I think anybody who takes the trouble to write what we refer to as a serious play is holding a mirror up to people, saying: “Look, this is the way you behave, this is who you are. If you don’t like it, why don’t you change?” To hold a mirror up to people, to communicate.
—EDWARD ALBEE
Your next step in formulating an idea is to focus your thinking more deliberately on what you’ll ultimately be communicating to your audience. As discussed in Chapter 1, how you resolve your central character’s dilemma determines what message you’re putting across. And what you have to say is the most important consideration of all. It’s the real reason you’re writing your play in the first place.
A current popular theory used in the teaching of creative writing insists that the writer should never consciously consider theme or message during the writing process. I’ve had people get upset and even walk out of my workshops when I say it’s important to give some thought up front as to what will be the primary communication of a play. I try to tell them their open-ended approach may work for poetry or fiction (although I doubt it), but when developing an idea for a play, it’s almost impossible to proceed successfully without giving at least some thought to what you’re trying to say.
In one way or another, nearly all the playwrights I’ve interviewed agree with this. The simple fact is that in gathering the basic materials necessary to construct the framework for a play you have to think about your ending or resolution, and by so doing you’re automatically dealing with the primary communication to your audience. To avoid thinking about theme or message, therefore, is to avoid thinking about how you’re going to put your play together structurally. And to do that is to beg for frustration.
Because of the interrelatedness of theme and structure, it’s important early on in the process to attempt to put down on paper—as accurately as you can—what you think you’re trying to say with your idea, to state simply and clearly the primary, universal truth you ultimately want to communicate. In playwriting this statement is called the dramatic premise, It’s the theme or message of your play as you see it now. Don’t worry that you’ll be locking yourself in by thinking about this so early on—you won’t be. It’s simply a preliminary exploration, an initial probing to help get your mind and heart activated and focussed.
It must be stated at the outset that there are writers who don’t work this way and who instead discover their premise as they write their plays. Their focus is on a problem they want to solve. For example, John Patrick Shanley explains:
I have always been amazed at writers who start from theme. I don’t know how they do it. It’s a way that definitely happens, there are people who do this. They have a theme, an abstract idea that they feel passionate about, and they write a play to the purpose of dramatizing that theme. I don’t do that. I’m starting from a place of character and extreme specificity of emotion, and I’m trying to state the problem that I’m currently involved with. As fast as I can, I put what is at stake up at the beginning of the play and get to a place as quickly as possible where I don’t know the answers. So I am not writing about something where I’m saying: “I know something, and I’m going to tell you about it”; I am saying: “Brothers and sisters, I have brought you to this place because I’m in terrible trouble and I don’t know what to do. And this is the situation, and now I’m going to try and work it out right in front of you.”
Shanley also stresses, however, that he hasn’t always worked this way. Over the years he has developed a strong grasp of structure and the ability to shape his plays as he’s working on them.
We’ll cover more on the importance of preparation later. What’s important here is that even writers like Shanley start with a strong focus, a clearly defined problem they want to tackle. They may not, at the start, be consciously aware of the solution to the problem they’re dealing with, but they have developed the skills necessary to keep their play on track as it’s being written. For those in the early stages of their playwriting career, giving serious thought up front to dramatic premise is the best way to gain a grasp of how plays work structurally. And gaining this grasp is essential.
Any discussion of dramatic premise and its importance to playwrights must acknowledge a debt to Lajos Egri, who first applied the term to playwriting in the early 1940s. The first section of his book The Art of Dramatic Writing is generally considered the classic analysis of premise as it applies to writing for the theater, and the discussion that follows has its roots in Egri’s approach. In my opinion he got it right, and although some of his examples seem outdated today, the truth of his argument stands.
Let’s look again at Miller’s Death of a Salesman. Although different people will come away with different reactions, one overriding truth seems to hit everyone in a powerful way: Looking for fulfillment, both materially and spiritually, in worldly success leads to disillusionment. Willy Loman’s need to succeed (and have his sons succeed) as the world has defined it traps him into a downward spiral that ultimately destroys him. This basic truth is implanted in our hearts and minds as we walk out of the theater.
The premise of Miller’s The Crucible is just as straightforward: Honor and integrity conquer sin and evil. John Proctor does not sell out. At the end of the play, we’re left with a powerful sense of this man’s integration as a person and of his liberation from guilt. The idea here is that people can and do rise to the occasion, even if their only reward is death. Miller’s dramatic premise functions personally for the central character and communally for the society in which the play is set. Proctor has found peace and the witch hunt will now end.
Notice that both plays’ dramatic premises are stated with an active verb linking the two parts: “Looking for fulfillment in worldly success leads to disillusionment” and “Honor and integrity conquer sin and evil.” It’s always important to state your dramatic premise in this fashion, so that you can sense its forward movement, which will reflect the forward movement of your play.
