In Hamlet, the big questions are these: Did Claudius kill the king? Will Hamlet prove it? And will he kill Claudius when he does? Hamlet gets his proof at the performance of “The Mousetrap,” the play he stages for the court. “The Mousetrap” is rewritten by Hamlet (the detective as playwright!) so that its plot mirrors Claudius' murder of the king. When the murder scene is performed, Claudius becomes upset and has the play stopped. Hamlet knows this incriminates Claudius. Hamlet has his evidence. All he has to do next is kill him. But when he does go to kill Claudius, Hamlet finds him praying; Hamlet fears that if he kills him in the middle of a prayer, Claudius will go to Heaven (roadblock/complication). Hamlet will have to wait a few moments until Claudius is finished. Just then Hamlet is summoned to his mother's bedroom (diversion/complication). He goes to the queen. Unbeknownst to Hamlet, Polonius is hiding behind an arras in order to spy on Hamlet (secret/complication). Hamlet and his mother argue. Polonius calls out from behind his hiding place (surprise/complication). Hamlet, thinking the voice is Claudius', stabs his rapier through the arras. (Remember: An action need not be intentional. Hamlet didn't mean to kill Polonius; he thought he was stabbing Claudius. Still his stabbing of Polonius is an action that causes further reactions.) Polonius falls forward, dead (mistake/complication). Claudius and his soldiers come after Hamlet (pursuit/complication).
Remember context. Your complications don't have to involve stabbings and murders. Your complications might involve a neighbor bringing over a bundt cake during an anniversary party. If the neighbor's timing is off (the husband and wife were about to embrace each other), or if the bundt cake shows that the neighbor is too familiar with the husband's taste in desserts (the neighbor and the husband were having an affair), it's a good complication.
You also have to remember where you're going. It's easy to get sidetracked when thinking up obstacles and complications. You may come up with a terrific scene that really puts your hero in the hot seat—so terrific he finds it impossible to get out of it. Or, if he does find a way out, it puts him in a place too far away from the main line of action. Test your ideas. Don't be too hasty. The entire point of your great middle is to reach your great ending. You must pace yourself. Your plot is like a car or a speedboat. Like these vehicles, your plot is always moving forward. But your plot is also the traffic on the highway, the choppy waves in the sea. Your plot is forward motion resisted by opposing forces. That's what makes the great middle full of exciting events and actions.
INTERMISSIONS
A key component in a contemporary full-length play is its intermission. As we noted in chapter five, there are many variations in acts and running times:
Hamlet has five acts in five hours
Hedda Gabler has four acts in three hours
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? has three acts in three hours
Glengarry Glen Ross has a first act that is thirty minutes long, its second fifty-five minutes long
Six Degrees of Separation has one ninety-minute act
Some contemporary plays don't have intermissions. There are one-acts from ten to ninety minutes long. Some writers have written plays that require a continuous experience without interruption. Marsha Norman's 'Night, Mother is written that way. Its power derives, in part, from its concentrated, unbroken action. The character of Jessie has told her mother that she plans to kill herself within the hour; the clock is ticking. But if you decide that your play needs one or more intermissions, plan the intermission for optimum effect. There is one rule to remember about the placement of your intermission: If you've written a play that demands an interval or rest stop for your audience, always place your intermission at a moment in the play when there is maximum expectation, and suspense—a surprise that generates a question, an action that creates a mystery, a cliffhanger. In the three-act plays of the early twentieth century, the first intermission usually came about thirty-five to forty minutes into the play. The second act was forty-five to sixty minutes in length, followed by a second intermission. The third and final act was twenty to thirty minutes long. In a contemporary two-act play, the intermission usually comes fifty to sixty-five minutes into the performance. The second act is usually slightly shorter in length. A good intermission is part of the playwright's strategy. You want the audience to get a little rest, but you also want them to be excited by what they've just seen and eager to find out what happens when the curtain goes up again.
The diagram of a contemporary, two-act, 130-minute play, including its fifteen-minute intermission, might look like this:
ACTIONS IN THE MIDDLE
Remember the goals and obstacles in the causality link of the story of The Changeling, the Jacobean revenge play we discussed in chapter three? Look at those goals and obstacles again.
Goal: Tomazo and Beatrice are in love with each other.
Obstacle: Beatrice is betrothed to Tomazo's brother, Alonzo.
Solution action: Beatrice and Tomazo plot to kill Alonzo.
Further obstacle: Neither can perform the murder without arousing suspicion.
