p.13

2

QUESTIONS ASKED AND ANSWERED

The mindset to dramaturg is demonstrated through the question. Questions are essential to the dramaturgical process, and sometimes it is as if the dramaturg’s currency is questions. While the dramaturg’s work is mostly associated with the context he provides, it is the questions he asks even more than those he answers that develop the point of view to dramaturg. As dramaturgs we ask questions to drive our own research, we ask questions to spark conversation, and we ask questions to inspire and challenge our audience, whoever that may be. The example above shows the dramaturg using a question to keep the production on point and provide a conceptual rallying cry.

p.14

Questions are a way to engage. They provide an entry point into a subject and a frame of reference for a conversation. The ability to parse, unravel, and direct the question – either one that we are asking or one that we are answering – is elemental to the dramaturgical mindset. Information is mined and shared through questions, and the overall conceptual frame of the production and the nature of the dramaturgy are supported by an active exchange of questions and answers. For the dramaturg, the ability to unpack a question is largely predicated on the ability to think flexibly and see what/when/why the question arises.

The dramaturg has two categories of questions that she deals with in an artistic collaboration.

A visible part of the dramaturg’s role in the production, and one more easily defined as part of her responsibilities, is to gather the contextual information for the company – the dramaturg as the provider of the context. A lot of time is spent finding and fielding questions that need to be answered. What is the historical significance of this artifact? What is the thematic meaning of that reference? The other equally important if not as visible category of question is that which needs to be asked. It is vital to the mindset to dramaturg, the questions she asks help to shape our understanding of and contribution to the project. How is this going to affect the audience? What is the implication of that choice? She asks questions that prompt an answer or elicit information. In addition, she asks questions not meant to be answered, but to take the listener through a creative exploration.

There is a difference between the questions to ask and those to answer and this difference may be the most important distinction for the mindset to dramaturg. Questions are a way to negotiate the various relationships – with the text, production team, and audience – and they have an important function in the creative process. There is concrete data that needs to be shared and understood in order to strengthen the context of a production. There are also philosophical musings that can shape the experience of the production. There are questions that resist direct response that can help shape the movement of the piece. The navigation through these various kinds of questions is integral to how to dramaturg, and knowing when to ask and when to answer is a skill that continues to develop.

p.15

The purpose of the question determines whether it is something that needs to be asked or answered, and once that is established the next step is to determine how to proceed. How does the dramaturg ask the question? How does she give the answer? These are equally important and if the question is not asked or answered in an effective manner, the work up to that point is largely in vain. The ability to identify the need and answer the question is only as strong as the dramaturg’s delivery, so this aspect is of utmost importance. The key to finding how to ask or answer the question is the audience. The specificity of delivery is as important as the pertinence of the question or accuracy of the answer and that delivery is going to be dependent on who it is for.

The mindset to dramaturg is formed through understanding the need of the audience in order to investigate the question more effectively and direct the transmission of information. For example, the questions we answer require attention to the who, as even a simple content question is significantly different when received by different audiences. If we answer a question about the symptoms of tuberculosis, the actor needs information that will let him mimic them, the designer is looking for a way to show the effects of those symptoms on the physical world, a technician may need to know if there is movement that affects the construction, and the audience may need to know stages of the illness to understand how sick the character really is. So how that bit of information – symptoms of tuberculosis – is found and shared will depend on our awareness of the needs of the audience who receives it.

The questions we ask are also based on who the question is aimed at, and require a careful attention to what they are intended to prompt. Once again a simple example demonstrates this with a question meant to generate thought about character – does she love him? This query presented early in the production schedule potentially challenges the director to find a way to create a solid answer through blocking. It can inspire the actor to coordinate the answer to this as part of her objective. The question may activate a design choice that creates a visual connection between the two characters. Presented to the theatrical audience it may inspire them to view the play through the lens of a story about this love.

The overall goal is to develop the mindset to dramaturg in order to become a more effective creative collaborator; part of that comes from understanding that to dramaturg is a mindset itself. It is a way to look at and engage with material that allows for flexible thinking and creative input and output. It is a method of communication and connection as an artistic collaborator. The mindset is characterized by the use of questions. It is a way to analyze a situation and navigate relationships, and it is a process to find the pertinent questions that need to be answered as well as those that need to be asked.

p.16

This chapter will look at both categories of questions and consider techniques to approach them. The purpose is to examine some of the ways the mindset can be developed through the relationship to the question, not be a comprehensive guide to dramaturging with questions. The chapter is broken up into sections and starts with a look at the kinds of questions dramaturgs answer, then considers some of the questions the dramaturg asks.

