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Action

Drama is the imitation of an action. Unfortunately, most of us experience plays by reading them rather than by seeing them. It seems hard to believe, but countless individuals have never seen a live play performed. Even for those of us who have seen scores of plays, we’ve undoubtedly read more than we’ve seen.

When we read a play, we see characters’ names and the lines they speak. Very little of what the characters do is described. That’s particularly true of classical plays. Shakespeare’s plays, for example, which are often an individual’s first exposure to drama, have little in the way of stage direction or descriptions of particular actions. Rather, in those plays most of the action must be deduced from the spoken line.

When Macbeth returns from killing King Duncan, only a reading of one line of dialogue three–fourths of the way into the scene informs us that Macbeth has thoughtlessly brought the murder weapons with him instead of leaving them behind. In performance, of course, the action would provide that information immediately. We would see the knives in Macbeth’s hands as soon as he entered, and we would continue to see him holding them throughout the scene.

The fact that most of us receive our introduction to plays through print rather than performance has serious consequences for beginning playwrights. Since for the most part we only read the lines spoken by characters, is it any wonder that we come to think of plays as dialogue between characters in which the words are all–important and tell us everything we need to know? And is it any wonder that when beginners sit down to compose a play, what usually develops is a group of characters sitting around talking?

Our first task, then, is to create a different perspective on what constitutes a play. We must find a way to present drama in terms of actions rather than words, in terms of what people do rather than what they say.

Action is one of the building blocks of drama. Drama is about what people do, and what people do is action, so it is worthwhile to look at the idea of action in some detail.

Action is when someone does something. But the concept of action is really much more complex and multilayered. Let’s look at an example: A woman walks into a fast–food restaurant. She stops and looks up at the items available and their prices. She gets into line. She pulls her wallet from her purse and takes out money. She reaches the front of the line and requests, “A cheeseburger, small fries, and a small orange.” She pays for the food, takes it, walks to a table, and begins to eat her meal.

There are numerous actions taking place in this brief scene. Walking into the restaurant is one action. Reading the menu is a second. If the woman puts on a pair of glasses while she’s reading, that’s a third. And so on. It quickly becomes clear that not all her actions are equally important. Walking in is probably not as important as ordering the food, or as eating it. Hence, even the simplest actions have a hierarchy of importance with respect to other actions. Playwrights as well as directors and actors must understand how actions fit together and decide which actions are most significant.

While not all actions are equally important, all actions can be important in different ways. I suggested that walking into the restaurant was not as important as ordering or eating the food. Nevertheless, walking in is essential in that it gets the woman into the restaurant. The rest of the scene can’t take place without it. In some instances the entrance of a person might be the most significant action. The woman, for example, might hurry into the restaurant and then look carefully behind her out the window.

Reading the menu constitutes another action. Is it important? In one sense it isn’t. It could be eliminated, and the woman could still get her meal. But that action provides revealing information. That the woman looks at the menu might indicate that she doesn’t frequent the restaurant, that she’s indecisive, or that she’s concerned about how much things cost. Any of those elements might be extremely significant. Consider how different the scene would be if the woman simply entered, walked up to the counter, and ordered.

In both cases, whether she reads the menu first or not, the woman gets her meal, and here is where actions become multilayered. This scene contains many actions. Taken together, however, they constitute a larger action: A woman buys her lunch. If we also saw her eating her meal and leaving, the whole action might be “a woman lunches.”

The same layering of actions occurs in any play. In one moment Hamlet praises an actor. That is one action. A series of actions taken together might constitute a larger action: Hamlet sets a trap. All of those actions taken together form an action that absorbs the character throughout the play: Hamlet avenges his father’s murder. In acting terms, that overall action is what is meant by such terms as through line, superobjective, or spine.

The recognition that small actions fit together to create larger actions is just as important for a playwright as it is for an actor.

Taken simply, an action is someone doing something. The action can be small in scope or large; it can be a simple action or a complex action composed of numerous smaller actions. It can be static action—such as sitting or sleeping—or frenetic action—such as running or dancing.

Most modern theater practitioners also recognize psychological action—a thought process, a decision, or a point of view. For instance, if a lawyer tells you to do something, his authority might compel you to do it without even the slightest actual physical action on his part. There is a psychological force at work.

Harold Pinter is famous for the silences written into his scripts. Pinter knows that silences represent critical moments because people make decisions in those pauses and silences. We, however, cannot see the decision. What we do see is the physical manifestation of the decision: The character does something or says something based on her decision.

