Lab:
Video: Watch the following videos on playwriting and post a comment in the COMMENT section below about what useful advice about writing plays did you receive by watching these videos.
Classroom:
The Mystery of Irma Vep by Charles Ludlam
One of the reasons people attend theater, as opposed to staying home watching TV or going to a movie is that through theatrical convention, we are often treated to a live-event that is intimate and "magical" in that what we witness on stage is a heightened exaggeration of life. Theater tends to be REPRESENTATIONAL and symbolic, rather than presentational. That is, the characters, plots, settings, props, etc. of a play REPRESENT reality, they are not reality. The viewer is likely to accept certain "unreal" actions, dialogue, characters, etc. while watching a stage play that he/she would not accept in film or in a novel.
Our case study will be the play The Mystery of Irma Vep by Charles Ludlam. Ludlam created the Ridiculous Theater Company in NY in 1967. Ludlam died of complications from AIDS in the 1980's.
Ludlam is best known for the theatrical movement: The Theatre of the Ridiculous.
""The Theatre of the Ridiculous" made a break with the dominant trends in theatre of naturalistic acting and realistic settings. It employed a very broad acting style, often with surrealistic stage settings and props, frequently making a conscious effort at being shocking or disturbing. "Ridiculous" theatre brought some elements of queer performance to avant-garde theater. Cross-gender casting was common, with players often recruited from non-professional sources, such as drag queens or other "street stars." [We will see this trend continue with the works of Charles Busch].
Plots in these "ridiculous" plays are often parodies or re-workings of pop-culture fiction, including humor and satire to comment on social issues. Improvisation plays a large role in the plays, with the script acting as a blueprint for the action.
HOMEWORK: Complete your reading of The Dumb Waiter by Harold Pinter. There will be a quiz next class (Thursday) on the play.
Video: Watch the following videos on playwriting and post a comment in the COMMENT section below about what useful advice about writing plays did you receive by watching these videos.
- Video #1: Top Tips
- Video #2: Status Quo
- Video #3: Building a Plot
- Video #4 How to structure a scene
- Video #5 How to write dialogue
- Make a list of your top 3 favorite books of all time
- Remember 3 settings that you remember from these books
- Remember 3 characters that you remember from these books
- Make a list of your top 3 films of all time
- Remember 3 scenes that you thought were cool in each film
- Brainstorm some contemporary themes that you might want to explore...a question or issue that you want to work with. Here are a few theme ideas.
- Make a list of the best ones.
- Brush off our previous list of objectives: characters want to help, characters want to hurt, characters want to know something important from another character, or characters want to persuade another character of something. Give each of your characters in your play scene an OBJECTIVE.
- Now select the best ideas from your pre-writing and begin writing a scene for a play. Don't worry yet about the length or when its due. Simply write. Of course, write in standard playwrighting format.
- Start with a specific conflict between 2 characters.
- More to follow.
Remember that all plays run on conflict. Start with a specific setting, specific characters (2 in this case) and start a conflict (person v. person, person v. self, person v. society, etc.)
The Mystery of Irma Vep by Charles Ludlam
One of the reasons people attend theater, as opposed to staying home watching TV or going to a movie is that through theatrical convention, we are often treated to a live-event that is intimate and "magical" in that what we witness on stage is a heightened exaggeration of life. Theater tends to be REPRESENTATIONAL and symbolic, rather than presentational. That is, the characters, plots, settings, props, etc. of a play REPRESENT reality, they are not reality. The viewer is likely to accept certain "unreal" actions, dialogue, characters, etc. while watching a stage play that he/she would not accept in film or in a novel.
Our case study will be the play The Mystery of Irma Vep by Charles Ludlam. Ludlam created the Ridiculous Theater Company in NY in 1967. Ludlam died of complications from AIDS in the 1980's.
Ludlam is best known for the theatrical movement: The Theatre of the Ridiculous.
""The Theatre of the Ridiculous" made a break with the dominant trends in theatre of naturalistic acting and realistic settings. It employed a very broad acting style, often with surrealistic stage settings and props, frequently making a conscious effort at being shocking or disturbing. "Ridiculous" theatre brought some elements of queer performance to avant-garde theater. Cross-gender casting was common, with players often recruited from non-professional sources, such as drag queens or other "street stars." [We will see this trend continue with the works of Charles Busch].
Plots in these "ridiculous" plays are often parodies or re-workings of pop-culture fiction, including humor and satire to comment on social issues. Improvisation plays a large role in the plays, with the script acting as a blueprint for the action.
HOMEWORK: Complete your reading of The Dumb Waiter by Harold Pinter. There will be a quiz next class (Thursday) on the play.
