Writing for Theatre

Creative and Critical Approaches

Kim Wiltshire

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781350309289
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Langues et linguistique
• Subtopic: Écriture créative

Writing for theatre is a unique art form, different even from other kinds of scriptwriting. Making theatre is a truly collaborative process which can be a tricky aspect to grasp when starting out. This book will take you on a journey from the origins of theatre to what it means to write for the stage today. It includes a series of interviews with writers, directors and dramaturgs, all of whom are making theatre now, providing an unrivalled glimpse into the world of contemporary theatre making. Kim Wiltshire explores the foundations, traits and skills necessary for playwriting alongside the creative possibilities of writing theatre in the digital age. Each part of the book ends with a series of exercises which students of the craft can use to practise their art and stretch their creativity.

Part 1

Foundations

1 A Brief History of Theatre for Playwrights

Writing for theatre means being in the now, in the present, because theatre is in its very essence ephemeral. A performance happens live, at a particular time with a particular audience, and it will never happen that way again. Of course it can be recorded, filmed, written down and published, but part of the experience of live drama, the one thing that makes it different to all other forms of storytelling, is the shared experience of the audience linked to a particular performance – and that can never be recorded, at least not with current technology. In its story, theme and form, a new play will inevitably reflect the world around the playwright at the time of writing.

Fin Kennedy: Out of all the art forms I think theatre lives most in the present tense, and possibly a bit in the immediate future. Theatre is about how we live now and you experience it now. And I’m sure there’s the equivalent in theatre history of when Dylan picked up his electric guitar,¹ but it doesn’t really interest me. I’m glad we’ve moved away from drawing room drama. I’m glad we started to look to Europe a little bit more. But I couldn’t point to a timeline and say it is this, this and this, because I don’t really think about theatre in that way – I tell the best story I can tell, in the best way I know how, in the moment I tell it. And I go to see theatre as an audience member in the same way. I very rarely go to see a classic or a dead writer or set in the past, and I’m not interested in museum theatre in that way. And yes, I know there are classics that can talk to us now, you can do Henry V and make it about Iraq or whatever, but the question I always have to ask is: is that better than commissioning a play about that subject set in the present day? There is a preponderance of revivals of classics because of our director-led profession, and it gives directors a chance to kind of show-off – directors hate it when I say that, I always get into arguments with them – but theatre is about how we live now.

So if a playwright is working in the now, why am I starting with a brief history of theatre? Why is this important to the emerging theatre geek? Simply because this is what it means to be a geek. It means knowing as much as you can about your subject. It means critically evaluating your subject, and it means applying that knowledge appropriately.

Ruth Little: In the West we’ve inherited a canon and a tradition and it’s up to us to continually reassess the current capacity of those ‘big’ plays – the ‘classics’ – to inform and inspire us in relation to our own lives. But we also have a responsibility to the unheard voices – the plays that were disregarded or suppressed in their own time, the overlooked gestures that can create a more diverse and complex sense of our own histories and anxieties. Woyzeck, Ubu, A Raisin in the Sun; I hope I would have felt their significance and power at the time. Or at the first performance of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, when audience and artists colluded to create a theatrical event out of Stravinsky and Nijinsky’s pioneering collaboration. Interestingly for me it’s the ‘ugly’ work that has made the difference, because it breaks the pattern, creates a new aesthetic, hurts. Blasted by Sarah Kane mattered for the same reason. None of these plays set out to be ugly or challenging for its own sake – they actively and passionately provoked, with all the tools at their disposal. That was their gesture – the rest of us gave them their status over time.

There is the old saying that history is written by the victors. If that is the case, why should those of us who are creating theatre in the now take any notice of historic work? Why should we take notice of a few writers and directors, considered to be great in the opinion of a few academics or theatre makers who might be giving them more status than they actually had when they were working in the now? There are many arguments for and against the literary canon, which I won’t be going into here, but in reality looking at theatre history is not necessarily the same as looking at canonical texts that have been handed down to us by dead white men who deemed themselves taste makers. There are in fact a couple of reasons why understanding theatre through its history is important for a playwright.

The first reason is that same ephemeral nature already mentioned. Whilst it suggests that theatre happens in the moment and then is lost, theatre can’t help but be secured in its own history. Many books on making theatre will refer to historic examples simply because this is all that is recorded; we can only attempt to know through published scripts, critical reviews and explorations into the ways theatre has developed over the ages, whilst always being aware that we can never experience it in the same way as those contemporary audiences. Film, TV and radio plays can all be reviewed, re-watched and re-experienced, as can novels, short stories and poetry collections. Theatre in its performance form cannot, which is part of what makes writing and creating theatre so exhilarating. Talk to theatre makers about that buzz from an audience laughing, crying or concentrating on their piece whilst in the same space as them, and you will see that glassy look come into their eyes as they search for words about how brilliant, terrifying and exciting that can be. But no writer or theatre maker can be unaware of what has gone before, of where they fit within the tradition of creating theatre for this very reason: the ephemeral nature of theatre means we have to root ourselves in our history; we have to be aware of what has gone before so that we can understand what is happening in the now and what can possibly happen in the future.

