set of ideas and pursues something then someone else wants something too and that something is going to get in the way of what the first person wants. One of them wins out but not easily, not only do they have to fight someone to get what they want, they have to change something about themselves to overcome them because when they started they didn’t have everything they needed to do that, otherwise they would have just got it
That’s what we find interesting. Watching others attempt to overcome.
Krapp’s Last Tape by Samuel Beckett
Before I saw Moving Still’s production of Krapp’s Last Tape I made some notes on my 250 hour phone voice recorder. I wondered what Krapp would make of such technology that would allow him to record every moment of his life. Would he be a blogger? Would Krapp tweet?
Though first produced in 1958 the play has much to do with our modern preoccupation with the meaningless. Krapp (Fergus Cronin) is an aging loner who listens to and records his daily journal using a reel to reel tape up in his attic. (Sound familiar?) The play opens on the night of his birthday with the patter of Krapp moving in tight steps across the stage to an overflowing table of tapes lit by a single fixture above. He fumbles about with keys eventually finding a banana in a locked drawer, eating it with strange delight eliciting laughter from the audience. After finding his tape, the main conflict begins; the random, dispersing, hopeful thoughts of his earlier 39 year old self versus the eventuality – that current self, an old decrepit man of 69. The man alive in front of us disparages the long gone thirty nine year old who in turn disparages the young man of twenty something before him like a lampooning mirror. “Hard to believe I was ever that young whelp. The voice! Jesus! And the aspirations! And the resolutions!”.
Mr. Cronin, intelligently directed by Art O’Briain returns to Galway capturing the essence of Krapp gracefully in this flawless, sold-out production with a character that is at once woefully sad and yet quite alive and funny. This is the skill which Mr. Cronin brings to the forty-five minute piece lighting the character of Krapp from the inside with warmth and humour. He plays Krapp somewhat out to the audience while creating a cell-like atmosphere which draws us in to his world and holds us there. His every movement is captivating. His grey, wiry hair, long lines of age across his face like slashes, his messy waistcoat and a certain rotundness slowing his movements across the stage belies the unexpected lyrical anthem of hope Mr. Cronin exudes despite the futility of all that has preceded the current moment; “Unshatterable association until my dissolution of storm and night with the light, the understanding, the fire, my face in her breasts and my hand on her.” Krapp relives this moment over and over, recalling the time he lay in ecstasy and regret with a woman all those years ago. It’s the reliving that Krapp likes most, the desire to “Be again”. But he discovers he has nothing more to say and it is at that moment he decides that this is his last tape he will make. He listens again to the recall of ecstasy and the haunting image of Krapp freezes in front of us as the tape reels out to silence and the single light on his face recedes to darkness. It is that darkness that we all fear, as Beckett once commented “Death is standing behind him and unconsciously he’s looking for it.” Krapp’s futile journaling of his life mocks the modern obsession with blogging, twittering and self-documentary. For this alone it should be seen. It is profound, eloquent and is emotionally pungent. It does not suffer from the verbal Olympics required in some of Beckett’s other works – so bring the kids!
What would Krapp do with our technology, the miniaturized devices that would allow him to record every moment? I don’t think he would care much, not for my phone or any of the rest of the gadgets out there. He would arrive at the same conclusion about recording the awful minutiae, the happy moments, the nothing; “Leave it at that” he would say and toss my Nokia into the Corrib.
Rating: 
SHOWTIMES/VENUE
Bank of Ireland Theatre
NUI, Galway
Ticket Price: E20-E22
Ticket Information: Galway Theatre Festival http://www.galwayartsfestival.com
Monday July 13th to Saturday 25th July 2009 6PM
Krapp’s Last Tape
Produced by Moving Still
Directed by Art O’Briain
Cast Fergus Cronin
Meeting an old ‘ex’ can be discomforting but in David Harrower’s play ‘Blackbird’ at Nun’s Island Theatre, it can be downright heart-stopping.
Una (Judith Rolly) turns up at the grimy workplace of Ray (Stuart Graham), the shell of a man she once kissed, slept with and ran away with years before and begins to taunt him.
