Building Your Play: Theory and Practice for the Beginning Playwright

7. The Miniplay

 7 The Miniplay The first part of this book examined four key elements that are involved in every plot: agent of action, goal, obstacles, and strategies . Our discussion of the Freytag pyramid uncovered how a plot is laid out over the whole course of the play: that is, how the agent of action continually uses new strategies to deal with obstacles as they appear, in order to achieve her goal. What’s important to note now is that not only do these four key elements appear over the play as a whole; they also appear within each individual moment of the play itself. Indeed, every time a crisis appears, the agent of action has to generate a new goal in order to get around it;this crisis has its own obstacles and strategies. Also recall, when we examined goals, we noted that every single moment in a play is essentially a negotiation between two characters, in which A tries to convince B to do something. So in a real and very important sense, we can safely say that every single moment in a well-made play is a sort of small play in itself. Which is why I call it a miniplay. So we are safe and logical in stating that a full-length play is really nothing so much as a series of miniplays—some long, some short—following one another in a chain that carries us from beginning to end. Again, actors know this as they search to uncover what’s really going on beneath every line they speak. Let’s see how this works on the smallest level possible. 5XVK3W&KLQGG $0  THE MINIPLAY I say to my friend, “Steve, please help me move this brick off my foot!” Where are the four keys? Well, clearly I am the agent of action. I want to get Steve to help me get the brick off my foot (goal). We can assume Steve is not being very helpful (obstacle) because I have to beg him (strategy). How long does this miniplay last? Well, that depends on several factors. How easy is it to convince Steve? How stubborn is he being? If he responds to my line with “Fine, here we go,” I’ve accomplished my goal and the miniplay is over. If, however, he says “No, never, never, never. I hate you and want to see you trapped there while the rising tide washes over your helpless body and drowns you!” then I have a slightly longer play to deal with. Because the obstacle is so hard, I may have to generate more strategies. I may have to offer him money, threaten him with my pocket knife, cry and plead for mercy, or summon my superpowers from Zeus and free myself. (However, if I try the last and Zeus says, “No, not today,” I have another miniplay to deal with.) Again, think of a brick house. Or a DNA chain. Both are self-contained in their own right and also part of a larger structure . Houses are made of bricks working together: organisms are made of cells containing DNA chains working together. When there’s a dull moment in your play, you have done the equivalent of putting a very large marshmallow in the middle of a row of bricks on your house. So, plays are made of miniplays working together. Sometimes, as we’ve said, they follow each other. And sometimes one small miniplay might be buried inside a slightly larger miniplay, which in turn is inside one even larger. Let’s examine in detail what they are and then see how to make them work. And let’s go back to Othello. (All quotes are from the Pelican edition of The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice, edited by Russ McDonald, 2001.) We’ve seen that, on one level, the entire play is about Iago’s destruction of Othello. It is a complete dramatic action that takes nearly five full acts to complete. But let’s look for miniplays. Look at the first few speeches of the opening scene: Iago and Roderigo are quarreling. They’ve previously made an arrangement by which 5XVK3W&KLQGG $0  PUTTING THEM TOGETHER Iago would secure Desdemona for Roderigo. It hasn’t been working out, and Roderigo wants his money back. Iago has to talk the man out of his anger and return him to their plan...