13 comments:
When writers write, they should write things that they enjoy watching or seeing in plays and t.v. because if the writer writes something that they do not enjoy, the audience or reader would not enjoy neither. It is important tow rite about things that you know and have experienced, because if you don't know what you are writing about, neither would the reader understand. You could also try different types of writing, like writing about things you never seen or people that you've never met, or just write about things you know. You should always know how the situation at the beginning of the story started and what lead to the plot. Don't write things that are unnecessary, if you could take out a scene and it wouldn't make a difference, take it out forever or use it for something else. Just make sure that you could just share the story with a friend.
When writing, you want to write about things that truly interest you. If you aren't writing about something you genuinely want to write about, you probably won't get good results. We should write about things like, people we've never met before. Writing about stuff we know as well. Trying to write about things we don't know or things that we lack interest in would most likely result in crappy work. The status quo, how the situation is at the start of the play. In other words, things that haven't yet been propelled into motion, in this case. Matt Charman, Playwright, says that if you can tell a story to a friend, you can write. So pretty much everyone can write. When writing your play, you must introduce your story, orientate the audience, introduce the complication, which would probably be the most important part. What would make the play interesting. Along with the crisis. Which leads to a resolution, how am I going to solve the problem? How will things end? If one can lift a scene out of the play and the plot still seems to work, you don't need that scene. You need to have some sort of dynamic situation. If you don't have conflict in your scene, or tension, chances are your play won't be as interesting. You want to ask yourself, are my characters advanced, is the situation? Is my audience learning something? Stuff like that. The dialogue is about what people don't say, rather than about what people say. Nell Leyshon says that every line of dialogue has to have a function. It either advances the plot, or has some kind of subtext. As you write your dialogue, you get to know your characters in front of you. You need interesting people, focus on how they say things and so on.
Write what you want to know and learn don't limit yourself to yourself. "Don't get it right get it written" you should focus on getting the work done first not getting it perfect the fist time because you won't. To build a plot you need to identify your conflict first, find out what it is that is causing tension between your characters. All of your scene need a purpose and all the dialogue needs one as well. Dialogue needs to advance the plot or needs a subtext. Your characters need to sound different and have their own voices. Dialogue is never natural it's always stylized and manipulated, no one actually speaks they way you will write your dialogue. "Give the Devil your best lines" all the villains and antagonists are the ones with the really strong lines, consider this while writing.
For starters, you write what you want to. Things that are interesting to you. Writing about stuff you don't care about will probably be boring to both you and the reader. As for plot structure, it's the basic stuff. You need an inciting action, rising action, falling action, conflict, all the basic stuff that everyone should know by now. It's also important for everything to have a point. If a line of dialogue or a description is useless, then it shouldn't be there.
Enjoy your work, and write anything that appears in your head. Make sure your work is unique, and doesn't fall by the wayside due to being the same ol' bland worn-out trite. Er, the videos really did explain all of this and me yammering on won't... ah, well.
Watch the videos, I have writing to do!
Be real with what you write. Be real by including the things the make you feel any kind of emotion. If something makes you smile or cry, you should or could include it in your story. Things that highly impact your life or have shaped you into the person you are today are great ways to make your play interesting because they are events that the audience can connect with. So when you write, have a reason for it, a motive. What has pushed you into making the play should have some involvement in the play. In your play you should make your audience wonder, make them excited with the chaos that happens in your play. Having chaos and problems can build drama, which is what causes the audience to be interested. In an act, having two different things happening allows you to create drama. Basically, throughout your play allow some conflict to occur to keep your story going and interesting.
While writing your overall goal is to get it written, "Don't get it right get it written". Your first draft will always lack perfection so don't strive for it right away. From there you can further your writing and develop the overall plot and characters. Characters should not have the same voice, make them different. Don't be afraid to write something different. The audience can become bored of what they already know. Through dialogue develop your characters voice. Dialogue is the tool of play-writing.
When you are writing, you should feel passionate about what you put down on the computer or the paper. if you don't care about your work you or the reader won't enjoy it. It won't be good and it'll be boring. You have to also know what you're writing about. If not then your writing will be all over the place and your reader will be confused.
You want to make sure that when writing, it doesn't bore you because then it bores your audience. Not only does it have to interest you but it also has to go in a specific order in that it flows easily and the dialogue engages the reader of the play. Everything else such as structure is basically common knowledge.
You should write down any idea that comes into your head. I sometimes have the tendency to throw away an idea because I think it has no substance or I can't elaborate on it. Also, the dialogue video helped because I sometimes feel that the dialogue I write can get boring and really serve no purpose in forwarding the plot. I wish we could listen to the videos though.
Write down things that you have interest in. You should have a journal just incase you think of an idea for a story. It doesn't matter if the story sounds bad as you write, you can always go back and fix it, but at least you have something written down. You should write about things that intrigue you and want to learn about. When you have written a piece, you should have someone or a few people to give you advice on how it sounds and critic. You need to listen to what they say so you can go back and fix the mistakes and make it sound better. Also it is good to plan out your stories because it will develop it more and you'll have a easier time actually writing the story.
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