(c) Galway Advertiser
This all sounds normal, even a little pathetic. But the complication begins when it is revealed that when they last met, he was 30 and she was 12. The action proceeds with Una, now twenty seven, pursuing and confronting her abuser alone except for the occasional tempering knock on the frosted glass door by Ray’s co-worker. But all is not what it appears. Set in the canteen of a grey, bland, aging office (by Owen MacCarthaigh) with flickering fluorescent lights and rubbish scattered around the room, the feeling, in this steeply raked theatre is one of frigid claustrophobia. Ray (who has changed his name to Peter and started a new life) wants her to leave “I don’t have to be here, you know” he says, but he doesn’t move, his eyes blotchy and red from sudden nervousness, her courage increasing on seeing the failure in front of her, she circles and hounds hims. But from this point of departure the action slowly twists into a different tale, not of victim and abuser, but of two very damaged people trying to fill gaping holes in their hearts, created by forced separation in a relationship that just could not be.
And it this is what makes this psychodrama controversial – can it be that a man and a twelve year old be mutually in love? Mr. Harrower explores the question with daring and provocation specifically by setting the action years after the event. At the end of Nabokov’s ‘Lolita’, for example, Humbert tracks down the once nymphet to discover a grown woman and loses interest in her. In ‘Blackbird’, Una, also a grown woman, has tracked down Ray but for a different reason and it becomes disturbingly obvious why. Moral cracks in our universe makes great theatre and this explains why Mr. Harrower has garnered numerous awards (Olivier 2007) and equal disdain for this compelling, brittle play with a superb premise since it debuted at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2005. Clearly, he has abused her “I didn’t mean to hurt you”; “You did”, but subtly sliced into the vicious attacks on stage is a remembrance of a gentle touch, a kind word, even love.
Andrew Flynn cleanly directs the strong cast with the young Judith Rolly unflinchingly pursuing her game about the stage with persuasive specificity yet modulating her various levels of anger by an unraveling vulnerability triggered by a glance or a word. Stuart Graham, recently seen as a strutting, confident rebel in Brian Friel’s ‘Home Place’ has brilliantly crafted a frayed, diminutive maneen who lives life in short, panicky breaths. Yet, Mr. Graham allows us a peek into the man he once was when he opens his heart to her with a confidence that only comes from love. Mr. Graham sidesteps any stereotypes and delivers a strong performance of a conflicted man hunted by his past embodied by the woman in front of him. Both actors are excellent listeners; they hang on to each other’s words with rapt attention even through long winding monologues and emotional tirades.
Mr. Harrower uses effective techniques for bringing the audience into the world of abused and abuser by having the attractive 27 year old, dressed in tall leather boots, black stockings erotically describe their past trysts. On the one hand you are looking at a mature attractive woman being sexually provocative and on the other hand she is describing an experience she had at the age of twelve. This schism is discomforting and simultaneously pulls and draws the audience away from the action creating an intensity that lasts from beginning to end. But it is the revelation of Una’s true feelings and his both at that time and now combined with the fact that he took advantage of her grounds the characters in a deadlocked but credible relationship that is ready to ignite and binds us to our seats.
A powerful premise may cause one to overlook a play’s flaws but unfortunately these are introduced early and often in this work. At the outset, one would think that the author had an attack of the ellipses by the numerous unfinished sentences which neither director nor actor had any idea of the thought behind, perhaps due to their sheer volume or perhaps because there were no thoughts at all and the writer was simply dragging out the initial scene so that the reveals would be all the stronger when they occurred. Why they kick rubbish around the place at one point seemed unclear, though I was happy they did because I felt trapped with the back and forth argumentation and marathon monologues that seemed to repeat previous sentiments. The ending, which I will not give away, is an unearned surprise ending (has changed from the original production) and seems tacked on. Despite these drawbacks, this production is worth seeing because it is a compelling piece of theatre with strong acting and a subject that challenges our assumptions at their heart.