Probably the most common active verb in dramatic premises is “leads to.” Something leads to something else. Other strong verbs on which a premise might hinge are “encourages,” “destroys,” “defies,” and “defeats.”
Lajos Egri offers the following examples of premises for four Shakespeare plays. Again, different people may state the dramatic premises of these plays in different ways, but the basic messages contained in them would have to be the same:
Macbeth — Ruthless ambition leads to its own destruction.
Romeo and Juliet — Great love defies even death.
Othello — Jealousy destroys itself and the object of its love.
King Lear — Unfounded suspicion leads to disaster.
The important point here is that, although there are obvious variations on how these can be stated, each captures the basic, essential communication we’re left with at the end of the plays.
Take a close look at some of your all-time favorite plays. Ask yourself: What is the playwright really saying and how does he or she go about communicating it? Analyze the plays in terms of their basic dramatic ingredients, focusing in on the central character’s main dilemma and how it’s resolved. Then try to write out the dramatic premise for each one. Taking the time to do this will sharpen your critical thinking skills as a playwright and help you with analyzing your own ideas.
Now take a look at your play-in-the-making and write out your own dramatic premise. It all boils down, literally, to filling in the blanks:
___________ leads to ___________.
Keep it short and to the point—no clutter or embellishments. And don’t worry if it seems overly basic or obvious. It should be fundamental and clear. Writing out your dramatic premise is just for you, an essential tool, like a plumb line to a carpenter. The audience will never see or hear it directly when your work is done, but the finished product will testify to its good use during construction.
Take care not to formulate an inert statement of fact, such as “Adultery is bad,” or “Worldly success is hollow.” These statements just sit there; they suggest neither a progression nor that the play is going to take you to a destination. Remember, you aren’t about to write an essay here. You’re going to write a living, breathing piece for the theater that centers on a character struggling to resolve a dilemma. So keep your premise dramatic. Instill it with forward motion, and have it tell you that your play is going to be about conflict.
Coming up with a simple dramatic premise stated in active terms isn’t always easy. But it’s such an essential step that you should force yourself to write it out. You’ll find yourself having to ask some hard questions about what you’re really trying to say. And although you may not feel entirely comfortable with your initial efforts, remember that what you’re really doing is sharpening your focus on the dramatic essence of your play in terms of your central character’s struggle—how he or she resolves it—and what it’s going to mean for anyone watching this on a stage. As suggested earlier, skipping this step at this point will only short-circuit your thinking and decision-making in the playwriting process.
As with all this early work in formulating your idea, your dramatic premise may change. The discoveries you’ll make as you move through the process may very well shift your focus. You may find that your play is really about something different from what you now think it is, and it will become clear when and if your premise is no longer functioning for you. The point is that if you don’t formulate one to start off with, you won’t have anything with which to gauge the hundreds of ideas and possibilities that will constantly be presenting themselves as you move deeper into the project. Every choice you make as you proceed will be determined ultimately by your dramatic premise. If a more appropriate premise does begin to present itself, it’s because you had the first one there to show you the way to the better one.
Take some time to mull all this over for a while. Challenge yourself to discover what it is you really stand for and how this play is going to speak to some aspect of that. Then put it down in writing in the form of a dramatic premise. You won’t be locking yourself into anything. Rather, it will help guide you to that part of yourself and your belief system that will fuel the writing of your play.
Horton Foote puts it beautifully:
There has to be a point where you understand that what you have to say is different from what anybody else would say. And the quicker you understand that and begin to get in touch with what you really have to say, the richer your writing will be.
In other words, know your dramatic premise.
When you’re ready to write your play, I suggest you put your written dramatic premise up somewhere in clear view of your workspace. It will serve as a constant reminder of why you’re sitting there slaving over those pages. Then, when you get stuck or feel that a scene is wandering aimlessly and going nowhere, you can stop and meditate on that simple, clear statement. Force yourself to ask: “How does what I’m writing today contribute to the dramatic premise?” If you can’t answer the question (which is usually the case when you’ve written yourself into a dead end), go back until you find where the scene is still on track and start over from there.
In describing the writing process for his 1980 Pulitzer Prize–winning play Talley’s Folly, for example, Lanford Wilson explains:
I said: What this play is about is that you must be willing to risk everything you have in order to get what you want. And I wrote that down and put it above the typewriter, and everything that didn’t apply to that in some way went bye-bye.
On the other hand, if you finish a scene and love what’s happened on the pages but it seems to be heading off in a new direction, one that seemingly has nothing to do with your stated dramatic premise, take a deep breath and keep going with the new material until it either plays itself out or finds its way back to the main thrust of the play. If the new direction persists and continues to bear exciting new pages, look again at your dramatic premise and consider adjusting it to fit more accurately where the play is now heading. Think about alternatives. Try to figure out what your subconscious is telling you.
