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Literary Arts - Articles |
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By
Che’Rae Adams
Blog Entry #2-“Theatre of Angst?”
I just came back from a play reading about
five clowns trapped in a jail cell.
Although the play had it’s humorous moments,
such as the secret clown hand shake, I was
surprised and a bit put off by the amount of
angst in the piece. For example, the play opens
with one of the clowns screaming at God,
expressing his disapproval for the job he has
done and even goes as far as to say that he
hates God. The actor was great, the director
too, but the uneasy text just did not work.
Angst is a interesting dramaturgical element. It
rarely works, and when it does, it takes a very
skilled writer to pull it off.
What happened to the Angsty Girl?
When I was in college, I loved to do shows that
had lots of agony in them. We all did right?
College was our rebellious time, when plays like
Hair, Spring Awakening, Orphans and Getting Out
seemed really cool. We got to express ourselves,
complain out loud and in front of other people.
Our parents might even have been in the audience
and therefore hear our passive aggressive cry
for help and stop suppressing us!
I honestly think I am too old for angst now.
What happened to the rebellious college kid of
yesteryear? I liked her! She had passion, spunk,
and seemed tireless! She directed and starred in
shows that said “Bleep You society!” and “Take
that world!”-shows like Look Back in Anger and
Shadow Box which featured female characters who
were strong, independent, and didn’t take
anybody’s crap! Where did she go? I think she
grew up and became someone who wanted to mount
shows with some iota of hope in them.
For example, last year I directed a show for The
Syzygy Theatre Company called Tender. The play
was offered to another director before me who
turned it down because he felt it was too
depressing-too full of angst. I accepted the job
because when I read it, I saw a play about a
group of young Londoners who are all searching
for some tenderness in their very difficult,
lonely, stressful lives. Sounds angsty right?
Not when Abby Morgan writes it. Abby is a gifted
and skilled writer who does not focus on the
angst and complaints of her characters, but
instead focus’ on what her characters are hungry
for and the lengths they will go to get it. The
angst therefore comes out of action, instead of
being thrown into dialogue without any action
backing it up. And although the play ends with a
couple breaking up, an affair revealed and a
friendship ending, it still manages to end with
a degree of hope.
Suggestions to make sure your angst is connected
to action
Exercise #1-Look for the “Action and Objective”
Action is what the character does to get what
they want and the objective is what the
character wants. For example, in Hamlet, the
title character wants to prove to himself that
Claudius killed the king (so that he can seek
revenge for his father’s murder with a clear
conscience). He does many things to achieve this
objective, and his actions change depending on
the scene.
Each angsty scene in your play or screenplay
should have an action and an objective in order
to be effective. You may ask, why do my scenes
need action? First, because “drama” is the Greek
word for “action”. But also because I believe
that action is what an actor needs in order to
play a scene. I don’t believe that an actor can
play an emotion, or a situation, or an
atmosphere. Actors also need an objective for
their character or the scene will fall short. If
you can not find an action and objective, then
your angsty scene needs to be rewritten.
Exercise #2: Find the Function
The other trick to check whether or not your
angsty scene works is to take a look at the
scenes in your script and discover what it’s
function is — that is, how the scene serves the
story. The function of a scene is the reason the
scene is in the play, the purpose it serves in
moving the story forward. For example, the
function of the Ghost scene in Hamlet is to
plant doubt in Hamlet’s mind—perhaps his father
did not die of natural causes. I have to admit
that sometimes the function of the scene is a
device used by the playwright. For example, the
purpose of the gravedigger scene in Hamlet is to
provide some comic relief at a time in the
script when Ophelia has died, Hamlet has been
banished, and there is nothing but despair in
the kingdom.
Finding the function of each scene can be a
useful tool, because if the scene does not serve
the story, you might want to ask yourself
whether you need it at all. It doesn’t matter
how brilliant the dialogue is, how witty you
think the moment is, how much your ego is
involved in the writing. If it does not serve
the story, let it go.
Well, that is my angsty diatribe about angst.
Form does follow function afterall.
(Che’Rae Adams is the Producing Artistic
Director of the LA Writers Center which is
located at the Lankershim Arts Center. She
offers writing workshops on Tuesday nights at
the Center. For more information call
323-878-0442 or email
cheraeadams@sbcglobal.net)
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