Rating: 
SHOWTIMES/VENUE
Nun’s Island Theatre
Nun’s Island, Galway
Ticket Price: E20-E22
Ticket Information: Galway Theatre Festival http://www.galwayartsfestival.com
Monday July 13th to Saturday 25th July 2009 8PM
Sat 13 & Sat 25th 3pm
Blackbird by David Harrower
Produced by Decadent Theatre Company
Directed by Andrew Flynn
Cast Judith Roddy and Stuart Graham
Set Design by Owen MacCarthaigh(2008 Irish Times winner)
Costume Design by Petra Breathnach(2007 Irish Times Nominee)
Lighting Design by Adam Fitzsimons and
Sound Design by Jack Cawley
There is great power in surprise. When used to reverse the meaning of a scene AND raise the dramatic question, the audience can be gripped from beginning to end in a vice-grip of tension. Importantly the technique is used to raise the dramatic question through a surprise revelation that changes the meaning of what we have just seen. The meaning is reversed because in the scene is a secret - all the information necessary to give it a second meaning. The changed meaning then raises the dramatic question.
I often use the example of the play ‘Proof’ by David Auburn as it is structurally quite technical and easy to dissect. So let’s look at how he uses this technique.
The play opens with a scene between father and daughter. It’s her birthday. She is drinking alone on the porch, he enters. It is a gentle, heart warming opening and we feel the strong bond between the two. He encourages her to study maths in college, she demurs and they discuss his mental illness. Then she announces quite casually about 15 minutes in, …’but you’re dead’. She’s been talking to a ghost, her recently departed father who is about to be buried.
We have our surprise. The dramatic question has stirred but has not yet fully formed in the audience. Perhaps they’re thinking. ‘What a lovely sight, father and daughter, reminds me of…wait a second did she just say he’s dead? ‘ They run through the scene again in their minds because now the scene has a SECOND meaning (Reversal of Meaning), it was not what they thought it was . Now, they think "Did she see a ghost? No, no, this is not a ghost story. If not then….Hey, didn’t she say he was cuckoo… ". The reversal of meaning created the dramatic question through a surprise revelation that was completely probable. It is no longer a cute display of affection , we just witnessed something very distressing; grief, loss and possible madness. It has a second meaning.
The Audience Universe has been disturbed. Auburn has been quite clever here as we shall see in a moment.
The next scene brings on the nerdy grad student who has been poring over the father’s notebooks. He clarifies the father’s genius and she his madness. The student is also condescending over her mathematical talents (initiating the Tension of Opposites). Somewhere through this scene the penny will drop a little further ‘Hey, she was talking to a ghost just a minute ago, maybe she inherited her father’s madness. Let’s see some more’. The dramatic question unformed is ‘Did she inherit her father’s madness?’ . The student is arguing that there is some great work to be discovered here, she insists that he was too far gone to able to produce anything, both citing evidence. He is clearly dismissive of what he says is her basic understanding of maths. At this stage the audience is completely primed for what is about to happen. She gives him the key to a drawer that contains a notebook detailing a new, previously unworkable proof. He finds it, announces its genius, she announces that she wrote it.
We now have our complete dramatic question delivered again through surprise.
Auburn had to put that argument about how useless the father’s faculties were towards the end to go to the other side of the Tension of Opposites.
The audience is now thinking ‘Did she write the proof because I’m not sure. If she inherited her father’s genius perhaps but hey, she was talking to a ‘ghost’ so maybe she inherited his madness’ The audience is caught in the Tension of Opposites and cannot predict yea or nay because arguments have been set in motion on both sides – a bit more to the side that she was incapable and maybe a little dotty herself. This is necessary to provide the conflict between protag and antag and give her a big problem to overcome. So the dramatic question through the play is something like ‘Did she write the proof and as a consequence of that did she inherit her father’s genius or madness’ . As a side note see how we are guiled into thinking that the genius or madness is something you definitely inherit – not a real world fact but a fact within the story.
So Auburn builds the dramatic question over the course of actions by the protag. He does not give it immediately but primes us slowly for it so that when delivered as a surprise it has immense power. Mind you, some thought his second surprise rather soap-ish as in ‘I killed JR’. I thought it simply dramatic . It worked fine and was necessary for the story.
