Out of Joint Writer’s Academy: Last but not least

I’ve been attending classes at Salisbury Playhouse about how to write for the stage. It’s been great fun, developing familiar story techniques, whilst introducing concepts alien to film, like how to use intervals. In our final class before Christmas, we read through scenes our class had written, with Max Stafford Clark directing.

I must admit I had no clue who Max was until a bit of goggling after the session. I could tell he was a professional with years of experience under his belt. He had a set of playing cards which he used to give actors directions, such as how much characters expressed their hated of each other out of ten. His techniques helped actors improvise off the scripts, and with this example, forced two characters meeting to discuss a lover in common, to say amiable lines with an air of pure dislike. The subtext became extra juicy.

Max has directed many plays, such as Our Country’s Good by Timberlake Wertenbake, and going by his bio page on the Out-of-Joint website (his own touring company) he’s helped new writers get plays on the stage. 

This session certainly gave our writers sweaty palms. It was the first time many of us had heard each others plays, and the material was very interesting. One of my favorite pieces, simply for the fun we had reading it, felt like a student film, with a stoner and his geeky friend discovering a pigeon in the middle of their kitchen table.

After the first read, Max  established rules for a second reading. The stoner would have to laugh at various points, and the geek would have to cry. The results were fascinating. As the two characters debated what to do with the feathered carcass, they suddenly became two very different people. The stoner became laid back, carefree and fun, whilst the geek became distraught and anxious about who delivered the morbid gift. The conflict maximized as the two characters had a distinct point of view. All from a little bit of laughter, and a few tears.

I’m not saying the scene worked better due to the actors or the director alone, the lines and the conflict were already established on the page. What Max did, was emphasise the conflict already within the scene. This shows how pushing characters to their extremes can really make your scene sing, and perhaps if the writer rewrites with this in mind, can enhance the script and dialogue without Max’s directions. 

The scenes all had something in common, something I’ve been grappling with for a while. The scenes were all character driven. Before, I’ve struggled to understand this, and instead of developing character, have created more twists, reveals and external conflicts to prevent a character reaching a goal. My scenes have been plot heavy (not that plot is a bad thing, I'm just trying to work out how to write a scene with more focus on character, mainly because for me it's uncharted territory).

What these scripts all cleverly did, was establish two distinct characters from two different points of view, a wife and an ex-wife of the same man, a laid-back stoner and his anxious friend, and set-up a single plot point, the wife and ex-wife meet before the man arrives, the stoner and his friend discover a pigeon. And that’s all. The rest of the scene explored the implications of the plot point. Will the two women stay civil, or both turn against the husband? What will the two friends do with the pigeon, and will this instability affect their relationship? All the comedy, and all the subtext came out of the interaction between the two characters, and relied solely upon one incident to drive the scene. 

At least, that’s how I viewed the scripts. I think if anything, these classes have opened my eyes to new ways of storytelling, and perhaps now when I rewrite my scene for Max to read in February, I can make something just as entertaining as all the other writers who read today.