The second reason comes back to that concept of geekiness. Theatre makers like to know and understand what has gone before. This might be for a variety of reasons, such as subverting genres or forms of theatre, learning what has worked for centuries and not re-inventing the wheel – or specifically re-inventing the wheel because it needs re-inventing to stop us all getting bored – and learning from grandees, past and present. We want to feel connected, be part of that history and understand the very essence of theatre making. This is why we write theatre; it can create emotions and reactions that are tangible to us in the here and now, whilst learning from, and perhaps even referencing, what has gone before us. And because theatre is collaborative there is a sense of a community of theatre makers that we belong to, and knowing our history can add to that sense of belonging.

There are some excellent books on the history of theatre (see the further reading section at the back of the book for some of these); so what follows is a very brief history, certainly not in any way definitive, that situates drama as the oldest form of storytelling and explains within a linear timeline what some of those important moments in history were. It is of necessity brief, and will concentrate mostly on Western theatre, again for reasons of space but also because you can explore some of the more exciting areas of Japanese, Asian or African theatre once you’ve grasped what being a theatre geek is all about! The assumption here is that you are a writer aiming to work primarily in the UK, certainly writing in the English language, and it therefore makes most sense to concentrate on this area of theatre history for your basic introduction.

Ancient theatre

As Elizabeth Newman points out, humans have told and enjoyed stories with a beginning, middle and end, where people are at the heart of an adventure, from the very start of civilisation; what are termed ‘cave paintings’ tell a basic story:

Elizabeth Newman: There was a man, he fought a beast, he killed the beast, he took the beast home for food. Man, in danger, wins, happy ever after. Storytelling relates to life, how we experience existence, which is why theatre uses sound and seeing, because it is how we experience life.

Humans telling each other stories, drama in other words, is recorded as starting with the Ancient Greeks. However there is evidence from around the world that drama came through religious ritual, movements and chanting, or perhaps songs and dances, that formed part of god worship and ritual. Hartnoll (1985) suggests that

The origin of the modern theatre can be found in the dithyramb (or unison hymn) sung round the altar of Dionysus […] by a chorus of fifty men, five from each of the ten tribes of Attica. (p. 8)

This is theatre in terms of form, not necessarily storytelling, and it is interesting to note that for centuries entertainment and religion or ritual were closely tied, that the coming together of the community to share experience had both spiritual and entertainment value. We may have lost a sense of that spiritual value gained from theatre being linked to organised religion, but there is still a sense of catharsis that links to the spiritual, as I shall go on to explore below.

Over time, this form of worship began to include tales of the gods, acted out by members of the dithyramb chorus. The legend is that one such chorus member, Thespis, moved out of the chorus during one ritual to begin to tell the story, crucially ‘acting’ as one of the characters.² The audience, or congregation, enjoyed this storytelling and, true to the maxim of always giving an audience what they want, this became part of the ritual. Over time, the Greeks began to produce playwrights who would craft stories well-known to the citizens into entertainment, still linked to religious festivals, as indeed were the Olympics, and a type of theatre festival or competition began. There were three types of play: Satyr, Tragedies and Comedies. We know very little about Satyr plays today. They may have been light relief or they may have been dumbshows, but they almost certainly involved creatures who were strange half-animal half-human creations. We do, however, have work extant from three writers of Tragedy and two of Comedy.

Aeschylus (born circa 525 BC) was the creator of the only surviving tragic trilogy, The Oresteia, which covers the murder of a king by his wife and her lover, the revenge of his son, Orestes, who kills his mother, and is then persecuted for matricide. Aeschylus probably wrote over 90 plays, of which only a handful survive, but he is known for his poetic style and exploration of what is often termed ‘cosmic’ themes. Technically, he is also credited with introducing a second actor to the storytelling troupe of actor and chorus; by this point, the chorus in these plays often acted as narrator or questioner and would explain time passing or the backstory.

Sophocles (born circa 496 BC) was the writer of the Oedipus plays, and was credited with introducing actor number three. He also wrote about 90 plays and was more concerned with the human lives of men and women rather than the ‘cosmic’ lives of the gods.

Finally, Euripides (born circa 485 BC) completes this trio of Ancient Greek writers of tragedy. Born around 11 years after Sophocles, his body of work was similar in size, and we have about 18 of his plays extant, including Medea and The Trojan Women.

The two best-known comic writers are Aristophanes (born circa 448 BC) and Menander (circa 342 BC).