Questions Dramaturgs Answer

The questions the dramaturg answers are typically related to content. The questions are those that are directly asked by a collaborator, the ones the dramaturg assumed would be needed, and the ones he finds himself that will be a useful contribution to the production. The questions come from many different directions, and more importantly, the answers come from a wide variety of sources. This is essential for the dramaturg – content is everywhere and it is the dramaturg’s own creativity and flexible thinking that will mine the best sources for the answers he seeks.

The collection of the answers becomes the material output for the production team, particularly the casebook. The casebook is the collection of information about the playwright, play and world of the production compiled as reference material for the production team, and will be discussed in more depth in a later chapter. A large portion of this information is the answers to the questions that arise from script and company. The contextual data, particular references, and conceptual ideas that characterize the production are generally curated for the company from the answers to a whole series of questions the dramaturg uncovered and was directly asked.

p.17

From the Text

The dramaturg starts with the text, unless there is not a text, in which case she starts with the source material or the ensemble. However, for the purposes of this study, the primary examples to illustrate the ideas will be production and new play dramaturgy and these generally start with the text. Many of the questions the dramaturg answers are from the text, and these are the questions that help shape her understanding as well as the input she gives and output she provides her collaborators.

The first relationship the dramaturg establishes is with the script, and that relationship is formed in the first read. A first read is the chance to hear the story, to see how the workings of the play reveal character and action. It is the opportunity to meet the play on its own terms and see what it has to say. The first read is when we experience the tension joining with the celebration of Agamemnon’s return, heralded by the watchman at the opening of Aeschylus’s Agamemnon. It is when we are introduced to the appearance of a playful banter from Lincoln and Booth in Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks. The first read is when we experience the play in text form, as the audience will see it, as new and self-revealing.

The mindset to dramaturg is evident in the reading of the text and is developed by approaching the work on its own terms. The dramaturg reads the play the playwright wrote and strives to continue to interact with it on those terms. It is a reading that seeks to see without bias and expectation and the reader meets the text in an open and responsive frame of mind. The dramaturg allows the play to reveal the rules of the world it creates. He focuses on the terms offered by the playwright and so the questions he notes are generally tools to better understand those terms. The questions are not the details of a specialized perspective; they are ones that expand the understanding of the play by examining its parameters. There is no attempt to create a “conceptual” dramaturg, or dramaturg as auteur – these may work for directing, but are not conducive to a mindset to dramaturg. Instead, as dramaturgs we immerse ourselves in the world created by the playwright to better understand how to tease it out and contribute to the creation of a dynamic and whole production. Which means experiencing the play as it is, as constructed by playwright.

p.18

We encounter the play as a complete whole, as a story unfolding. Looking at the play as a whole is one of the essential elements of the mindset to dramaturg. Even as we take it apart to analyze the pieces, there is a sense of the work in its entirety that needs to be sustained. Whatever that text offers in terms of form or motif, there is the glimpse of the world of the play, the world that can be mined in order to offer the most useful guideposts for the production to bring it to an audience. This is done primarily through the questions to answer. There are a variety of approaches to script analysis that offer a whole spectrum of literary, artistic, intellectual, and visceral explorations of the work. These methods are tools to find our way into the structure and meaning of the text and are accomplished through a careful question and answer phase between dramaturg and script.

Initial questions include genre, style, and theme. What kind of information about the world of the play is necessary to explore the structure and composition of the story? The first questions of the text are those, unraveling the nuance of structure, character, idea, and mood. Looking at the play as a whole, how are the pieces arranged in its composition and how can you tease them out in a way that will offer greater support to the play as a text for the production? The fundamental question for the text in the initial read(s) is: What are the rules of the play?

