DRAMATICS â¢ NOVEMBER 2005

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THE SCRIPT Conflict and objectives SECOND OF TWO PARTS BY BRUCE MILLER AS ACTORS, it is essential that we understand the story of the play we are performing because ultimately it is our job to make choices that will tell that story well. In fact, telling the story of the play is an actor’s primary job. A playwright who knows her craft will meticulously plan how her story is to be told. The elements of a good story work together like gears of a fine watch. When it’s time to translate what’s on the page to what is to be done on the stage, we actors, charged with fulfilling the playwright’s vision, must make choices that tell her story effectively. Think about the last time you tried to tell someone the story of the great movie you just saw. It’s not easy, is it? Though the story of the film was all clear to you when you saw it, it’s very difficult to get all of the details right, and to deliver them to the listener in an order that makes it possible for him to understand the unfolding story. If you have ever suffered through a story told by an excited friend who has no talent for storytelling, you know just what I mean. Forgotten or misplaced details fly at you like random machine gun fire. It’s hard to tell what’s important and what’s not, and how the events of the narrative fit together. The story’s disorganized presentation keeps it from being clear or compelling. The good storyteller knows how to keep the story ticking along clearly and in a sequence that works for the listener. The good storyteller also knows how to build the tension and keep you asking “what will happen next?” If you are to do your job effectively as an actor, you must know the storytelling gears and understand how they work together effectively. In the first installment of this twopart article on script analysis, we began our examination of a play to identify the following elements: • The given circumstances. The who, what, when, and where of the play. The more specifically you define them, the more specific your choices will become. Choices that are specific are more likely to be clear and compelling than generalized ones. • Story. The narrative that unfolds when character, plot, and dialogue are combined, producing a particular effect, feeling, idea, or all three. • Arc or throughline. A map of the journey a character makes through a story. It can be literal or figurative in that it marks the changes a character undergoes during the course of the action and provides moments that are dramatic and revealing. • Conflict. The engine of drama, created when the opposing forces that make a story interesting square off. • Objective. What the character needs and pursues at all times, resulting from the conflict the playwright creates. • Moments. Specific islands of import in the story’s progression or arc; places in the script where moments can be made, revealed, and/or portrayed dramatically. Victories, defeats, and discoveries are often made there. • Physical actions. The things the actor chooses to do physically to make thought and feelings clear. Last month we began an analysis of the ten-minute play Eukiah by Lanford Wilson. We accumulated a detailed set of given circumstances, outlined the story, and scored the chronological cause-and-effect sequence of actions from beginning to end. Our examination was based on the premise that everything a playwright puts into his script is there for a reason, and our ability as actors to effectively use what is in that script will help us make choices that are compelling to watch and that will help tell the story in the most effective way. As we continue, we will take a closer look at the actions contained in the story. I think we will find that those actions are painstakingly laid out by the playwright, not unlike railroad tracks that will take us to a predetermined destination. When we follow the railroad tracks the playwright has laid down, we are much more likely to serve both the story and ourselves as actors than if we tried to make our own path to the end. In this article we are going to focus on the conflict found in the play and figure out its relationship to the characters’ objectives. We will then analyze the script for possible objectives to play, and then apply those chosen objectives to the script directly. Ultimately, we want to be able to divide the play into beats, using objectives and tactics. This will allow us to score NOVEMBER 2005 • DRAMATICS
