Over the past several months, I've had more than one student working on a full-length play or musical that starts out seeming to be one thing only to eventually reveal itself to be something entirely different. And in each, the moment when it becomes clear that we've been toyed with, that the real story is here not back there, the shift is thrilling.
I should say that my writers workshops never banish questions of ambition. I want participants to show up with their real-world dreams for their material out in the open for all to see, up for discussion.
And, when it comes to these types of pieces, I can't help but worry a little. And so I've been wondering.
How is a writer working on material that takes more than 10 pages to reveal its true nature going to have a chance of being picked up in a world of ever-shrinking attention spans, where gatekeepers may not stick around long enough to discover the hidden treasure beyond page 19?
I put this question to four clever writers who all happen to care deeply about teaching and paying it forward for the future of our shared culture. Here's what each of them had to say:
SOPHFRONIA SCOTT
"I often tell my students that the reader will follow you anywhere, but you have to remember to take them with you when you go. Don't run off and leave them behind."
A work that eventually reveals itself to be something else is/can be innovative, surprising, and enlightening. But as whole it still has to adhere to the very basic requirement that you grab the attention of your audience. In the example of the play SLAVE PLAY, the narrative after 30 minutes shifts and reveals itself to be something unexpected. However those first thirty minutes are not boring. It's shocking, it's disturbing. Maybe the author even realized he needed to rattle the audience in this way to wake them for what was to come. Another example is the novel
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders which I believe represents some of the most innovative storytelling created in the past five years. Saunders takes the historical event of Abraham Lincoln's loss of his son right before the start of the Civil War and turns it into the story of a group of dead people who don't know they're dead. It eventually becomes an awe-inspiring reflection on the nature of humanity. Saunders tells the story using footnotes (some real, some made up) and a play-like dialogue structure. He begins the novel with these unknown characters and could have easily lost his reader in this strange soup of information the characters are delivering. But there's something at once moving about the longing of characters. He then pairs these stories with the information about a party the Lincoln family plans to have on the threshold of the Civil War, and of the sick child being cared for even as preparations for the party are taking place. At first it's all bewildering--where is Saunders going with all this? But it's never frustrating, at least it wasn't for me, to the point where I wanted to put the book down. I was intrigued. I could tell the author was working something totally new.
I guess my advice is don't be afraid to experiment. But once you have an understanding of what the piece is becoming, be vigilant about capturing the reader/audience right away so that you can escort them to the unexpected point in your work. I often tell my students that the reader will follow you anywhere, but you have to remember to take them with you when you go. Don't run off and leave them behind.
Sophfronia Scott is director of Alma College’s MFA in Creative Writing, a low-residency program based in Alma, Michigan. Her next book, The Seeker and the Monk: Everyday Conversations with Thomas Merton, will be published in March 2021 from Broadleaf Books. Roland Tec finds quiet comfort and inspiration in her Friday morning Walks with Sophfronia on her YouTube channel.
GARY GARRISON
What? Really? You want me to be overwhelmed? You want me to be lost? You want me to be a little confused? You want to deceive me? I just spent four fucking years like that under the Trump administration. Personally the last thing I want is to sit in a theatre and experience more of the same.
There are two perspectives on this: one, simply, is that the writer is completely unaware of what they’ve written and how the hook of the story is buried at a considerable length from the play’s beginning. God knows I’ve written plays that as they were developed, what I thought I had written didn’t resemble what was actually there on the page and were it not for the clear thinking or wisdom of a director, dramaturg, teacher or fellow writer, I would most likely not have discovered what I’d done. I’d really like to assume that the majority of these kinds of non-starts in plays are a simple matter of not knowing what you’ve written. But . . .
I’ve encountered writers who, in earnest, will respond to questions about structure and dramaturgy with a “I meant it to be confusing. I like that feeling of being overwhelmed and lost and then a slow but purposeful reveal to clarity.”
What? Really? You want me to be overwhelmed? You want me to be lost? You want me to be a little confused? You want to deceive me? I just spent four fucking years like that under the Trump administration. Personally the last thing I want is to sit in a theatre and experience more of the same. But there are those who will love it — not many, but they’re there. So as long as a writer knows that he/she/they are taking a huge risk of turning off a healthy number of audience members, then it’s obviously their choice to do anything they want to do with their story.
I’ve been in therapy for a hundred-plus years. One of the many things my therapist has said that has changed my life applies here, I think: “Few people can sit comfortably in confusion and uncertainty for very long. Why? It’s counter-intuitive and counter-productive. We want, need to flee our confusion."