The questions that reveal the rules of the play also touch on the world of the play and how it is constructed. These are the questions of story, plot, and action and they ask how the story is told structurally and further explore the conditions of the play. The dramaturg answers questions that uncover the basic ingredients of the piece: story, time, character, language, image, theme, and form.

p.19

The next questions go another layer into the text. This level of inquiry relates to the style of the play and how story, character, and language function. These questions help to continue to familiarize oneself with the play and derive from a flexible, holistic read of the piece, one that is taking the script as written with as few predisposed ideas as possible. The questions form a practical analysis that demonstrates the manner in which the narrative is constructed. For the most part, the analysis is limited in the first read, which is primarily for story and general impressions. More detailed script analysis typically takes place in subsequent reads, though before conversations with the director or other members of the production team if possible.

After the introduction to the story and the world the playwright created, script analysis gives the tools to start the practical analysis of the text. This book does not go into a methodology for that kind of work with the text; that is a subject that has already been well covered in other works. One of the best manuals for script-reading is David Ball’s Backwards and Forwards. It is a book that remains an industry standard more than thirty years after its publication and is an incredibly effective guide to how plays work. Another useful guide is the chapter on script analysis in Michael Mark Chemers’s Ghost Light. Both of these works provide technical instruction on how to examine the text, and the strength of both is that they are committed to the script as dramatic text for performance, so it is a theatrical, not a literary, analysis.

Whatever methodology the dramaturg uses, script analysis offers the tools to investigate the form and content of the play. It explores given circumstances (who, what, where, when, why) to piece together the story structure. In addition the dramaturg seeks the keys to determine theme and metaphor in the piece, as well as identify the spine and recognize patterns. The questions for the play encompass a practical understanding of its construction. Some of those questions include:

Once the dramaturg has the fundamental structure of story, she looks for ways to discuss the organizing principle of the play as well as the theoretical framework. The purpose of this series of questions is to answer them for herself, to discern a vocabulary with which to discuss the play. We ask questions to reveal structure, style, energy, music and meaning. These offer insight into the practical considerations of putting it on its feet by delving into time and place and character from a structural sense.

p.20

It is not only the structural elements that are answerable questions from the text. Additionally useful in developing the mindset are those that encompass the creation of the play. These questions are vital to understanding the context of the work and are the foundation for the kind of context the dramaturg brings to the company. Among these questions:

These questions all have answers that give context for the script and aid the collaboration by adding to the conversations about the play. The world of the creation of the play is often as informative and integral to understanding meaning as the world of the play. At the same time this context also reveals the value of exploring the same circumstances around the creation of the production.

It is important to uncover the questions from the text as part of seeing the overall picture of the play and also to start the connection between the world of the play and the world of the production. It is that intersection that is ultimately going to be the most significant element and so the dramaturg’s input is tailored to that connection, even as she is experiencing the script on its own terms. To dramaturg is to bring those things together, to understand and unpack the script in such a way as to reveal the markers for the production. It is a way to illuminate the ideas the text implies in order to better assist the rest of the production team in exploring them on stage.

p.21

Two of the things that affect the mindset to dramaturg are very practical issues.

These practical issues connect directly back to reading the text without a lens that narrows the scope. Look at the play as a composite and immerse yourself in the whole of the piece. Do not approach the work looking for the clues that a designer needs to help her create the visual landscape. Do not seek traits or cues of language and context to flesh out a particular characterization as an actor. Do not look for the intimations of composition or pacing that may inform the work of the director. Instead the dramaturg reads the play looking for the clues specific to this play, using an approach that suits her style and is conducive to the particularities of the specific text. The mindset to dramaturg is a way to have an open and flexible relationship to what the playwright offers us in a manner that allows for a view of the whole. The questions, then, rely on the composition of the whole. Consequently, the questions to answer are any point of clarification or illustration that will make the whole more cohesive and comprehensible to an audience.

So how to find them? Once again, flexible thinking is paramount. No two plays are the same and while an individual tends to develop a way of working, that process needs to include room to treat each new text based on the needs of that text. The questions are found in the initial response to the work. They come from the guideposts that the playwright provides to tell the story and construct the world of the play. They come from the attention to the cues of how time and space are treated in the world of the play. They arise from the understanding of character interaction and relationship as a narrative mode. The questions from the text are the spaces in between the mosaic pieces of the play’s construction. When reading with a dramaturgical eye, we have the privilege to look at both, the pieces of the composition and the spaces in between them. One of the ways we find the mindset to dramaturg is in the practice of teasing the questions from the spaces in between and helping to bring those to the story of the production.