The key here is flexibility. Plays are not written in one sitting and are rarely written in a hundred. The process is one of constant discovery—thousands of tiny choices being made every day, usually on a hunch or mere whim. It’s not a science, but messy and uncertain. In the final analysis, it’s a mystery how a finished script eventually gets written.
The more you work with your idea and the further you get into the actual writing of the play, the clearer your thinking will become. Your initial premise may very well need adjustment. You may have to throw it out altogether for something entirely new that more precisely captures what you want to say with the play.
As Tina Howe points out: “You have these impulses that make you start a play, but often the heart of the play has nothing to do with what those ideas were that made you begin it in the first place.” Writing a play is like removing layers of paint off a wall in an old house—you keep uncovering things that couldn’t be seen until you removed the layer on top. It’s a constant uncovering and revealing process. And with every layer uncovered, your dramatic premise has to be looked at anew.
Playwrights, like all artists, create their works because they have something they feel compelled to communicate. As you ponder your initial dramatic premise, remember that what you come up with should be something you feel passionately about, something you believe in and can get emotional over.
“Nobody should write unless there is something crying to be said,” Edward Albee says. “There’s absolutely no reason to write—no reason to waste your own time as a writer, no reason to waste an audience’s time—unless you’re trying to change the world.”
Romulus Linney puts it this way: “It should make you cry, it should excite you, it should get you feeling very strange and funny and goose-bumpy and all that.”
As much as the specific circumstances of your play allow, your dramatic premise should represent who you are and what you stand for. Therefore, don’t be afraid to state it boldly. You have to believe it and be willing to defend it. If you’re afraid of what your friends or family or anyone else will think of your dramatic premise, you might not be ready to write that play.
As Horton Foote says: “My gut instinct tells me that the first person you have to please is yourself, and if you are passionate about it and can find a way to really relate to what you know and feel, then you will find an audience.”
And John Guare points out: “The premise of a play can be very, very small. It doesn’t have to be the most clever or momentous thing in the world. It just has to be something that releases you emotionally.”
You want to focus on deeply held truths about life that you, the playwright, want to communicate—otherwise, why should you bother? To be a playwright? No good. To make money? There are much better ways. To delineate certain political or historical events? Become a journalist. Sure, there’s Cecil B. DeMille’s famous line: “If you want to send a message, use Western Union.” He was talking, of course, about a heavy-handed peddling of ideologies. This is not what dramatic premise is.
Playwrights from the earliest days of drama were poets and philosophers and, above all, prophets of their times who wanted to convey the truth as they saw it; they cared deeply about life and their fellow humans. Having these motives, too, will fuel you with a passionate drive to get your ideas out there.
Romulus Linney captures this beautifully when he says:
A good play to me is a play that challenges an audience’s assumptions. It says: “You think you know something about this, but I’m going to show you something else. I have other ideas about it.” And it’s kind of tough and thorny and bristly, and it upsets people, and it gets people talking back and forth, and they get to carrying on, and so forth.… A great play—how many are there, maybe fifty?—is a play that completely changes your assumptions about life, so that when you go out and face the world again you look at everything completely differently.
Again, don’t be fooled by the general nature of the dramatic premise. Remember that this is a condensation—a crystallization—of what your play idea is about. It isn’t meant to be specific. Rather, it’s meant to help you focus your thinking as you work through the process. It will constantly guide you back to the true heart of the play. And, like the heart beating inside a person, it’s what gives your play a pulsing center, a force from which and to which everything flows.
The dramatic premise is never stated outright in the play itself, but rises out of it. The audience is left with a sense of it as they leave the theater. The play has taken them on a journey and let them off in a new place. They can feel that they’ve been changed in some way, but are unable to put into words exactly how. But that’s as it should be. Plays are meant to be experienced and felt. Thus the dramatic premise speaks to the audience’s emotions and hearts more vividly than to their conscious minds. This is what makes the theater such a potentially powerful form of communication. And your dramatic premise is, ultimately, what you’re communicating.
Here is an exercise in premise hunting. Keeping all the above thoughts in mind, try this as a way to uncover your premise: Sit down alone and start free-associating on paper your very private, personal thoughts on the thematic subject area you know you want to write about. Don’t restrict yourself in any way as to what you put down. Describe how you feel about the issues involved. Get angry if you feel angry. Get sad if you feel sad. Give your emotions full play. Express in words everything you can think of on the topic and be one hundred percent honest with yourself as you do it.
“Words are living things, and they suggest other words,” Arthur Miller says. “And until you put the word down, you don’t get the suggestion that’s in the previous word.” In writing your personal statement, come up with at least a page or two, pouring it forth, and then put it away for at least twenty-four hours without dwelling on it, editing it, or rewriting it in any way. Getting a little distance from what you’ve just written is critical.
Putting your raw feelings down on paper helps your brain focus more precisely on what it is you really think and believe. As a result, when you do read through your personal statement again, it will give you a clearer sense of the dramatic premise you really want to work with—of what you, in your heart of hearts, really want to say to your audience. This is what you should always embrace.
There are basically two kinds of workable dramatic premises: The first conveys a lesson by showing the negative consequences of a certain mode of behavior or action. It leaves the audience wiser about what not to do if they want to avoid the central character’s fate: ruthless ambition leads to destruction, jealousy leads to ruin, suspicion leads to disaster, chasing after worldly success leads to disillusionment. The majority of serious plays contain this type of dramatic premise. The best of them are extremely powerful and in performance can affect audiences profoundly.
The other type of dramatic premise takes the reverse approach and illustrates the positive consequences when important discoveries are made and steps are taken to change behavior or action. It communicates to the audience not only what they need to avoid in life, but also what they need to do to make their life more meaningful and fulfilling. The central characters in such plays are put through ordeals, but ultimately they come to realize how they have erred and take at least an initial step in a more positive direction.
Look again at the dramatic premise of The Crucible: Honor and integrity conquer sin and evil. Or consider Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, in which Martha finally rejects her own destructive behavior and takes tentative steps toward living in reality for the first time in her adult life. These are both powerful plays with a great deal of struggle and turmoil—the former ending in the death of its hero—but both leave the audience with a positive message. The dramatic premise points to something constructive, enriching, and basically uplifting, to a way in which life might be lived more fully.
Don’t let this discussion make you anxious about whether your play is going to be a tragedy, tragicomedy, comedy, farce, or anything in between. It doesn’t really matter. Your play will be what it will be. Your job, as Marsha Norman puts it, is to “worry about the truth of it.” What’s important is to be aware that all plays have one overriding dramatic premise which is stated either in a negative or positive way.
Personally, I think there is a dearth of good new plays that offer up dramatic premises pointing in a positive direction. Most new works I read and see tell me what not to do, what to avoid. They reflect the problems of the world I live in without suggesting, in dramatic terms, what I might personally be able to do to rectify them. They don’t shed any light on how to live a fuller, richer life. I walk out of the theater drained, but not fed.
My experience at my own theater, where we’re committed to developing new plays with positive dramatic premises, has convinced me that I’m not alone in feeling a desire for something more. When we present a reading or workshop, our audiences fill every seat and stand in the back as well to see unreviewed plays they’ve never heard of before, often by playwrights unfamiliar to them. People have told me they keep coming back because they’re starved for plays that are ultimately life-affirming, that reach for the light, that point to a direction that will help them in some way to pursue peaceful lives. They aren’t looking for fairy-tale endings but, rather, for some answers, some meaningful clues about how to live in this complicated, complex age. They’re hungry for works of art that, as Leonard Bernstein phrased it, reflect “cosmos in chaos,” that don’t just present us with the chaos of the world but go a step further and try to make some sense of it. They’re looking for plays that touch on the mainsprings of human existence and humanity’s spiritual connections.
Obviously, both types of dramatic premise are valid. The great plays of dramatic literature, both classic and modern, prove that. And I’m not suggesting that you consider only premises that point in a positive direction. Your play as it evolves will determine which way you should go. Just be aware of the fact that there is both a negative and a positive way to treat dramatically most human issues and problems, and that in this increasingly complex and fast-paced society of ours there appears to be a growing hunger for the latter. Your play can pack a punch either way.
Your dramatic premise is the key to determining which treatment or approach you’re going to take as you proceed. That’s why it’s so important to give serious consideration to how you’ve stated it.
In Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller chose to have his hero self-destruct. The resolution is affecting and unforgettable. His premise—looking for fulfillment in worldly success leads to disillusionment—is communicated with tremendous punch, for Willy Loman’s disillusionment is so intense that it leads to utter despair and death.
Now imagine that Miller, in working on the play, had decided to change his premise to this: Giving up the pursuit of worldly success leads to personal integration and peace. A totally different play! The first half would be similar to the script as we know it, but in the second half some major shifts would take place. Miller would have needed some kind of cathartic moment for Willy, a moment when his eyes and heart are opened to the truth. The resolution would be entirely new, and the audience would be left with a different message.
In this differently premised version, audiences would see that if Willy did not change his ways he would be doomed, but they’d also see the man recognize his error and take some initial steps to rectify his life. This would be a play so different that even the powerful title would have to go.
Obviously, I’m not suggesting that Miller change his wonderful play. However, you can see the power of the dramatic premise and how it determines where your play is going.
I agree with Edward Albee’s assertion that form and content co-determine one another. But I don’t think you can begin to assemble the building materials for your play—the personalities, the style of the piece, the degree of theatricality, the structural components—until you know what the play is going to be in terms of content. And at the heart of every play’s content is the dramatic premise: what it’s ultimately communicating to the audience.