Here’s how it lays out:
1. Preparation scene establishing key relationships and issues.
2. Surprise Revelation that
a) Changes the meaning of the scene or a key issue AND
b) that change in meaning raises the dramatic question for the play AND
c) the change has caused a Tension of Opposites.
So the whole purpose of that opening scene is now clear, it is something glinting and shiny in the sunlight as it raises up and above – then as it comes back down, that glint is the glint of metal and the shape is an incredibly sharp sword slicing through the air swishing just over your very raised neck hairs. It is a finely tuned structural technique executed with the discipline and finesse of a Samurai warrior.
Dissecting this technique is one thing, doing it is another. However it is in our realm of experience. We all have some event in our past where a very clear and strong idea of something was changed completely on the discovery of some pertinent and (overlooked ) information. I was on a bus from UCLA to Venice one late night in December with a splitting headache when this young woman came on with her 3 kids in tow. They were completely out of control, shouting, rowdy, one even snapped a newspaper from an elderly man and threw it on the ground. All the while the mother sat motionless in her seat. I was sitting behind, judging her through my throbbing headache. How could she let her kids do that on the bus? Disturbing everyone and not giving a damn. What kind of upbringing is that, to let her kids terrorize people on public transport? etc etc. After ten minutes of this, my stop came up and I was glad to get off. I made sure to look at the woman as I walked past to confirm my judgements by the look of her. In her hands she clasped a small bouquet of flowers and some cards – mass cards. Someone had died, someone close. She looked up to me with reddened eyes and in that enormous river of meaning we communicated in a glance, my heart filled with compassion for her and I exited the bus with a feeling of sorrow for her and shame at myself. The surprise revelation was seeing the bouquet of flowers and mass cards which changed the meaning of the scene I was just in.
You are likely to know the structural item ‘The Dramatic Question’ (DQ) in story. Important as the DQ is, it is the tension of opposites in attempting to answer it that brings real power and sophistication to a story.
The dramatic question is a central part of any story but not in the story -it is in the audience’s mind. It is what keeps them in their seats. The question comes to mind shortly after or at the inciting incident in the story, that event which sets off the protagonist to pursue a path of action leading to the climax where the dramatic question will be answered by the final action of the protagonist. (“Will he be able to prove his innocence in time? – The Fugitive. “Did she inherit her father’s genius or madness” – Proof). The real power of the DQ is in the level of doubt sustained by the audience as to their own prediction of the outcome. This is the Tension of Opposites. If they do not believe their own prediction, then there is doubt. Doubt is good.
The audience may not be consciously thinking the question aloud but it compels them nonetheless to stay and watch the rest of the story unfold. Indeed, the question can change, redirect and become more subtle with the protagonist action since we are not talking rules here. Often it is difficult to be absolute about the question and to say it succinctly depending on the movie, play or book. Audiences will rarely talk about the dramatic question and may not even understand the term but book readers will say ‘That book was a real page turner’ meaning the dramatic question was strong. Within each scene of the work there is a smaller but connected dramatic question that in it’s own way leads the audience to sway one way or the other regarding the central dramatic question.
Structurally a DQ requires a setup, tension between the two sides of that question and the payoff. Here’s an example: Will the sergeant in Lady Gregory’s play ‘The Rising of the Moon’ help the revolutionary escape or will he turn him in for the reward? The setup is the discovery by the audience that the beggar is actually the revolutionary and the key to the sergeant’s reward. The tension of opposites is how the writer made the audience veer to both sides. At times you think he will and then at others you think he won’t. A good DQ can win a Pulitzer! The play and film ‘Doubt’ by JP Shanley has the keystone of the dramatic question in the title. The DQ is Did the priest molest the pupil? The audience is brought from positive to negative and back again on this question by the writer planting doubt in their minds as to their own prediction of the outcome leading to an ending that divides the audience down the middle.
Watch for Tension of Opposites in your story and the ones you read and watch. Are you moved from one plausible outcome to another? Do you find yourself changing your opinion of what’s going on, despite yourself? If so then you are in a story of sophistication with a writer who has the power to move minds.
Posted in structure
Story Forms 