Some of the given circumstances questions to answer from the text as preliminary orientation to the story:

p.22

The questions are situated in the structure of the play. The dramaturg uses the tools of script analysis and an exploration of the rules of the play and the rules of the world in which it has been created in order to uncover those questions. The given circumstances offer the building blocks of content and show her where the questions of story and plot may be examined. In addition, the theatrical conventions give insight into how the text is assembled and provide necessary information about form.

Questions are in the script, and an understanding of and attention to form and content meets the intuitive and imaginative relationship to the text in a way that allows us to mine the questions we need to answer. The mindset to dramaturg relies on questions, and that starts from our first exposure to the script. The above questions are content clarification, for the most part, and it is what follows that reveals more about the outlook to dramaturg since it relies more heavily on the how than on the why. How is this story structured, how is that character revealed, how do we learn the rules of this world are more useful approaches to dramaturging a text than asking why those choices were made. There are times in which the question why is effective; however, for our relationship to the text, how seems to be a stronger tool.

The Production Team

The dramaturg should be prepared to be a useful resource for the production team from early in the production cycle. A measure of effectiveness is seen in the kinds of questions the production team asks. Sometimes those questions will be factual such as, “What kind of writing materials would have been used for a letter in the seventeenth century?” Other times it might be conceptual, “Does the movement sequence feel as if it comes out of nowhere in the second act?” Whatever kinds of questions come from the production team, the dramaturg offers a responsive perspective, and typically it will take the form of an answer. An open and responsive relationship will generally make for a better artistic collaboration. The most important aspect of this question and answer relationship is to understand what is being asked.

p.23

A director’s questions for the dramaturg can cover a wide range of topics. It is vital that the dramaturg stay connected to the motion of the production in order to have clear access to the context of the question. Sometimes a seemingly small detail-based question can reveal a wide array of information and content that can inform the next phase of the production. A too narrow scope, or being out of touch with the development of the process, may become a missed opportunity to bring that scope into the room and ultimately to the audience. For example, a question about the history of a musical genre can reveal a significant class division based on who listened to what at a certain time and can clarify a tension and significantly alter the way that relationships are played out on stage. It can do that if the answer comes in an effective way and the dramaturg understands the implication. At other times the director’s questions may be explicit requests to watch for something happening on stage – and the dramaturg’s answers must address the request but also reflect an understanding of the larger production.

A question asked that seems simple does not need to be made complex, but it does need to be parsed to discover the larger structure it is supporting. A question about military protocol can translate into a more crisp and precise blocking pattern for an entire play. The way to assess a question, the way to translate what is being asked, is a key aspect to the mindset to dramaturg.

The dramaturg offers insight into the world of the production by answering questions and giving input about the world of the play. He does this by maintaining a holistic view of both, and practicing useful response to what is given on its own terms. The key word here is useful. The answers have clear intent and are crafted to be directly beneficial to the production. Consequently, even the traditional dramaturgical research provided to the company – like the casebook – is more than a compilation of data. How to approach these tasks is another way to develop the mindset to dramaturg. The particulars of creating the casebook are addressed in a later chapter, although it is worth mentioning that the casebook provides the source of connection between the questions from the text and those from the company. The questions will inform the dramaturg of the needs and perspective of the company as much as the answers will inform the company about the context of the work. Attention to the relationships and processes of the company will reveal the ongoing needs. Merely offering the definition of a word to an actor can be valuable, but that does not necessarily answer the question being asked. The nuance and significance of a particular word being used, for example a term that indicates a class-based insult in the context of the play, adds depth to a relationship. The kinds of questions the actors, designers, management, and technicians have are need-based questions – even the ones they have not asked yet. Understanding the need allows the dramaturg to respond to it.

p.24

The questions from the company come from a specific need for input or content that can help further the artistic process. An actor needs a social context in order to better understand his role in a complex relationship dynamic, a designer is looking for how something would have been used in order to determine a wear pattern to show age, a technician needs to understand the logistics of a weapon’s use in order to rig the necessary equipment. The question asked, or not yet asked, will have the specific purpose driving it, so to successfully dramaturg is to mine that purpose as well. The questions from the company are typically not simple, straightforward answers that could be found with a quick generalized search. That is a search that will tell us how to pronounce a word but not why the choice of that word is culturally significant. When a dramaturg effectively unpacks the question, it allows him to discover the why at issue and so he can answer the question asked, and direct the answer to the need behind the question.

