Building Your Play: Theory and Practice for the Beginning Playwright (review)

In the introduction to Building Your Play: Theory and Practice for the Beginning Playwright, David Rush details two underlying assumptions of his playwriting textbook, the first being an emphasis on the word "beginning": "This book is primarily designed for the beginning playwright, somebody who has probably been in a few plays, has worked backstage once or twice, read plays, and in general loves theater" (1). Despite an emphasis on "very basic ideas," Rush hopes to serve advanced writers as well, providing a "great refresher" and "a way to reconnect with some of those elementary steps that we often forget are extremely important" (1). "Think of it as baking a cake," he analogizes. "The beginner needs to know the difference between, say, a tablespoon and a teaspoon. The advanced baker knows the difference, but when the cake goes flat, she needs to go back to the recipe to make sure she's used the right measure" (1–2).

Rush's second underlying assumption is manifest in the arrangement and content of the book's chapters. Approaching the craft of playwriting from a self-proclaimed "mixed point of view" (3), his chapters incorporate dramatic theory—defining terms, discussing critical precepts, and analyzing plays in the abstract—and practical application, operating, as the author claims, "in some ways like a recipe book" (3). With a goal of teaching the beginner not only how to write a play, but how to understand what their dramaturgically minded choices mean and why they mean, Building Your Play is divided into three sections: "The Fundamentals," "Putting Them Together," and "Some Advanced Tricks." Individual chapters within these sections first offer concepts, and then provide writing exercises designed to engage the student playwright in putting the concepts to work. For example, in a chapter titled "The Four Keys," after a theoretical discussion of the concept of character and volition, Rush provides nursery rhymes, asking students to identify the "agent of action" in "Little Miss Muffet" and "Goosey Goosey Gander" (27). In a later chapter, "The Exposition Pig," an abstract discussion of plot and exposition is followed by this exercise:

Consider the following facts:

—Steve is twenty-five years old, and today is his birthday.

—When he was ten, he stole a watch from his father's friend.

—Steve is applying for a job as a bank teller.

—His sister is getting married in three months.

—Steve used to be a boy scout.

Write a short play in which you somehow manage to bring all these facts into the present action.

(127)

Such exercises—designed as fun challenges for the young playwright, allowing him/her a sense of mastery over complex dramaturgical concepts—reveal an understanding of not only the core principles of dramatic theory underlying the traditional "well-made play," but also the design of an apt pedagogy for the beginning playwriting student.

"Part One: The Fundamentals" covers what Rush refers to as the "four building blocks." Defining a play through a developing series of "Operating Definitions"—a play is "something that happens to a person," which evolves into "a play is a specific event that takes place over a finite unit of time in which a significant change takes place either within a central character, or a larger situation, or both" (13–15)—Rush breaks down the definition into component parts, focusing on issues of character volition, motive/goal, obstacles that impede the character's goal, and strategies that the character develops to reach her/his goal.

"Part Two: Putting Them Together" begins with a chapter on plotting, which moves from a wonderfully accessible analysis of Aristotle's Poetics to Freytag's pyramid of dramatic structure. Another chapter, titled "The Miniplay," makes the argument that not only do "the four key elements"—"agent of action, goal, obstacles, and strategies—"appear over the play as a whole; they also appear within each individual moment of the play" (78). The section's final chapter is focused on what Rush calls "the dramatic...