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Three-Character Conflict

Adding a third character to conflict is like adding a joker to a card game: The possible outcomes multiply dramatically. Mathematics plays a part. Let’s say you have two characters (for our purposes, James and Trish), only four basic configurations are possible to express their feelings toward each other.

James and Trish, of course, can be unique personalities and their relationship subject to infinite degrees of passion, but the relationship must eventually resolve itself into one of those four patterns.

When a third character is added (let’s say, Hank), the number of possible dramatic structures skyrockets. The four relationships listed above are possible between Hank and James, and four more are possible between Hank and Trish, in addition to the original four between James and Trish. Instead of four possible relationships, you now have four times four times four possible relationships. Sixty-four combinations instead of just four with the simple introduction of a single character!

This point is not intended to make writing a play into an exercise in mathematics. The numbers merely suggest the incredible complications that can ensue when a playwright moves from two characters to three.

We read in theater histories that when Aeschylus wrote the first Greek tragedies some 2500 years ago, he used only scenes of direct confrontation between two characters. Sophocles, whose career overlapped Aeschylus, is credited with the introduction of a third character into scenes. Perhaps only a playwright can fully appreciate that contribution, for, as we will see, the third character opens a mine of possibilities.

The three-person conflict exercise in this chapter is an extension, but an important extension, of the second exercise. If conflict is basic to drama, then playwrights had better learn how to handle conflict. When two people are involved, the conflict is generally simple and direct: A is against B and B is against A.

As soon as a third party is introduced, however, the situation becomes more complex. Think, for instance, of two teen-aged brothers arguing about driving the family car. A direct conflict. Then the father walks in. Consider the possibilities. Each boy pleads his case, and then the father decides. Perhaps the father refuses the car to both. Perhaps the boys attempt to cover up their dispute in their father’s presence in order to present a united front. Perhaps the father has a special fondness or a particular dislike for one son or the other. A good playwright will be able to use the various possible configurations and shift effectively from one to another.

As the conflict unfolds, the characters naturally reveal themselves through their actions, their words, their tactics, and their arguments. It is precisely that situation of a father and two sons that Arthur Miller employs so expertly in Death of a Salesman. Although his characters aren’t just arguing about a car, Miller uses all the strategies mentioned above plus many more in the course of his drama.

As another possible three-character situation, imagine a young couple having a lovers’ spat. Then the young man’s mother enters. The choices for modulating the conflict are extensive. We could envision the mother supporting the woman who is trying to straighten out her son or supporting her son because he’s her child. The couple might unite in telling the meddling mother the fight is none of her business.

As you can see from those hypothetical brothers and lovers, the three-person situation allows the playwright opportunities that do not exist in a two-person scene. A two-person conflict relies on a direct transaction. That is its great strength. The scene may contain a panoply of tactics and psychological ploys, but the action always has an essential one-on-one component.

Three in a Room

When a third person appears, an important indirect element arises. This example illustrates what I mean. A diamond is on a table, and two people are standing in the room with it. Suddenly the lights go out, and when they come on again, the diamond is gone. Because of the one-to-one relationship, both parties in the room must know who took the diamond. The one who took it certainly knows, and the one who didn’t take it must know the other person did.

But, you suggest, couldn’t someone else have come in when the lights were out and taken the diamond? Aha! you’ve just discovered the importance of the third character! With three characters in the room, the majority of the characters cannot know with certainty who has the diamond. Only the thief knows for sure. Now suspicion is possible; alliances are possible; deception and pretense are possible; majorities and minorities are possible. In short, conflict that is indirect and variable—or what I call modulated—replaces direct conflict as the primary form of interaction.

So important is the three-character situation that certain three-party scenes have become standard dramatic fare. With infinite variations they are used over and over again.

A trial is a typical three-party modulated conflict. Two parties modulate their direct conflict by attempting to convince a powerful third party to decide in their favor. That is the essential configuration in every courtroom drama ever written. The complainant and the defendant are in opposition, but instead of fighting with each other directly, both are trying to make their case to the third party, represented by the judge or jury. Although more than three characters are usually involved, the conflict is essentially triangular.

The same “trial” structure, which is basically an appeal to authority to make a decision, forms the basis of many other conflicts. Two young men contend for the love of a woman, and they appeal to her to decide between them. Siblings vie for the attention of a parent, each pleading, in effect, “Say you love me more.”

A slight variation of the trial format is the peacekeeper. In the example of the trial, two contending parties appeal to the third party to make a decision. The peacekeeper steps between contending parties in an attempt to separate them. The peacekeeper may or may not mediate the conflict, but the immediate goal is to prevent direct conflict. Such is the position of a police officer who breaks up a fight between two thugs.

The next logical step in the three-sided situation has two of the parties joining forces against the third. The judge hands down a verdict. The girl chooses her beau. The point at which such a decision is made is crucial for a playwright, for once two of the parties (A and B) join forces against the third (C), the situation is for all practical purposes changed to a direct conflict (A/B vs. C). Hence good writers try to use the pairing of forces in original ways. Perhaps the audience will expect B to join A, but B joins with C instead. Perhaps A and B oppose C on one issue in the play, but B and C oppose A on another issue, and A and C oppose B on yet a third issue. Through creative pairing of forces, a playwright can produce a rich interplay of shifting alliances.

Another common three-sided situation is a circular one. A wants to gain B’s support in opposing C, while B wants to gain C’s support in opposing A, and C wants to gain A’s support in opposing B. Or the same circle can be created in terms of desire. A wants B, who wants C, who wants A. That circle of desire joined with an equal circle of hate comprises the classic “hellish” situation created by Jean Paul Sartre in No Exit.

Another frequently used three-way situation develops when at least one character is not aware of the presence of a third party. Such is the case when one character is hidden or is listening in on a conversation. That arrangement has produced some of the most famous scenes in all of drama, including Hamlet’s emotional scenes with Ophelia and Gertrude, when Polonius is an unseen listener.

A scene closely allied to the hidden character is that of disguise, in which at least one of the characters does not know the true identity of another character. Even if a scene of mistaken identity contains only two characters, it assumes a third character. If I think you are Elvis Presley returned to life, then our interchange contains you, me, and the assumption of Elvis. Such mistaken identity scenes have been a cornerstone of comedy at least since Plautus wrote The Twin Menaechmi, in which identical twins are regularly confused one for the other. Shakespeare adopted the idea for Twelfth Night and The Comedy of Errors. More recently, Ken Ludwig used similar tactics in his comic hit, Lend Me a Tenor.

Dramatic Irony and Love Triangles

Scenes of hidden and disguised characters both exemplify what is called dramatic irony. Dramatic irony occurs when the audience knows something that is unknown to a character. The audience, for example, knows that Viola has disguised herself as a male in Twelfth Night, but the characters who fall in love with “him” do not. The audience knows there is a set of twins in the Plautus play and two sets in Shakespeare’s adaptation, although none of the characters realize it.

Finally there are the love triangle situations. A love triangle does not refer to one distinct relationship among three people. Rather, there are numerous variations, all of which qualify under the rubric “love triangle.” I have already mentioned one love triangle in discussing the “trial” format— two men both love the same woman, and they appeal to her to make a decision—and another in the circular format where A loves B who loves C who loves A.

Another love triangle might involve a husband or wife who loves his or her mate, but the mate loves someone else. You could have someone who is loved by two individuals who may or may not know each other. The possibilities are numerous enough to have allowed inventive playwrights over several centuries some measure of fame and fortune. Many modern playwrights have given new life to the standard triangles by altering the usual gender of the participants, as Terrence McNally did in Love! Valor! Compassion! and Tony Kushner did in Angels in America. The essential triangular love relationships, however, remain the same.

As you undertake the three-person exercise described in this chapter, remember that you can learn not only from what you write, but from what others write, as well. If you are in a classroom situation, pay careful attention to the differences in the three-person scenes. Consider how the relationships between the characters could be altered or rearranged. If you are not in a class, give particular consideration to three-person scenes in the plays, movies, and television shows you see. The nurse, the patient, and the visitor in The English Patient, for instance, lead to a complex set of triangles.

Once a writer has learned to handle two characters in a direct conflict and three characters in a modulated conflict, he or she can confidently tackle almost anything. Additional characters or new alliances merely present variations based on direct or modulated conflict. As an example of what I mean, recall the lovers who were arguing. Assume they’re fighting because she wants to move in with him, but he doesn’t want her to. Assume the young girl’s parents enter, and the boy and girl tell them what’s wrong. The father angrily rejects the idea that his daughter should live with someone before marriage. The mother tries to soothe her husband’s anger toward their daughter, but when he stands firm, the mother takes her daughter’s side and announces that she wishes she had lived with her husband for awhile before she decided to marry him. Let’s examine how such a scene might be structured.

The two-party conflict that begins the scene ends as the young couple join forces to stop the fight between the woman’s parents and then decide to temporarily set aside their differences. Notice that at no time is there actually a four-way conflict. I would not go so far as to say that four-way conflict is impossible, but I would assert that, as parties proliferate, they usually team up to create combinations of direct two-party or modulated three-party conflicts.

•  •  • Exercise 5.1

The factor that distinguishes this exercise from the conflict exercise in Chapter 2 is, naturally, the presence of a third character. In evaluating the scenes you write, ask yourself some crucial questions: How does the presence of three people affect the conflict? Can you identify what each character wants and how he or she goes about getting it?

Keep in mind also the fundamentals of the previous exercises. What action does the audience see taking place? Does the dialogue flow naturally from one character to another? What kind of language does each character use?

You should write a completely new scene with three characters, but after you have done that you may wish to add a third character to one of your previous two-person scenes to see how that changes the interaction.

To understand how the addition of a third character affects a scene, let’s examine a student-written piece that begins with two characters and then adds a third.

Example

Evaluation

The basic conflict of this scene is between a young woman who wants attention and her mother, who thinks her daughter is being too self-centered. The playwright has an inherent problem to solve. Since the mother is ignoring the daughter, the scene seems to have nowhere to go. Until the introduction of the third character. The arrival of Ben in the next room provides Beth with an opening, an excuse to create a disturbance.

At its core the scene has the structure of a trial situation. Two siblings are contending for the approval of a parent. What makes the scene unusual is that the conflict between the siblings is deemphasized in order to increase the attention on the relationship between the girl and her mother.

The writer makes an intriguing choice in keeping the third character almost entirely offstage. Normally that would not be a wise choice, and the image of the girl standing at the doorway talking to an offstage character might seem contrived. How would it have affected the scene if Ben were on stage? Naturally Ben would have become a much more prominent figure. And the direct conflict between Beth and Ben would become the central element of the scene. By keeping Ben offstage, the focus remains on Beth and her mother.

Are the characters differentiated in the way they speak? Beth conveys distinctive qualities through her language. Her speech has a broken, jagged quality that suggests youth and quickness: “No Will, no will. You know what I mean? Ice cubes, Mom. I’m talking crushed ice.” Her lines reveal not only that she is educated, but that she is bright and witty. That information is not conveyed through direct means. No one, thank heavens, says, “My what a bright and witty girl you are.” We don’t conclude that she’s intelligent because she’s in college or because she’s reading Shakespeare. Lots of not particularly bright individuals go to college, and some even read Shakespeare. What convinces us that Beth has a good mind is in part her ability to handle language: “Must you subject Mother and myself to that mindless drone at decibel rates far beyond the endurance of the human ear?” But even more, we are convinced of her intelligence by her sense of style, by her ability to shift from overblown verbiage to common language in a trice, as when she moves from “I am merely trying to express my thoughts in the most civilized manner possible …” to “You turn that volume down or I’m gonna come in there and beat the crap out of you …” in the space of a single line.

Beth’s consciously elaborate language and her mocking imitation of her brother’s speech reveals that she is self-dramatizing, and in the drama that she creates she is also quite entertaining. That, after all, is a must for plays.

The audience finds out much less about the other two characters through the language they use. Ben talks in slang at virtually every line: “What a bummer” and “you’re a real hag.” From that we get a sense of what Beth is attempting to place herself above. Still, through her calculated use of similar slang we understand that it remains a basic part of her.

The mother has few lines, yet they disclose her character fully. Her repetition of “Um-hum” and “That’s nice, dear” indicates someone who is not paying attention and suggests that Mom is not particularly interested in her daughter. We soon find, however, that Mom is in charge in her home. She effectively stifles the spat between Beth and Ben, and her direct, plain talk to Beth reveals her as both forthright and caring. Finally, her last lines demonstrate that she heard and cared about everything her daughter said.

Now let’s look at a tight, complex scene that uses three characters throughout.