Earlier in the chapter the symptoms of tuberculosis were used as an example of a research question for an actor or designer to know how to play or indicate the affliction. However, the question about the symptoms of an illness can go beyond the practical need to perform the symptoms. What the research and conversation reveals about the cause, additional complications, and the social attitudes towards that illness can provide a much deeper resonance in the design and the playing of that element. If a character goes on a journey, that is an important contextual element. When the distance and terrain of a journey are understood, that can drastically change the design choices as well as the physicality for a character. There is nothing in the dramaturg’s answers that is unrelated to the world of the play that the production team is bringing to the stage.

p.25

The examples and kinds of questions noted from the director and the company are primarily the content-based “research” work, the task that is so often identified as the work of the dramaturg. The questions the dramaturg fields are not limited to these kinds of practical and particular needs, but they offer a good illustration of the way to approach a question that utilizes and develops the mindset to dramaturg. Once there is an outlook based on flexible and responsive thinking, the dramaturg can apply the process to the variety of inquiries that come her way from the various sources.

The Audience

Another important source of questions to answer is the theatrical audience. This group is one on whom the dramaturg can have direct influence and there is a significant opportunity for communication. This can be direct contact, with questions answered through marketing and audience outreach materials. In addition, it can be an indirect process, where the dramaturg is answering the perceived questions in feedback to the production team when acting as surrogate for the eventual audience in the rehearsal room. The kind of question the audience might have about the relevance of a ritual or the clarity of a social practice is the kind of thing she brings up in rehearsal to enable the production to answer the question before it might be asked. In the same way the dramaturg anticipates the kinds of things from the text that will raise questions, she watches for things in the production that will be questions to answer for the audience. In all instances, the questions and answers need to be framed in a way that is most effective for the production.

p.26

The dramaturg has the end point of an audience viewing the production in mind throughout the process and one of her responsibilities is to anticipate the questions that need to be answered for that audience and identify the best way to do so. There are a series of avenues available, in the production itself, as mentioned, as well as through the outreach material. The in-production questions and discussion are often about the structure of the narrative and its telling. To build these tools effectively these are the questions of clarification the dramaturg asks the director or other members of the production team throughout the process. The dramaturg serves as an early proxy for the audience to see what is clear and what creates a further question from seeing the production. These questions of clarity also shape the content or context answers to deliver in pre- and post-show talkbacks, lobby displays, or program notes, all of which are examined in more detail in a later chapter. These outreach materials are a way to speak directly to the audience and provide a narrative of the production. Being present in the rehearsal room gives access to the work being done as well as access to what is intended, so the dramaturg has a unique perspective on the work in progress. Ultimately the dramaturg watches to see how the story is shaped, how the production is working from a narrative standpoint, as well as how it conveys what is intended by the director.

The questions to answer, from the text, for the production team, and for the audience all have something in common; they are all tools to clarify the story. The clues in the text are revealed to help actors, director, and designers embody them more effectively and the questions answered for the audience all point to a more complete theatrical experience. The dramaturg answers questions that need to be answered, those he is asked and those he anticipates.

Questions Dramaturgs Ask

Dramaturgs ask questions. It is fundamentally what we do as dramaturgs. We ask questions to mine information and we frequently give feedback in the form of a question – it is a way to give a note that inspires our collaborator to consider new ideas rather than offering a proscriptive solution. Purposely we sometimes ask questions that cannot be answered, but instead are intended to spark a conversation, or a response. We ask questions to make sure that everyone is working toward the same end goal. In addition, asking questions is a way to strengthen the connections between subjects – collaborators as well as director to text, designer to audience. Dramaturgs ask questions as a fundamental tool to dramaturg.

p.27

Of the Text

There are a series of questions that the dramaturg answers from text, using whatever methods of script analysis and content gathering is applicable. In addition, she asks questions of the text and this process is instrumental in developing the mindset. The way to approach the cues and questions of the text shapes the process into a decidedly dramaturgical read which is important to the relationship with the text. While actors, directors, designers and technicians read with a particular viewpoint, to read as a dramaturg means to look at the text holistically. It is not the sum of the parts of production cues, narrative structure, and character traits, it is a larger whole of the composition of the story told by the playwright, arranged as a text for performance. The dramaturg asks questions that reveal the nature of the rules of the play as depicted by the playwright. Similarly, she asks questions about the production cues. The fact that it is a text for performance is an important element for the dramaturg, and she stays connected to the notion that reading the script is a placeholder for the play embodied in performance. It is not an exercise in literary analysis, but recognizing the text as a blueprint for performance. Consequently, the questions she asks are of a written text, but for a dynamic performance.