Working with beginning playwrights, I’ve found it especially helpful to consider thought and decision as preceding physical action. Picture, for example, a woman in a department store. She looks at a bracelet. Then she looks around. Thought occurs. A decision is reached. The woman taps a bell on the counter to call a salesperson.

At the moment the woman is looking around, we may think she is considering pocketing the bracelet. The action that followed—tapping the bell—reveals the thought process that preceded it.

At this beginning stage, we want to focus on basic action—such as the woman ordering her lunch—that is large enough to comprise several other actions. It is sufficient for now that we understand that the action may in turn be part of a larger, more complex whole.

Dramatic Action Provokes Questions

Writers understand that action by itself—no matter how many cars you blow up—does not guarantee interest. Now for some circular thinking. For an action to gain the interest of the audience, it must be dramatic action. But what is dramatic action? And how is it differentiated from other action? Dramatic action is action that gains the interest of an audience.

William Archer, a British dramatist and critic and the man who translated Henrik Ibsen for English-speaking audiences, wrote nearly the same thing. His turn-of-the-century study of playwriting, which still represents sound thinking, defined dramatic as “any representation of imaginary personages which is capable of interesting an average audience assembled in the theater.”

The first time I read that, I regarded it as totally inadequate. Surely, I thought, we should be able to determine what is dramatic within the context of the script itself. But Archer realized, as I did only somewhat later, that the audience is essential, and a play must undergo the test of an audience or experienced readers to determine its dramatic content.

Dramatic action is realized only when what the author thinks is dramatic is effectively conveyed to others.

A perceptive playwright can gather some notion of what is likely to be dramatic activity. To explore that, let’s look at dramatic action from several different angles. One approach is to see dramatic action as action based on the desire of a human being to attain a goal. A man walks onto a stage with a painting and an easel and begins to set up the easel. It falls over. He tries again. It falls again. He carefully inspects the easel, looking at the legs and hinges. He tries yet again to set it up.

In this instance we understand the goal—to set up the easel. Perhaps we infer the larger action—to display the painting. As the man tries to accomplish his goal another element of dramatic action comes into play— namely, tension or conflict. The human will to attain the goal is thwarted by the obstacle of the inanimate object. The man is in conflict with the easel. As a result of the conflict, tension arises.

The human will to attain a goal. Conflict. Tension. All of those elements work together to induce questions. Will the man succeed in setting up the easel? What if he doesn’t? What will he do then? What does he want to do with the painting?

The scene could continue in a variety of ways. The easel falls again. The man picks it up and bashes it to pieces. Then he picks up the remains of the painting and calmly walks off the stage. An alternative: The easel falls again. The man goes offstage, comes back with a chair, sets that on the stage, and displays the painting on the chair. Another alternative: The easel stays up. The man sets the painting on the easel. In all cases the questions have been answered and the action is ended.

Ingmar Bergman, the Swedish director and dramatist, once commented on how he formulates ideas. Bergman explained that he literally has visions. He might visualize people in a pink room. One might be turned away, looking out a window. Bergman would ask himself questions about his visions. Why was the one woman turned away? What was outside the window? Why was the room pink? What was going on between the two women? If the answers to his questions were interesting to him, he’d ask more questions until, perhaps, he had something to write. Essentially, said Bergman, he wrote not because he had something to say but because he had questions to ask.

Jon Jory, the producing director of Actors Theater of Louisville and one of the primary forces in the development of new playwrights in the United States, has said that a play should always pose a question within its first five lines. Two or more questions, he noted, would be even better.

But, significantly, the questions need not come in the form of dialogue. In fact, in good drama the questions are usually inherent in the action, and the dialogue—questions expressed verbally—simply adds to the questions already raised implicitly by what we see occurring.

The opening scene of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman illustrates how dramatic action provokes questions. Willy Loman, the 60-year-old salesman, enters carrying two large sample cases. He crosses to the doorway of his dimly lit house. He unlocks the door, comes into the kitchen, and sets the cases down. He feels the soreness of his palms and a word-sigh escapes his lips. He closes the door and carries the cases into the unseen living room. We see Linda, his wife, stir in her bed. She listens to Willy’s entrance, then gets up and puts on a robe. The dialogue begins:

We see the action as a tired old man enters his house late at night. We see a woman obviously concerned about the man. He wants to rest. She wants to know what’s going on. Each person wants to attain certain goals. We see the man dismiss her concern. The human wills are in conflict. We see a relationship straining. Tension.

This excellent opening scene induces numerous questions. Why is he coming in so late? Why is he tired? Why is she concerned? Those are merely three questions out of many. And all of that has been provoked by the simple action that occurs even before a line has been spoken.

