The actor is first person to get blamed for a scene that falls flat. This is unfair.
Few things can ruin a scene like a poorly timed line. I was reminded of this a few nights ago while watching a performance of my own play. More than a few of my lines were real turkeys. My apologies to the cast.
This is why I think short dialog is better. Or at least harder to screw up. If you really listen to the way Americans talk in conversation, our sentences rarely break ten words or so.
The human ear is an amazingly sensitive instrument. If you’re of the realist school, as I am, 95% of the play is rhythm. It’s the playwright’s job to create dialog that sings. If so much as one syllable is out of place, he or she is setting the actor up for a stumble. If the actor manages to keep his or her composure, the audience will still hear it and be distracted.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Lou Quillio // Sep 21, 2008 at 1:43 am
That’s right. Spoken narrative isn’t sentences or an arrangement of words. It’s a signal. A wave.
Better to describe your concept of characters and scenes in preamble notes, and let the scripted lines flow forward from those rules. The idea that a playwright’s intent must be communicated to producers and performers and audience solely by genius lines of printed dialog is impractical and affected.
Shakespeare didn’t know he was Shakespeare, and didn’t write “literature”. He sought good and profitable shows. However that’s best made to happen is everything.
Clear signal. There’s nothing else.
LQ
2 John Luther // Sep 21, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Absolutely. People (usually playwrights) often forget that theater is an interpretive art. It’s like music. The notes are there, but there are infinite ways to play them.
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