Some questions the dramaturg may ask of the text:

The questions we ask of the text are not as concrete as the given circumstances and are not as directly answered. They are ways to connect more profoundly to the choices the playwright made, to see the terms on which the script is constructed and immerse oneself more completely into the text for performance.

p.28

Of the Director

The mindset to dramaturg is established through creating the relationship to the material and the audience that allows for the kind of responsiveness that will be useful on a production. This is particularly evident in the role of questions of the director. The effectiveness with which we use the question is a main source of determining the effectiveness of the dramaturgy.

There are some similarities in the way directors and dramaturgs approach text and some overlap of point of view in rehearsal. However, the roles are distinct and it is worth taking a moment to separate their function. Effective collaboration is more likely when all parties are clear on what and how the disparate roles function and the conflicts that arise often do so because there is not agreement on how the positions complement each other. The director guides the production to the performance. She provides the overall vision of the show and works with the rest of the production team to combine artistic elements to bring that vision to an audience. She is looking with the view of how to make it work, what needs to happen in terms of aesthetics, blocking, and composition in order to tell the story of the play. The dramaturg is also looking with the idea of presenting the story for the audience, but his responsibility is not to guide the production, rather it is to help ensure the company has the necessary tools to make the journey.

A fundamental tool the dramaturg offers the director is the questions he asks. These questions include two types, those that expect an answer and those that do not. They should be incisive and provocative and much of the working relationship is likely going to depend on the effective use of questions. As discussed in the previous chapter, it is a role that depends on the ability to develop and expand creative relationships, and every relationship and thus every process is going to be different. In fact, while there is a manner of working that an artist develops over time, the relationship with directors is largely determined by personality, style, and collaborative process. With that understanding of difference, and taking into consideration that who the director is will shape how to frame the question, here are a couple of examples of the kinds of questions a dramaturg may ask the director.

p.29

What Are You Reading?

The director does her research on the play and the overlap of sources and content can be useful in conversations about the production. Also, when the dramaturg knows what kinds of additional material outside the script are being used as influences in the production it increases his understanding of and connection to the whole production. Consequently, one of the questions that request an answer to ask the director is what she is looking at, listening to, and reading.

What Do You See in the Play?

This is another question to ask and will hopefully spark an extended conversation. This kind of open-ended question covers a lot of possibilities and can lead to discussion on form or content. Larger thematic elements, symbols or metaphor, relationships or elements of story can all be elicited by this question and it will give the dramaturg a sense of where the director sees the work, which is the kind of information that will help to identify early on the preliminary groundwork of the production.

Then throughout the production process we as dramaturgs ask the director additional questions. Early in the production we ask in order to get information about the director’s notions for the production and thoughts about the text. Also, these early questions and conversations help generate ideas about the kind of input the company will need to better realize this vision. During the rehearsal process we ask the questions that help reinforce that her goals for the production are being served. We ask if she sees what we see at a certain point in a rehearsal. We ask the questions that help to maintain the connection between the production and the director’s vision for that production.

Another fundamental use of the question for the director is feedback. As a general rule, it is more useful to give feedback to the director as questions. An essential characteristic of the mindset to dramaturg is that it is responsive, not proscriptive. It is a way of seeing that relies on both clarity and the ability to respond to what is seen, not what was expected. When we work with a director on a production we are offering creative input to augment her architecture. So rather than declarative commentary or suggestion, we ask questions that clarify, inform, or challenge. The questions we ask are intended to help that architecture expand into a theatrical event for an audience. Since the dramaturg is watching a rehearsal with the thematic and conceptual content in mind, the questions are going to be grounded more in the overall impression of a moment than the specifics of, for instance, the blocking for a single actor. For example, the dramaturg may ask, “Do you see this as the moment that she becomes really isolated from the other characters?” It is the kind of question that alludes to a blocking choice, perhaps, and indicates how the dramaturg perceives the scene as staged. The same kind of responsiveness can be more direct, such as, “He looks to me like he is really threatening to hit him, is that what you are hoping to see?”

p.30

Using the form of a question to share feedback is a good way to avoid potential conflict. When dramaturgical response appears to be directing or acting notes, it becomes less effective. While it is sometimes difficult to navigate, the notion is simple – the dramaturg is not there to direct the show. His input does not tell the director the solution to a staging quandary; the dramaturg brings to the rehearsal a perspective that helps to create an environment of collaborative, context-rich playmaking.