Gary Garrison is a playwright and author, educator and activist. For 20 years he was on the full-time faculty at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in the Dramatic Writing Program, as well as being an Executive Director for the Dramatists Guild of America. https://www.garygarrison.com/
TAMMY RYAN
In our time starved industry, reading and sometimes writing a play has become an exercise in the first ten pages. ... So what's the solution? I have two: readings and relationships.
So here's what I think. This is a dilemma. It is in the nature of a play to reveal information, character and action
over time. One action triggers the next, and triggers the next, leading to turning points, which when they are working best are actually reversals of action, so of course, in a good play --
surprises lay ahead.
In our time starved industry, reading and sometimes writing a play has become an exercise in the first ten pages. Yes, I do think it's smart to start the action early, focus the audience's attention on the problem at hand and introduce the main dramatic question early in the play. But you're still not going to get all the good stuff, where it's all ultimately heading, up front -- a dramatic work doesn't work that way, dramatic action, to repeat myself, is revealed over time.
So what's the solution? I have two: readings and relationships.
You have to get people in a room or a zoom to see and hear your work. I focus on putting together a reading and inviting people to that, along with of course, asking people to read my scripts. And in the meantime, I also try to cultivate relationships for the work, so that literary managers, directors and artistic directors get to know my writing, and so will anticipate that the play is going to grow, change direction, build and evolve to an unexpected, but (hopefully) completely satisfying climax and resolution. People in an artistic relationship or collaboration with you are willing to put in the time to wait and see what happens next. Readings capture people in a room so they can experience and witness the transformational power of your play on an audience.
T
AMMY RYAN’s award winning plays have been performed across the United States and internationally. Plays include Tar Beach (Theatre Lab), The Wake (Premiere Stages) Molly's Hammer, (nominated for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize) Lost Boy Found in Whole Foods (Francesca Primus Prize) and The Music Lesson (AATE Distinguished New Play Award). Her work has been supported by the National New Play Network, The New Harmony Project and theVirginia Center for the Creative Arts. She is a resident playwright of New Dramatists class of 2026. Deadline to register for Tammy Ryan's winter writer's workshop is January 1. Email her for info. www.tammyryan.netKIA CORTHRON
... a play has many paths, and until the audience reaches the golden one, it’s the playwright’s job to intrigue them with another. Even in an age of texts and tweets, there is no reason why playwrights can’t take their time setting up their stories so long as the audience is enticed along the way.
I love dramatic surprises! Remember telling people “You have to see Get Out!” but not being able to say any more?
One of my favorite plays of recent years is Jackie Sibblies Drury’s We Are Proud To Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as Southwest Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884-1915. (The wonderful run-on title is a surprise in itself, usually abbreviated to the first seven words.) As implied: a group of actors is figuring out how to make a presentation about an era of colonialism and genocide—but along the way, with brilliant subtlety, the story the cast is telling becomes all too real. What makes the play sing is that the audience gets very far into it before we start to realize where it is really going—frankly, we don’t know until, frighteningly, we are already there.
But that’s not to say we aren’t absorbed by what’s happening from the beginning. My answer to the posed question—How does a manuscript that only reveals its true intent on page 19 have a fighting chance of getting noticed?—is that a play has many paths, and until the audience reaches the golden one, it’s the playwright’s job to intrigue them with another. Even in an age of texts and tweets, there is no reason why playwrights can’t take their time setting up their stories so long as the audience is enticed along the way.
A good joke-teller knows how to create a foundation of healthy anticipation so the listener is happy to go along for the ride. No tidbit of information is a waste, but the significance of these building blocks will not be revealed until the punchline. In this sense, you can think of a play—even if dead serious—as a connected series of many jokes. You want to delay a reveal? Then every line until that reveal serves two purposes: 1) delaying the reveal, and 2) its own objective. Maybe that objective is a joke, or character development, or fascinating misdirection. So long as it’s compelling, we are captivated. To use another metaphor, if you’ve got something delicious waiting for us on page 19, just give us a well-crafted appetizer, and we will be there, mouth-watering for the main course.
Kia Corthron is the winner of the Dramatists Guild’s 2020 Flora Roberts Award. Her most recent play, Tempestuous Elements, was commissioned and workshopped by Arena Stage just before the pandemic shutdown. Her debut novel The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter was the winner of the 2016 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and a New York Times Editor’s Choice, and her second novel Moon and the Mars will be released Fall 2021. http://www.kiacorthron-author.com/index.htm