Aristophanes is known mostly for his plays Wasps, Clouds and Frogs, and it is thought he wrote around 40 plays in all. Comic writing allowed for satire, slapstick and bawdiness and was obviously a form of light relief for the audience, but in the form of satire it was also used to criticise the state. Menander, born over a century later, brought in a lighter form of comedy, much less offensive on all counts, of which we have about five examples.

The Tragedies cover the lives of the gods, coming from the myths and legends of Homer’s time, and focus on a great hero who usually faces a fate often worse than death. Performed at religious festivals (often for prizes or awards, showing how highly the writers were valued in their society at the time), these plays induced in the audience what is known as catharsis. This is quite a difficult emotion to describe, but it links closely to how modern audiences can feel watching a great play, and is therefore worth some examination.

Catharsis is often thought to be a purging or purification of emotions, but I think of it more as a release of emotions that mirror those of the hero in his downfall through empathy with his situation. There is also a sense of thankfulness and relief that the audience members do not have to go through this situation themselves, ending in a type of emotional exhaustion. This sounds awful and a lot to expect an audience to go through, but think about the last time you watched a really emotional film, where the hero or heroine battles valiantly but ultimately fails, or the relief when they emerge triumphant. That sense of having a heightened emotional state is the reason we as humans watch these stories; we want that involvement, we want to experience lives other than our own, and catharsis is part of that process.

Ancient Greek theatre also set up particular practical tropes, some of which we would still recognise today. Actors wore costumes that clearly defined what type of character they were, and these costumes were supplemented by masks which also clearly defined the character and made them visible to all of the often vast audience. Also, because there were at most three actors but more than three speaking parts, it meant that actors could perform as one character, go off for a quick change and come on as another, showing their versatility and talent.

The temples changed into theatre spaces, with a circular stage area called the orchestra for the chorus and a raised stage area behind this for the actors with a wooden construction known as a skene (where we get our word ‘scene’ from) which was a type of low building housing various devices that the Greeks employed for special effects. The skene could also be painted as a backdrop. Ancient theatre was a time of invention and change, a time of what Chris Thorpe terms ‘pivotal moments’.

Chris Thorpe: I was reading recently of the origin of Deus Ex Machina, it being a plot device of the god who comes down and sorts everything out, referencing the fact that the actors who played gods were winched down onto the stage with an actual machine, and I guess that must have been a defining moment in theatre when it happened, that seeded a lot of things – not that the idea of Deus Ex Machina is a useful or a brilliant idea for theatre now, but these pivotal moments, that maybe you’re not even aware of, as I wasn’t aware of that, have given rise, because they worked, they subverted those conventions – those are the pivotal moments. The first time someone represented the death of a human being on stage. The first time someone represented a living politician on stage. The first time someone took words that had actually been spoken and put them on stage. The first time someone played film as part of a performance on stage. You can imagine pivotal moments in all of those ways.

And this is exactly why an understanding of the history of theatre matters. It is about finding those pivotal moments for yourself as a playwright, placing yourself in your moment in its history and using these pivotal moments to inform or change, or even help you create your own pivotal moments, thinking critically about what those moments meant in their own context and then using that understanding creatively through your writing.

It is clear to see how trends came and went – the tragedians were all active, and popular, years before the comic writers, whose work became perhaps more audience-friendly as time went on. But it is not only from vase paintings, scraps of plays, the odd complete play and the remains of theatres in Delphi or Epidaurus that we know about Greek theatre.

Suzanne Bell: If we really think back to: what is theatre? It is someone telling a story in front of a campfire to a group of people. If the story isn’t good enough, that person is either going to get told to shut up or they’re going to get pelted with rocks or people are just going to walk away from the campfire, and I think we forget about this sometimes. We forget that theatre is about communicating a story and why you want to communicate that story live, how you take that audience on a journey, how you tell that story – because it is still a story, it is still that campfire moment.

Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes and the Greeks [playwrights] then subsequently Aristotle and Plato’s writings, are still hugely influential. The Iliad came from an oral history, a storytelling tradition, so it was still like theatre, which makes it for me a defining historical moment.

One of the most enduring staples of theatre history is the section in Aristotle’s work Poetics where he talks about the three Unities. It may seem preposterous that over 2,500 years later we in theatre are still talking about some Ancient Greek bloke called Aristotle, but the fact remains that as a starting point for a writer new to theatre, the Unities are perhaps the best place.

So, what are these ‘Unities’? They are known as the Unity of Time, the Unity of Place and the Unity of Action. Many people who work in theatre and talk about the Unities perhaps have never read Poetics, perhaps have not even realised that they have not read Poetics, simply because it is something that is spoken about so often. What does it mean though? It means exactly what I have already been talking about in the Introduction and start of this chapter, namely, the live experience of storytelling happening now. For example, on TV or in ...