Miller then uses a variety of questions in his first few lines to focus our questions. Some of them are significant. “What happened?” asked twice tells us that Willy wouldn’t be there if something weren’t wrong. The question about the car informs us he has the capability of smashing it, as he does at the end of the play.

There are significant elements that are not present in my summary of this opening scene. In my condensation of Miller’s opening stage directions I omitted, among other things, the following reference to Willy: “… his exhaustion is apparent.” I omitted it because I wanted you, the reader, to make that conclusion based on Willy’s actions: feeling his sore palms and sighing.

Dramatic Action Employs Verbs

Just as Willy’s exhaustion is exposed through his actions, so dramatic action is expressed in verbs, in what people do, not in moods. It is extremely difficult for an actor to play a general mood such as anger, and it is well nigh impossible for a playwright to write an effective general mood. The dramatic mood arises from the specific actions undertaken.

When we say to ourselves, “That person is angry” or “That man is exhausted,” we are making a conclusion based on certain actions we have seen performed. We do this so frequently and so automatically that we hardly even think about the actions we are seeing that prompt us to leap to the conclusions. We just leap.

Test this. The next time someone describes someone else as “angry” or “happy” or “sick,” ask that person why he or she thinks that. The conversation is likely to run something like this:

There it is. One conclusion (“He looked sick”) used to justify another conclusion (“He didn’t look like he felt very well”) to justify another conclusion (“He really looked awful”).

Perhaps the most startling statement made by your fictional friend is: “I don’t know.” Of course your friend knows. The friend must know, or else how could your friend have arrived at the conclusion that Frank is sick. Perhaps Frank was moving more slowly than usual, or was hunched over. Perhaps he coughed, sneezed, grimaced, groaned, or limped. All of those are actions, and whatever the symptoms, your friend saw those actions. But instead of registering: “Frank is coughing and talking hoarsely,” your friend automatically registered the general conclusion: “Frank is sick.”

The problem with that normal and generally quite effective way of proceeding to conclusions is that many times the conclusions can’t be visualized, and playwrights must deal with what can be seen. Just as Pinter’s silent decisions cannot be seen but are revealed by the actions that follow them, so, too, a general mood is discovered by the actions that create the mood.

Let’s look at another example of the difference between a general mood, which cannot be seen, and a specific action, which can be seen and which establishes the necessary mood. A hypothetical stage direction reads: “Jennifer enters the room. She is angry.” That’s a problem. Nothing is visible. We have no outward manifestation (action) to suggest the inner emotion. Instead, the stage direction might read: “Jennifer hurries into the room. She stops and looks around. Her eyes land on the stereo system, and she moves to it. She quickly looks through several compact discs and then selects one. She yanks the disc out of its jewelbox, throws the jewelbox to the floor, and smashes it with her foot.” That is a dramatic action. We see the action. We understand the mood. And we are provoked to ask questions about what is going on. We might wonder not only why Jennifer is so upset, but also why that one particular CD was so significant?

This notion of looking for the action that prompts conclusions rather than settling for the conclusion is equally important to performers. Playwrights occasionally slip, and when they write “Jennifer is angry,” it’s the performer who has to translate that generality into concrete action that is both quintessentially human and wildly interesting.

Many individuals turn to writing because they think they have something to say. In writing plays, that can be a problem. I have a rule that I repeat over and over again to beginning playwrights: DON’T SAY IT, SHOW IT!

Thornton Wilder, in his superb essay on playwriting, expressed it this way: “A play is what takes place. A novel is what one person tells us took place.” So if you have something to tell us, write a novel. If you have something to show us, write a play.

With that as a reminder, let’s proceed to the first exercise.

•  •  • Exercise 1.1

Example

Example

Evaluation

As you read the scene, can you picture the action as it occurs? Is anything missing or unclear? Would you, for example, be able to see a headline or a small clock on a bedside table? Probably not on a stage. Even with a movie close-up, you might not know if it were 6 A.M. or 6 P.M.

I indicated that questions are important to dramatic action. Questions raised can also be a problem for a play, especially if there are too many questions or if significant questions are left unanswered. Examine what questions are raised by the action and whether they are answered. In the first example, a key question is: “Will the man succeed in breaking in?” While we may not know why he wanted to get in the house, that basic question, at least, is answered. In the second example we see a man getting dressed and upbraiding the woman in the room. But what about the gun, which the man places prominently on the clock and never returns to? What’s it for? And the bank heist? Did he do it? Who knows. The author tries to include too much, and the information overload becomes confusing.