The questions the dramaturg asks the director should be insightful and provocative. They should inspire thought and conversation and be the vehicle of creative input and collaboration. The specific needs of the production and style of both director and dramaturg will determine how this process is most effective and it is a good reminder that the subject of the question is a significant source for determining the nature of the question. Who we are speaking with, and what we are trying to accomplish, is a useful guide for what and how we ask the question.

The specifics of working with a playwright will be discussed in a later chapter, but it warrants mention here that the relationship with the writer is similar to the relationship with the director in terms of developing the mindset to dramaturg. When working on a script in any capacity, the close understanding of the intent and the open approach to the methodology of the playwright are extremely useful in effective collaboration as a dramaturg. The dramaturg is there to assist the playwright in crafting the play he wants to write; it is not a co-writing relationship any more than it is a co-directing role in production dramaturgy. The dramaturg has his own role, questions are his currency, and they come from a perspective that has a close, knowledgeable, and invested relationship with the material.

p.31

Of the Production Team

The questions for the company are by necessity questions of clarification and response. Dramaturgs use this forum to bring attention to the points of connection between the stage and the audience, and to help maintain the link between the world of the play and the world of the production – however that has been forged. The questions we try to find are those that can help connect the landscape and the movement of the production more completely to the play and the audience. We ask questions based on a holistic approach to the production and a viewpoint that is focused on what is shown rather than what is expected.

The ability to respond to what is given is particularly important when conveying questions the audience might have to the production team. The questions raised are not based on expectations of how something will be carried out, but on how the action unfolds. When sitting proxy for the audience the dramaturg responds to moments that may create pause, that potentially take the audience member into a direction that is unintended. These questions, then, are raised in the rehearsal in order to flag those moments for the director and performers. The question is not based on how an issue can be solved, and once again, often the job is to ask the question, not answer it. However, the specialized position in the rehearsal allows for the dramaturg to be the advance look for a later audience and the first call of the production-based question. The role is not to look for problems or offer solutions, but to be a viewer who is invested in the production, with a voice that can offer creative input – and a useful question.

Does the audience see the ghost in Hamlet? While this is an artistic decision that is ultimately the director’s, it is the kind of question that connects play and production and has conceptual implications that extend beyond the choice itself. If the audience does not see the ghost of the dead king, do they assume it is in Hamlet’s mind, a sign of insanity? If they do, is the image frightening? This is a question that is a lynchpin for a series of production choices and has implications on character and action. The best questions the dramaturg asks the production team have implications on aesthetic and narrative.

In unpacking the question we want to dramaturg, we need to be in close contact with the production team, and also continue to develop our understanding of the roles in production. In the same way that practicing various approaches to script analysis will help uncover the questions from the text, the close attention to the process of actors and directors with whom we work helps to refine the questions we ask those individuals. A function of the dramaturg is to add to the creative stretch and practical need of the production, and understanding how our co-creators work enables the most useful dramaturgy and allows for the most effective collaboration.

p.32

Of the Audience

The questions for the audience are inherent in the production, they are the places and ideas that challenge the audience to think, feel, and/or respond. This is a part of the production that the entire creative team is working toward, and when we dramaturg we are helping to keep those points sharp and direct. In the audience outreach materials like the program note, lobby display or marketing materials, we have a further opportunity to ask the audience questions. These can be about their experience or provocative questions to spark additional thought and conversation. While outreach materials should not be explaining the production, they can be additional points of reference for connecting the audience to the play, inside and outside the theatre.

The fundamental questions for the audience come from the production, and the dramaturg can add to those through direct-contact materials and provoke the audience to think about the next question. When there is a play that deals with an important and controversial subject, sometimes the most important question for the audience is, “What are you going to do about it?”

