Dialogue In Drama

[Lenora Rademacher]

CassieGonzales, Creative Writing Fellow at Emory University and overall creative fiction badass, introduced a simple rubric for evaluating all dialogue in literature, film, and your everyday interactions with friends and family.

I have just tried applying that setting to the Character style in a Radio play format. I turned Page View on and with all my tinkering I have been unable to get a Character name as the last line on a page: it always goes onto the next page with the dialogue.

On the other side of the table, I've worked in Hollywood development as a studio script reader and story analyst. I've also read hundreds of more scripts through mentorships and as a competition reader and judge. All while trying to ingest the story and characters and see and hear them through my mind's eye in cinematic fashion.

You have high concept roller coaster ride scripts that use the dialogue to get through the exciting and sometimes harrowing sequences of action, mystery, thrills, scares, or hijinks. Where the dialogue merely works as a bridge to get you from one point to another.

Naturalistic dialogue is nothing more than an academic term. A label for something that really has no true definition. There is no such thing as realistic or naturalistic dialogue in film. It's fiction.

The old screenwriting go-to practice found in guru manuals and declarations is to go out into the world and just listen. "Then, and only then, will you find the dialogue you should be writing." It is an absurd notion because if you were to record the average coffee shop discussion, the average bar atmosphere exchange between friends, or even the average moments between lovers on a date, you'd be playing back the audio file only to transcribe what would read as often disturbing and confusing gibberish.

We're human. And human communication is odd when the words are not predetermined through a script, social media post, article, or written speech. While actually speaking, we interrupt each other. We pause. We redirect. We go off on tangents. We add an annoying amount of ums and ahs and likes. We lose track of what we were saying. We get nervous and stop or mutter on and on and on.

Dialogue is written to tell a story and to convey various reactions and emotions. And it is also meant to convey information, whether we screenwriters want to admit it or not. There's no such thing as naturalistic dialogue in a screenplay. It doesn't and shouldn't exist within.

Berg let his actors make the characters come to life. There was a script, but much of the time, the actors were given the scenario and the goals of the characters, but with little dialogue to truly follow. Instead, they'd take those scene notes and improvise their own dialogue while telling the story that needs to be told.

Actions speak louder than words. Ironically, when we're told to search the world around us for realistic dialogue, we quickly realize that if we are truly going to convey realistic communication, we must realize that we learn the emotions of others not by direct language exchange, but by our outward actions and reactions.

The second and final key to unlocking the secret of writing great dialogue is to understand that there is no secret. There is no one final answer. And the moment you the screenwriter realizes that will be the moment that you'll feel a heavy weight lifted from your shoulders.

Many books have been written, many declarations have been made, and many seminars, webinars, and videos have all attempted to tackle this subject. But having been on both sides of the screenwriting table, I'm convinced that the screenwriter should focus less on what has come before and more on what their particular scripts call for when it comes to dialogue.

He has many studio meetings under his belt as a produced screenwriter, meeting with the likes of Sony, Dreamworks, Universal, Disney, Warner Brothers, as well as many production and management companies. He has had a previous development deal with Lionsgate, as well as multiple writing assignments, including the produced miniseries Blackout, starring Anne Heche, Sean Patrick Flanery, Billy Zane, James Brolin, Haylie Duff, Brian Bloom, Eric La Salle, and Bruce Boxleitner. Follow Ken on Twitter @KenMovies

And what makes for good dialogue? We agreedthat verbatim speech patterns were a no-go and that dialogue must be a stylisedversion of reality. Dialogue that moves the plot forward, deepens understandingof character or reveals something previously unknown was key.

I do not wish to suggest that every director who has ever spoken of a vision for a production is abusive or non-collaborative. The world and the theatre are complex and subjective. What I mean to point out is some of the insidious implications of commonly used language and ways of thinking about directing. Our attitudes toward and expectations of the director must change and language is a powerful tool to aid that transformation.