Next ask yourself: “Does the example contain anything that can’t be seen?” The second example has numerous problems in this area. There is the difficulty of the time, for one thing; the newspaper presents a similar problem. But more importantly, we can’t read characters’ thoughts except through their actions, so we can’t possibly know the man is thinking of tequila or his short rest.

The novelist or the short story writer can take us directly into the mind of a character. If the novelist writes, “Turk sat groggily on the bed, thinking of the short rest he’d had and the tequila he’d guzzled the night before,” then that’s what is on Turk’s mind.

The playwright does not enjoy that option. Even if a character speaks directly to the audience—as Iago does in explaining his actions in Shakespeare’s Othello—the character may or may not be telling the truth. Or the character may not even fully understand his or her own motivations.

The playwright must find means to make visible to the audience the outward manifestation of the characters’ thoughts. For example, the playwright might write: “The man rises unsteadily and walks slowly to the closet. He glances at an empty bottle of tequila lying on its side on a table. He stops, picks up the bottle, and holds it upside down as he watches the last drops fall on the table. He pitches the empty bottle in a trash can and proceeds to the closet.” That would clarify the relationship between the man and the bottle.

There are moments in plays when we, as the audience, feel as though we know exactly what the character is thinking. In those moments the work of the playwright and the performer come together in such an effective way that the external activity illumines the inner thought process. That activity can be as subtle as a look or a shrug or as overt as a statement or a punch. In any case, the playwright and the performer are carrying us along, and we understand why characters are behaving as they do.

Are there places where the scene seems to need words? In the first example there are none, although voices might be heard when the light comes on. In the second example the moment between the man and the woman seems to want dialogue. In that instance lines could add something to the action.

There is another question: “Does the scene suggest a mood?” The mood of the first one is definitely melodramatic. You can almost hear suspicious-sounding music underscoring it. The mood of the second piece is indistinct. The style is realistic, but what is described could be played comically or despairingly.

A final question about the descriptions is: “What kind of characters are expressed through the actions?” In the first example the man in the bushes seems calm, orderly, and experienced. In the second example the man’s situation seems almost out of his control. The woman in the bed certainly pays no heed to his remonstrations.

Put your skills of evaluation to work on one final example, this one written by an undergraduate student.

Example

Evaluation

This lighthearted piece answers all the questions it raises. The author uses virtually every small detail that she establishes. The man’s suit becomes both his towel and his pillow, and the Rolaids come from the overnight bag. Furthermore, everything can be seen. Even the clock in the bus terminal would be large enough, and if it were dark out and the lights in the terminal were on, it would be apparent that the time was evening.

Although everything in the scene is clear without words, dialogue might add to the enjoyment of the piece in two or three places. We might enjoy the conversation between the small man and the messy attendant. And wouldn’t the small man call out in his attempts to get out of the bathroom? A few words between the Leather Man and the small man might also accentuate the threat our hero feels.

The important thing to remember is that in those instances lines could add to the action. Thus we can understand dialogue as being a complement or an accessory to the action. Words, rather than being an end in themselves, become merely one method that people employ to accomplish certain aims or perform certain actions.

The scene is obviously comic in mood, as would be established in the meeting of the small man and the imposing (though apparently harmless) Leather Man. As for character, the scene presents a timid unfortunate soul not dissimilar from some of the great silent movie heroes. You can almost visualize Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, or Harold Lloyd confronting the Leather Man, the attendant, or the locked door.

Where Ideas Come From

As you prepare to write your own “silent scene,” you might wonder where the ideas for the scenes come from. They can come from anywhere—from your observations or from your imagination. If you want a starting mechanism, I suggest you think of a person in a particular environment, something as simple as a woman on a beach looking around. Then, like Ingmar Bergman, ask yourself questions. What is she looking for? Something she lost? Someone she knows or is waiting for? A bag? A key? A missing child? When you ask yourself questions, situations and actions immediately arise.

Another prod to the imagination is to find something incongruent or out of place in a situation—like one of those “what’s wrong with this picture?” puzzles. Suppose that the woman on the beach is wearing an elegant gown. Or perhaps she’s carrying a common but unbeachlike article such as a briefcase. Again, the questions will lead you to a situation and an action. If they don’t, try a different person in a different environment.

Writing an action is a major step for a playwright because it establishes a particular viewpoint toward drama. It demands a mind-set geared toward seeing a play in terms of action, in terms of people doing things to each other and interacting with each other. That concept of drama as action will remain the basis for the following exercises. Therefore, as we move on to more complex exercises integrating various dramatic elements, always keep one question foremost: “What do we see these people doing?”

* From Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller. Copyright 1949, renewed copyright © 1977 by Arthur Miller. Reprinted by permission of the publisher, Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc.