Dialogue In Theater

[Kayleigh Telega]

LaurenM. Gunderson is the Playwright-in-Residence at Marin Theater Company through the National Playwright Residency Program, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Find out more about her residency experience here, and learn about the impact of the program at large here.

This series of videos will be a collection of asking and answering that question in myriad ways. I will ask myself, my fellow theatre artists, social scientists, and community leaders. Sometimes the answer will be cultural (because art is good for you!), sometimes technical (because story has universal dramatic structure!), sometimes biological (because narrative is an ancient element of our human evolution!). I believe that it is the energetic and open asking and answering that keeps our art form relevant, responsive, and inspired.

The first video is a playwriting class on dialogue that I led at Marin in March 2017 that asks "Why Theatre?" to myself and roomful of playwrights aiming to make great new plays. This explores a technical answer to our question through playwriting technique and conversation.

So this is ostensibly a class about dialogue, which we will go into a lot, but any time you're talking about ... you can't really separate one element of a play from another. So it's all connected, and creates this coherence of a story. So when we're talking about dialogue, we're actually talking about structure, we're actually talking about character, we're actually talking about all that. But I actually love being able to hone in on one element, because I think it can remind you of a couple of ways that the specific things, when you focus on storytelling, can really bring up a lot of the delicate parts of storytelling, that if you focus on, and then you pull back out, to see the world of the story, they can be really complementary, and let you really hone your attention on something, one element, and I think it'll make all the other elements start to sing, too.

But you can't really talk about dialogue without talking about your voice. Not just the voice of the characters, but the kind of plays that you write. And that's something obviously I can't, and would never, want to tell you how to do. So we're gonna talk about a lot of things that are commonalities, patterns, you know, little things that I use to streamline my writing, and to inspire myself, take what you will of that, because it's all in service of what your goals are, storytelling-wise, but also your goal as an artist, and what your voice is, that's what's going to make your play exceptional and distinctive, and you! And also one that you can write. If you're trying to write like somebody else, you're never going to actually write it, and it's never going to be what you want it to be.

Especially in the world of dialogue, because everyone's going to do it differently, everyone thinks what normal speech is different, in some way, and I think we embrace that and as long as I can ask you, "Why did you write it in that way," and there's a reason, we're totally good. Whatever the reason is, as long as there's a reason for it, and it's not, "Because I wanted to sound like Tracy Letts," or "I was trying to put it in iambic pentameter, because it is cool." So, yeah, again, this is all ... whatever we're talking about here is your job to filter and apply it as you will.

But I wanted to start, before we go deep, to go to the very basics, we talked a little bit about this last time, the basics of why writing at all. And what I mean is, what you're writing about has to have such stakes, and such depth of reason and humanity to it, otherwise it's not going to be the kind of play that lasts. It might be good for a time. It might be interesting, or funny, or whatever, but finding the ultimate themes for you to write about is what's going to make it be the kind of important that it stays with people for a long time, past that moment. And I often have to go back to this question at the beginning of every single play, and remind myself the things worth writing about are the things that you yourself would die for, would lay your life down for. If it's a person, if it's a future you want or don't want to happen, if it's a thing to preserve or knock down. Those are the kind of things that are Shakespearean, that are Greek, that are so human that you can continue to mine those themes and circumstances to get the absolute best and deepest kind of play.

And that doesn't mean it can't be a comedy, and still address those deep, profound things, and a lot of them are love, life, pursuit of happiness, etc. And again, through your voice, and the filtering of what you want to do and say, that can be the newest story around, but it is the most ancient stuff, so reminding yourself of that, that yes you can have your romantic comedy, yes you can have something that's very plot-heavy, oh it's exciting, it's exciting, it's exciting! But if there isn't at least one moment in the play where most of the audience can be struck with, "That's my experience. I know that," or, "That is my biggest fear," or, "That's exactly the passion that I have always wanted to express." That's when you click into people, and it's a play that's worth doing, and worth doing again, and worth coming back to, and worth talking about, and really a play worth writing.

