Today in the lab:
1. Revise your workshopped play. Improve it, cut it, add to it, etc. Use the time in the lab to revise. Then when you think your play is perfect and ready for an audience, print a new version out and hand it in.
2. Read the dialogue tips and the background information about Ibsen today in the lab.
DIALOGUE TIPS
Dialogue isn't just talking. Dialogue HAPPENS. It happens when your characters' need to speak. It is also how they listen (or not listen), and the connotation, nuance, color and subtext of what they say, how they say it, and why they say it. Good dialogue is the result of well-defined characters in a well-structured plot. They may be compelled to speak (or not), but they should have a REASON for speaking.
Here are some tips to consider:
1. We usually talk because we want to communicate some need. If we want nothing, we say nothing, usually. We also speak when we want to: threaten, teach, explain, cajole, joke, murmur, pontificate, defend ourselves, apologize, seduce evade, pout, challenge, yell, scold, cry, etc.
2. Dialogue is action. It is an action taken to satisfy a want or desire. What a character wants or desires moves them to speak and act. This is part of characterization--and the best way to build your character.
3. When we don't get what we want (often immediately), humans tend to become shy, aggressive, or hide our agendas in our words. This is often our subtext (the meaning hidden in a line of dialogue; or saying one thing, but meaning another) and is very important to actors. It is often this subtext that a good actor will uncover in a performance.
4. Characters have to hear each other. Characters often do not listen the same way. Characters interpret what is being said, ask questions, ignore speech, get confused, miss a meaning and even read special meaning into something that has no meaning. Listening, therefore, will often help build the conflict and drama in your scene. A response reveals something important about the listener. How a character hears, then, is an important point to consider.
To prepare for Friday, please read the following, click on the link(s), and take note of what you are about to see Friday during class.
Henrick Ibsen and Naturalistic Theater
A major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet, Henrik Ibsen is often referred to as "the godfather" of modern drama and is one of the founders of Modernism in theatre. His works are naturalistic.
Naturalism (1865-1900) attempts to go further from realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and environment affects human behavior. Plots often revolve around social problems, characters are often drawn from lower classes and the poor, perhaps in an attempt to explain their behavior.
Hedda Gabler
First published in 1890 and produced in 1891 to negative reviews, Hedda Gabler has become one of Henrik Ibsen's most remembered plays apart from A Doll's House, An Enemy of the People, The Wild Duck, Ghosts, and the Master Builder. This is primarily due to the rigor of the acting role of Hedda Gabler. As a character, Hedda is at once a romantic feminist but also a manipulative, conniving villain. Hedda is neurotic, a child with a stormy ego. Her superego (represented by society and her married life) clashes with her id (her impulses and desires) in Freud's psychology. She is a tempest of a character, full of contradictions and subtext that makes playing her onstage a joy for any serious actress. In the play Hedda is the wife of Jorgen Tesman, but has had an earlier love affair with her husband's rival, Lovborg. In a gentler, simpler age this sort of behavior was considered shocking and inappropriate.
Other characters in the play include:
There are four acts: each act has only one scene. The set does not change, so it's just lights up and down to indicate time passing.
1. Revise your workshopped play. Improve it, cut it, add to it, etc. Use the time in the lab to revise. Then when you think your play is perfect and ready for an audience, print a new version out and hand it in.
2. Read the dialogue tips and the background information about Ibsen today in the lab.
DIALOGUE TIPS
Dialogue isn't just talking. Dialogue HAPPENS. It happens when your characters' need to speak. It is also how they listen (or not listen), and the connotation, nuance, color and subtext of what they say, how they say it, and why they say it. Good dialogue is the result of well-defined characters in a well-structured plot. They may be compelled to speak (or not), but they should have a REASON for speaking.
Here are some tips to consider:
1. We usually talk because we want to communicate some need. If we want nothing, we say nothing, usually. We also speak when we want to: threaten, teach, explain, cajole, joke, murmur, pontificate, defend ourselves, apologize, seduce evade, pout, challenge, yell, scold, cry, etc.
2. Dialogue is action. It is an action taken to satisfy a want or desire. What a character wants or desires moves them to speak and act. This is part of characterization--and the best way to build your character.
3. When we don't get what we want (often immediately), humans tend to become shy, aggressive, or hide our agendas in our words. This is often our subtext (the meaning hidden in a line of dialogue; or saying one thing, but meaning another) and is very important to actors. It is often this subtext that a good actor will uncover in a performance.
4. Characters have to hear each other. Characters often do not listen the same way. Characters interpret what is being said, ask questions, ignore speech, get confused, miss a meaning and even read special meaning into something that has no meaning. Listening, therefore, will often help build the conflict and drama in your scene. A response reveals something important about the listener. How a character hears, then, is an important point to consider.
To prepare for Friday, please read the following, click on the link(s), and take note of what you are about to see Friday during class.
Henrick Ibsen and Naturalistic Theater
A major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet, Henrik Ibsen is often referred to as "the godfather" of modern drama and is one of the founders of Modernism in theatre. His works are naturalistic.
Naturalism (1865-1900) attempts to go further from realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and environment affects human behavior. Plots often revolve around social problems, characters are often drawn from lower classes and the poor, perhaps in an attempt to explain their behavior.
Hedda Gabler
Other characters in the play include:
- Jørgen Tesman, the husband of Hedda; an academic
- Miss Juliane Tesman, Jørgen's aunt
- Mrs. Thea Elvsted, Jørgen's friend and Hedda's school rival
- Judge Brack, friend of the Tesmans; a judge
- Ejlert Løvborg, Jørgen's academic rival whom Hedda previously loved
- Berte, servant to the Tesmans and to Jørgen as a child
There are four acts: each act has only one scene. The set does not change, so it's just lights up and down to indicate time passing.
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