Over the course of reading dialogues for the first day of class, i've discovered that, for me at least, there's a fine line between what I like and what I don't. It's difficult for me to explain why I like something, especially for this exercise. For one thing, dialogues are much more limited than monologues in my opinion. You can't just say to someone you're talking to(no matter how close you are to them) " I suddenly feel depressed and anxious because of my life" without the person thinking you're crazy and the audience thinking you don't know how to write. What you can say then, depends on what one would be able to say in normal conversation, most of the time not involving heart-wrenching revelations or admittances of your innermost feelings. On one hand, I think that to be difficult. You can't just come out and say something. On the other hand, it seems interesting.Like in so many of the dialogues here, you have to talk around something, using the characters' power of the spoken word to convey your message. Often what the characters are saying has nothing to do with what they're talking about directly(take Orphans, for example, I was quite confused as to what was going on the entire time) but in some way, what is happening to the other story of the other characters relates, or reveals something that you wouldn't have seen otherwise. I wasn't sure at first, but i've decided I like this, simply because of the realness of it. I definitely will try this in my monologues I think.
Another thing that I liked quite a bit while reading the monologues was when one character did essentially all of the talking and the other character just said, " Yes" or "No". I think the ability of those two words to say more than an entire page of monologue ever could is quite interesting(for example, in Closer) and demonstrates how a lot of actual "fights" go(very different from the dramatic yelling and screaming that usually happens in movies). One thing i'm trying desperately to stay away from in this is constantly talking about Shakespeare, because I love him, but could never hope to emulate him and will make myself crazy trying :).
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There are always useful lessons in Shakespeare, Jessica, so go for it. Just do it with an eye towards what you can emulate and what you cannot. What might be helpful is pinpointing what works for you about Shakespeare that isn't to do with his language (which you can't match), conventions of his stage very different than your own (different time and place), or stories (not really his anyway though if something strikes you there, use it).
ReplyDeleteYou've pinpointed the trick here -- it's harder here than with monologues to just have a character tell the audience what it needs to know, but it's easier to reveal things about other characters. That's strange but often true -- person A will be talking about him/herself but actually communicating info about person B. It's not easy, but it does buy you intrigue and the attention of your audience -- something you have to constantly fight for in monologue form. So it's a good tradeoff.
I like and agree with the idea of talking "around" something. It happens in life all the time, and can work so well on stage. The revelations are not from exactly what their subject is, but how they say it, what they choose not to say, and how they phrase what they do.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with the power of short replies. They can convey so much that a long winded speech would not do justice to, and the audience can get the entire emotional impact with a few words.
The "yes/no" technique I would guess, is often misunderstood. Writers may automatically assume that a lot has to be said in a short amount of time, in order to express a characters emotions or thoughts. They don't seem to give actors enough credit. Let them read the whole story, and they'll know whether that "no" needs to be jokey, painful, or neutral. The particular emphases on these individual words tell stories by themselves.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the idea of talking around something as well. You can say a lot about a character just by talking about where they've been or what they've been doing. especially in a scene where they dont want the other one to know about where they've been or what their doing. I agree with Laurie as well, if you love shakespeare go for it! Just because we all know we will probably never be a Shakespeare, that doesn't mean that we can't learn from him.
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