Building Your Play: Theory and Practice for the Beginning Playwright

5. Strategies

 5 Strategies Red is out picking roses. It started off as a nice sunny day with no obstacles in view.Suddenly,obstacles appear.Her brother starts to fling mud pies at her. Or it starts to rain. Or she can’t find her scissors.Or her childhood fear of sharp thorns starts to bother her. Which one or ones should we choose? Well,we know we want to choose one or more that best reveal her character. For now, let’s assume we want Red to be a smart and pleasant person who isn’t afraid of anything. So perhaps her bratty brother. Let’s choose that for now, since it’s always better to involve another character. Now, the question to consider is: How will Red overcome this obstacle? How will she convince her brother to go back in the house where he belongs? We are now in the category of strategies —those schemes and plans your agent of action undertakes to get what she wants. How many strategies do you need? Where do they come from? How do you best use them? We’ll answer these questions one at a time, but first please notice that, just like goals and obstacles, strategies come in many sizes; you might say that the “size” of the strategy pretty much depends on the “size” of the obstacle it is dealing with. Thus, Dorothy sets up a very large strategy in order to get home—she has to befriend the Wizard. However, when she is faced with the Tin Woodman’s rustiness, her strategy is relatively quick and immediate: she reaches for the oil can. 5XVK3W&KLQGG $0  STRATEGIES (Hopefully, this will be easy, and she won’t discover that a charm has been placed on the oil can that lets it be lifted only if you speak the magic words—in which case Dorothy has a whole new obstacle, requiring a whole different set of strategies.). So, Red picking roses seems a small goal and might just call for a few strategies. We’ll see as we go along. Strategies Reveal Character Just as selecting the right goal and the right obstacles helps reveal character, so does selecting the right strategies. How characters go about getting what they want is as revealing as knowing what they want and what they have to fight to get it. Dorothy chooses to obey the dictates of Glinda and travel to Emerald City, rather than to organize the Munchkins into a rebellious army of guerillas . She chooses to tame the Lion and make him an ally, rather than to lead the Scarecrow and Tin Man in a fight against him. In Othello, notice that every single strategy Iago chooses to achieve his goal and to overcome the obstacles he meets are dark, immoral, treacherous, and downright bad. Of course, this is intentional , since Shakespeare intends him to be evil personified. But take a look at Amanda, in The Glass Menagerie. Her major goal is to make sure that Laura is provided for. Amanda’s first strategy, before the play opens, appears to have been to enroll Laura in business school so that she can learn an employable skill. This, of course, fails, since Laura gets sick in class and drops out. So Amanda is now faced with creating new strategies. What does she do? She tries to find Laura a husband. A romantic , somewhat idealistic and almost silly idea, but very characteristic of Amanda. But now consider what she does not do: Any number of things that a more realistic and practical person might attempt, such as getting Laura counseling, homeschooling her, enrolling her in another program, or teaching Laura how to sell magazines by phone (as Amanda herself does). Of course, if Amanda had chosen any of these, it would be a very different play. And that, of course, is the point. Now, what about Red and her miserable sibling? She might choose several strategies, each showing us a different person. What 5XVK3W&KLQGG $0  THE FUNDAMENTALS if she bribes him with candy? What if she calls and complains to mom? What if she ignores him? What if she seduces him? What if she kills him? Exercise 5:1 Consider a character who wants to graduate college with highest honors. What sort of strategies might be generated by each of the following personalities? 1. A deceitful, ambitious person 2...