So reminding ... really talking to myself, as much as you, really reminding yourself why ... just the meat, and again, this can be ... I often say you can literally write a play about anything. The structure of it, the ingredients, the landscape of the play can be in Africa, right here, in a kitchen, on the moon, whatever. But if, again, that's actually not what you're writing about, is the location, and the interpersonal shenanigans of human beings, it's gotta be that big heart-gripping kind of stuff, and if that seems to be missing from your play, sometimes it's because we're taught plot, plot, plot, and structure, structure, structure. And characters, and they've gotta have snappy things to say, and get that act break, so it's really surprising.

But it actually doesn't matter, if you don't have that real beating heart. So think about that. And so the way we do that, and why this comes to dialogue. We have to create those scenes, to earn those scenes, somewhere in your play, probably in the second act-ish, two-thirds of the way through, three-fourths of the way through, when we've had some time to get to know everybody, we've had some time to juggle the conflicts, and have the plot, you know, that rising action to rise a bit, and we really earn that moment of naked humanity, of most vulnerability, the "I'm gonna tell the truth of my soul, that terrifies me to utter," and again, this can be a comedy. You can have that moment where they're admitting all of the things that they hate about themselves, and, of course, if it's a comedy, she says, "I love you anyway!" If it's not, going to the execution, or something.

But anyway, all of this is true, and all of these great Shakespeares, and all of these amazing American plays, Death of a Salesman, and A Raisin in the Sun, you know, when I think of those plays, I don't actually think of the plot, I can't even ... I mean, I can kind of tell you what happens. This person gets mad at that person, and that causes him to do this, and that's good playwriting, but what I remember is, you know, Mrs. Loman sitting at his grave, going, "Free, free, we're free, we're free." And dealing with that. That's, when I think of those plays, when I think of Raisin in the Sun, I think of the fight for self, against kind of bigotry, I can't remember who's doing what, you know what I mean? So that's just to say, these plays, the things that stick with us are those naked human moments.

But again, we have to design those, we have to earn those. And then once we've designed them, once we've gotten Lear on the heath, the storm, or realizing that Cordelia's dead, or Romeo finally getting alone with Juliet, you've arranged that scenario, you've got them together, the dialogue, and that's actually going to include the things you don't say, the things you do, the things you mean, the things your body languages tells us, as well as the other characters in the play. That's when you get to make it distinct.

If you just have Romeo and Juliet say, "I really really really love you," who cares? Who is this guy, go home, what are you talking about? He's gotta say it in a way that is funny, that is humble, that is totally grand, bigger than his britches. How does she respond? You know, again, if you think about that scene, he doesn't just show up, and is like, "Hey it's me, I like you too!" She doesn't even know he's there for half of it, and we see him go, "Oh my gosh, she likes me, wait, what do I do, what do I do, I'm gonna clap, I'm not gonna clap, that's a terrible idea, OK [will I clap 00:08:46], oh crap, now the nurse! Oh, crap, it's all messed up." Right, so it's this combustion of elements that make that scene so unique and unforgettable.

So you can do that with anything, with grief, with revenge, with whatever. But if you get to that scene, you've created that space, you've aimed the story for that great moment, and you kind of just let it happen, you've missed the opportunity to do that thing that's gonna make it so memorable, and so you. So how do you grieve in a new way? Again, we know that emotion, that emotion is basic, everybody in the audience is going to have some access to whatever that scene is, or they're like, "God, I want to kill that guy," feeling, but how do you say it, how do you use words and not words to convey it? That's your opportunity. And yes, it can sound a little overwhelming when you say it like that, but for me, that's the giddy part. How do I write a love confession that is unlike anything that's been written before? And it might have no words to it. It might have a song, it might have this massive amount of poetry. It might be a string of curse words, I don't know, we can make that work, whatever you want!

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