Example

Evaluation

On purely technical grounds this scene is an excellent example of what can be accomplished with a three-person scene built on shifting alliances. It begins with Stephanie (A) thrusting cookies upon Drew (B), who refuses (A vs. B). Mike (C) supports Drew’s refusal (A vs. B/C). The conversation moves to the topic of weight. Drew maintains he’s overweight, and Stephanie disagrees. At first Mike seems to agree with Drew, but in one of the nice ironies of the scene Mike is forced by the person whose side he is on to switch sides (“I just meant that you thought you were overweight. I don’t think you’re overweight”), thereby generating A/C vs. B. Stephanie immediately upsets that arrangement by insisting that Mike is overweight (A vs. C), and he retaliates by accusing Stephanie of heftiness. Drew, however, supports Stephanie, creating an A/B vs. C situation and bringing together the two people who were at odds at the beginning of the scene.

The scene is notable in a number of other ways. First, despite its limited physical action, it contains large psychological movements. Second, it produces those movements in a spare, concise manner. Third, it conveys a strong sense of sexual tension without any direct reference or overt action.

The physical activity of the scene is limited to three young people watching television and eating cookies. The conflict at the surface of the scene is Stephanie’s desire for Drew to eat the cookies she’s just baked and his desire, supported by Mike, not to eat any cookies.

That leads to a second level of conflict. Is Drew fat? Drew thinks so, Stephanie doesn’t, and Mike’s position shifts. Is Stephanie fat? Mike says so, but Stephanie and Drew say otherwise. Is Mike fat? Stephanie suggests he is, but Mike denies it.

Physically the scene is nearly static, with only the passing of the bowl and the munching of cookies. But psychologically the ground covered is vast. Mike goes from ease and confidence to insecurity and virtual denial of appetite. He begins as a friend of both Stephanie and Drew, but he winds up strangely alone. Drew shifts from alliance with Mike over his own need to lose weight to alliance with Stephanie. Stephanie, in effect, moves from Mike to Drew, and we see in small details the potential end of one romantic relationship and the beginning of another.

Psychologically, then, this scene is about sexual relationships, and it is to the author’s credit that she has written a highly charged, erotic scene with hardly a word of sexually explicit language. Yet the sexual overtones are clearly there, in the focus on Drew’s body, in the emphasis on Stephanie’s “butt,” in the reference to Mike’s “love handles,” and in every gluttonous mention of the chocolate chip cookies.

Although there is much in this scene to admire, there are also ways in which it might be improved. For one, we completely lose sight of the fact that they are watching television. Since that is, on the surface, a primary action, it ought to used. The scene would benefit from references to appropriate images on the screen—perhaps weight lifters, Baywatch hunks, or three-hundred-pound tackles.

A second primary action of the scene is eating the cookies, and there, too, more could be done with the action. Attention might productively be drawn to the ways that Stephanie and Mike eat their cookies. Perhaps Mike makes a mess, dropping crumbs on his shirt or crumbling pieces of cookie onto the sofa. Perhaps Stephanie eats her cookies slowly, nibbling around the chocolate chips, which become sticky on her fingers so that she licks off the wet chocolate. Precisely how to incorporate watching the television and eating the cookies more noticeably into the action is for the playwright to determine, but attention to those primary actions could add scope to the scene.

A second area in which the scene could be improved involves the use of language. The dialogue of the scene flows easily from one character to another, and it sounds natural. We can believe that people talk like that, and that is a solid virtue. What is lacking is clearer differentiation in language patterns between Mike, Drew, and Stephanie. In terms of the words used, and the way the words are put together, any of the lines could be spoken by any of the three characters.

Nibbles depends on there being three characters. Without Drew in the scene, Stephanie and Mike would simply have eaten the cookies without a word about weight and without conflict. Without Mike, Drew would simply have refused the cookies and would never have declared how appealing he thinks Stephanie looks. And, of course, without Stephanie and the cookies there is no scene. Such are the complications of the three-party scene.

Have you developed a sense for creating action? For showing your audience characters doing something? Can you put two characters into a direct conflict and manage the scene? Have you gained a sense of how people express themselves in language? Have you come to terms with the variety of ways three parties to a conflict can interact? If so, then you have the basic tools needed to prepare any scene in drama. In the following chapters you’ll be able to use those tools to develop additional scenes that will bring your characters and your ideas to life.