the story contained in the script and reveal who the characters are through the actions we choose to play and how we play them. First let’s read the play again on the following pages. Conflict Even though you looked very closely at the text last time, your understanding of the machinery of the action is still missing an important ingredient. This ingredient is the catalyst that will insure the story you tell will be a good one. It is conflict, which is often referred to as the engine of drama. The action of any play centers around its conflict. Invariably the characters in the story are forced to choose a course of action that is intended to resolve the conflict, and the conflict will continue to fuel the action until it is finally resolved. In most stories, the main conflict comes from the opposition of characters who somehow stand in each other’s way. The basic conflicts possible in a story include person versus person, person versus himself, (an internal conflict), or in rarer cases, person versus nature. Keeping that in mind, see if you can determine the answers to the following questions about Eukiah: • What conflicts are found in the play? • Which of these conflicts is most important? Why and how? • What are the connections between the conflicts in the story and its two characters? How do these conflicts generate the action of the play? The action in Eukiah has one central conflict from which all the action originates. Butch wants to eliminate the problem created when Eukiah overhears a conversation about Butch’s insurance scheme, and Eukiah wants to keep his beloved horses safe. These goals are in stark opposition to each other because Eukiah will not permit the horses to be destroyed for insurance money. In addition to this central conflict, Eukiah goes through a series of internal conflicts generated by Butch’s tactics, which keep shifting the way Eukiah perceives the situation. DRAMATICS • NOVEMBER 2005 As with so much of the analysis process, there are no absolute correct answers; there are only answers that work best to tell the story of the play and your character. Eukiah, the character, might be said to have both internal and person versus person conflicts. Though he will do anything to save his horses, his wit is no match for Butch’s. Butch keeps finding new ways to cast doubt on Eukiah’s resolve, and each time Butch pitches something new, Eukiah must not only fend off Butch, but must resolve his own conflicting internal desires as well. Though he wants to protect his horses, he doesn’t want to be thought of as half-witted. He doesn’t want to hold up dinner. He would like to hear about Butch’s date, and he certainly doesn’t want to lose Butch’s friendship. In short, for a kid with limited mental skills, Eukiah has a lot to think through. It is these internal conflicts that ultimately weaken his resolve and eventually undo him. And that, significantly, is what allows Butch to achieve his goal. Butch, on the other hand, must listen at all times, analyze what seems to be working and what does not, and make adjustments accordingly. But he never veers from his overall objective: to seduce Eukiah out of hiding so that the problem he is causing can be eliminated permanently. The playwright has given Butch many tactics to use on Eukiah. It will be up to the actor to show the audience when one of his tactics succeeds or fails, and to make clear the transition from one tactic to the next as he observes his moment-by-moment successes and failures with Eukiah. Notice how talking about conflict automatically leads to a discussion of objective. Just in case you are unfamiliar or fuzzy about the term, an objective (also referred to as intention, need, want, goal, or action) is the prize an actor as character must pursue at all times. Unlike in life, where we often carry out actions without realizing why we’re doing them, an actor must make choices for his character even when the character may not consciously be doing so. By playing a specific objective, and constantly pursuing tactics to achieve it, the actor as character is able to find effective choices and to commit to them. This process of choosing allows the actor to avoid random actions that do not contribute to the story. The strong choices that result from playing objectives guarantee that the story will be served. Since any story is based on conflict, and in a play that conflict consists of an actor’s objective pitted against an opposing force, it follows that by playing an objective at all times, the actor will be serving the needs of the script. Tactics If you accept the analysis laid out above, then you are ready to go back to the script and examine it more closely. So far we have identified the overall objectives of the two characters, but we haven’t yet begun to define the tactics that are used. Let is say you are playing Butch, a richly textured character who tries first one tactical gambit, then another and another and another. If you can define this character’s tactics very specifically, your work will become the more nuanced and you will be able to show many more colors about him. You may have heard a performance described as “one-level.” This description usually refers to an actor who has stuck to a single choice for smaller objectives or tactics, resulting in a one-dimensional character. Eukiah is the more reactive of the two characters in the play, and because of his limited mental powers much of his stage time will be taken up with listening. It will be up to the actor playing this role to define the places in the script where what Butch says has particular resonance for him and to react accordingly. As Butch’s arguments score points with Eukiah, the boy begins to change his objectives. It will be up to the actor to demonstrate why he begins to talk, why he comes out of hiding, and why he chooses to move closer to Butch. When is it that coming out of hiding to talk to Butch becomes
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