Rules for Questions: Asked and Answered

Here are some things to think about when looking at the questions to answer and to ask as a dramaturg. It is merely a sample of the kinds of rules we establish in our collaborations, and can be useful to think about how to apply the work.

The Magic Word Is Efficacy

The work must be useful. All content and communication is held to the bar of efficacy. If it is not pertinent to the work of the production it is not constructive content. While there is much of interest surrounding the world of the play, playwright, and production, it is only that which will serve the specific production that is the work to dramaturg. If it is presented in a way that is difficult to use, confusing, or too large in scope to be effective, then it really does not matter how good the information may be, it does not serve its function. One of the fundamental skills we develop is to edit our explorations and synthesize the content we find into workable pieces. To dramaturg is to offer usable content in a useful manner.

p.33

The Question and Answer Are in the Text

This is an important maxim. While the dramaturg is working on a specific production with all of the particularities created by the assembled company and received by the audience, the dramaturg is also an advocate for the text and its writer. The questions that arise are from the story the playwright crafted, and the clues to the answers are there as well.

Don’t Sacrifice Truth for Authenticity

An additional consideration when parsing the questions and answers to dramaturg is the tenuous and fluctuating relationship between authenticity and truth. It is important that we as dramaturgs remember that as much as we ask the questions and provide the content to bring the world of the play and the world of the production into alignment, the precision of the content is a tool, not an end. The purpose of our questions and our answers is to collaborate in the creative process of a performance for an audience. The value of our contribution lies in the effectiveness of what we add to that creative end. Consequently, the truth of the whole is of paramount concern, and there may come the time where that truth has to overshadow the accuracy of the part.

For example, if music is being used to establish a time period, the choice will necessarily be what the audience will hear as the correct time period. If it sounds like the 1920s in a way that will resonate with a contemporary audience, but was actually composed in 1932, the truth of the experience will be more compelling than the accuracy of the date. This is not to say that accuracy and attention to historic and cultural detail is unimportant. However, the appearance of an anachronistic element is arguably more important than an actual anachronism – at least in our stories. It is this understanding, this connection to the end goal of a production for an audience, that shapes the dramaturg’s work.

p.34

Answer the Question Asked

While the context of the question, the need of the audience, and the purpose of the response are all important, there is a profound aspect that should not be overlooked. The dramaturg needs to answer the question asked. Delving too far into context and subtext removes him from the proximity of the question and he is not serving the purpose to dramaturg. Once again it is about responding to what is there, and unpacking the question. The dramaturg needs to remember that he unpacks the question in order to better provide the answer – to the question asked.

The ability to navigate the question is integral to the development of the mindset to dramaturg. Finding the questions to ask and those to answer, as well as determining how best to do that, is a good starting point. In the process of unpacking the question, there are two important points to keep in mind, the first being to stay connected to the notion of efficacy. One of the reasons that it is sometimes hard to justify the presence of the dramaturg in the room is because a production can happen without someone dedicated to that role. Consequently, it is not considered vital because it is not essential. Opportunity lost is much harder to quantify. However, the presence of a dedicated dramaturg adds so much to a work, in terms of its collaboration, depth and breadth of context, and ultimately provides a more enriching audience experience.

If a question is easily answered and requires merely an internet search that anyone can do, that is not a question that characterizes dramaturgy. From a process standpoint, it is convenient and efficient to have one individual finding and cataloguing the answers to the detail questions – something that often makes it into the casebook – but that is not the creative presence in the production that can be most valuable in a dramaturg. It is not merely the exchange of concrete information that is the result of the questions we are asked, rather the approach and relationship to the questions asked that shows our mindset. The ability to unpack the questions we answer and the ones we ask are key components to approaching dramaturgy.

p.35

Dramaturgy is a way of seeing and a manner of engagement. It is an outlook that requires flexibility and dexterity of thought and openness of perspective. It is a way to communicate ideas that is dependent on the target of our communication for its form and content. It is a collation of questions, thoughtfully and creatively presented for our audience. It is a verb that relies on the currency of questions to develop the mindset.

Summary

One of the chief components of the mindset to dramaturg is the ability to ask and answer questions. The dramaturg encounters the question, uncovers its meaning and intent, and finds the most effective way to deliver it. The nature of the question, as well as the means by which it is communicated, is determined by its purpose and its audience.