A great vision for a production of Hamlet might be understood solely in relation to the text: What cool new thing can be done with this canonical work? What might a director do to or impose upon the text? A great listening of Hamlet would involve receptivity to what the text offers, certainly, but also receptivity to what is in contemporary culture that makes Hamlet an important story in a particular time and place. It would also invite the question of whether or not it is, in fact, important. Listening opens up the frame of reference from an internally focused, novelty-seeking theatre to a reflexively situated theatre able to engage in broad cultural dialogue.

But what about leadership? As an artist and a leader, a director must have a voice and something to say with it. Good dialogue cannot consist of listening alone but must involve considered response and, at some point, instigation. Directors must listen to themselves and their unique understanding of, relationship with, and connection to a piece if they are to bring themselves into meaningful dialogue with their collaborators and with audiences. This listening to self, however, is not the same as imposing a vision onto something (a playscript, a creative team, an audience). A vision is absolute, messianic, aggrandizing of the director-as-prophet, and leaves little room for dialogue.

As artists, we must have the courage to explore what we do not yet know and even what we are not yet sure is possible. Importantly, this is as true in the rehearsal hall as it is on the stage. Our artistic aims must be brave, but so too must our ambitions for how we achieve those aims in ethical ways.

A shift in focus from enacting a vision to listening and dialogue will, at the very least, attune directors to the forces at work and affect the tone of leadership, altering what is considered acceptable.

Understanding the primary duty of a director to be listening rather than visioning does not negate the fundamentally important work of directors in contemporary theatre. Directors can still be artistic leaders who work to shape a theatrical experience for an audience. Focusing on listening does, however, expand the possibilities of how that can and should look and feel. Importantly, it expands these possibilities in the direction of equity, openness, relationality, and collaboration.

Some of these works are referenced directly in the article above while some are not. Some are clearly about directing and others less so. All, however, are works that have influenced my thinking. Unfortunately, some of these are published in academic journals, which are behind paywalls. These may be accessible only via a library or educational institution. I have included as many as possible that are publicly available.

Note: I owe special thanks to Elizabeth Hobbs whose directing practice so inspires my own. It is in intense conversation with her that so many of these ideas were challenged, refined, and ultimately took shape.

It's 2021 and we're amid multiple pandemics that are revealing the structural failures, challenges, and opportunities facing the nonprofit theatre. Where do we go from here? What are we bringing with us through the portal, and what are we making anew? The Devising Our Future series asks theatremakers to consider a future theatre field where resources and power are shared equitably in all directions, contributing to a more just and sustainable world. This series is curated by HowlRound Theatre Commons as part of our tenth anniversary celebration.

As I have reflected on this essay in the more than a year since its publication, it has become clear to me that I have neglected to acknowledge an influence that deeply informed its writing, though not always consciously. Yvette Nolan was probably the first person to suggest to me and, more importantly, to model how a director's vision might not be their central responsibility. Yvette's influence on my thinking (and on so many others) is incredible and I wish to publicly acknowledge and honour it.

Only when at least these questions can be answered can a vision be crafted. Then, I think this is where you interest kicks in. The best directors know who to enchant, engage and provoke our collaborators in alignment with that vision. I think we do this by any means necessary. My concern with your point discounting vision is that it risks turning director into traffic cops-concerned only with staging. Even our role as editors requires vision so that there is a touchstone for the process.

In our efforts to get to more equity, we are falling prey to a skepticism about all forms of power; At the precise moment that woman and global majority folks are coming to positions of power. Power is suddenly always a bad thing.

Without a clear vision, we are giving up one of the tools for communicating with the audience. I appreciate your thinking but disagree with you about the utility of vision as a real an useful tool for directors.

No worries about my name. I have so many of them that they are often misspelled.

I completely agree that we are talking about human beings. I do, however, disagree with the notion that process and product are inextricable and/or the same. I have seen many productions where the artists involved felt great, seen and heard and the work itself was vapid, thin and self-reverential.

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