Solution action: Hire DeFlores, Beatrice's servant, to kill brother.
Further obstacle: DeFlores will only commit murder if Beatrice allows him to sleep with her after the killing.
Solution action: Beatrice acquiesces to DeFlores' wish.
Action: DeFlores murders Alonzo.
Payoff: Beatrice allows DeFlores to make love to her.
Complication: After sex with DeFlores, Beatrice falls in love with DeFlores.
In looking at the above list of actions, problems, solutions and obstacles, where would you say the divisions of beginning and middle came? It came at the first solution action: Beatrice and Tomazo plot to kill Alonso. That's the action that starts the plot in motion. That's the point of attack. But there's still more play. In the rest of The Changeling there are murders heaped upon murders, more plans, more reversals, discoveries, revelations and surprises. A subplot involving a madhouse is brought into play. In the end Beatrice and DeFlores are both dead. The list above covers only about half of the play's middle actions. Where would you place an intermission in The Changeling? I know where I'd place one: after Beatrice sleeps with DeFlores.
THE END OF THE MIDDLE: CRISIS TIME
The last action of your middle is vitally important. It is where all the rising action comes to a head. It is the crisis of the play.
Ben Krielkamp—a playwright, actor and director—once talked to me about this crisis point in reference to Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The play is written in three acts with two intermissions. It is the story of George and Martha, a bitter, battling married couple at a small university. The play takes place late in the evening after a faculty party. Martha has invited a new couple, Nick and Honey, back to the house for drinks. As the doorbell rings, George hisses to Martha: “Just don't talk about the bit. The little bugger. Our son.” (Threat/conflict/ exposition/foreshadowing.)
As the evening progresses, George and Martha's “party” reveals their marriage, their history, and their deep animosity towards each other. And Martha does indeed talk about their son. George and Martha begin to use Nick and Honey as weapons to bludgeon each other. Late in the play, at the end of the second act, Martha takes Nick offstage to have sex with him while George and Honey are left in the living room. We have reached a crisis.
Ben and I were speaking about the end of this scene between George and Honey. Ben said: “There's a point in this scene—and it's the same with every great play—when something happens. And that something, that action, is the result of everything that has happened before it; and everything that happens after is the result of that same action.” The crisis is a fulcrum, a point of action on which everything in the play turns. In this case, it's a decision—George's. Here's the scene:
From off-stage comes the sound of MARTHA'S laughter and the crashing of dishes.
GEORGE: You know what's going on in there, little Miss?
HONEY: I don't want to k
now anything.
GEORGE: There are a couple of people in there … (MARTHA'S laughter again) … they are in there, in the kitchen.… Right there, with the onion skins and the coffee grounds … sort of … sort of a … sort of a dry run for the wave of the future.
HONEY: (Beside herself) I … don't … understand … you …
GEORGE: (A hideous elation) It's very simple.… When people can't abide things as they are, when they can't abide the present, they do one of two things … either they … either they turn to a contemplation of the past, as I have done, or they set about to … alter the future. And when you want to change something … you Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
HONEY: Stop it! … (Shivering) I don't want to listen to you … I want to know who rang.
GEORGE: Your husband is … and you want to know who rang?
HONEY: Who rang? Someone rang!
GEORGE: (His jaw drops open … he is whirling with an idea) … Someone …
HONEY: Bang!
GEORGE: … someone … rang … yes … yessss …
HONEY: The … bells … rang …
GEORGE: (His mind racing ahead) The bells rang … and it was someone …
HONEY: Somebody …
GEORGE: (He is home, now) … somebody rang … it was somebody … with … I've got it! I've got it, Martha …! Somebody with a message … and the message was … our son … our son! (Almost whispered) It was a message … the bells rang and it was a message, and it was about … our son … and the message … was … and the message was … our … son … is … dead!
HONEY: (Almost sick) Oh … no.
GEORGE: I'll tell her myself … in good time. I'll tell her myself.
George has made a decision, a decision based on the events of the evening. Martha's use of “the bit, the little bugger, our son” has pushed them over the line. They have reached their crisis. George is determined to destroy Martha when she and Nick are finished having intercourse. Their final confrontation will take place at the ending—in this case in the third act. And in the above scene we see how he plans to do it.
In the end of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? George tells Martha that their son is dead. Martha is horrified. But we also discover the truth of his “death.” They couldn't have children, so they invented a son they could talk about together, as a kind of solace. But it was a private consolation—a secret fantasy shared between the two of them—and Martha broke the rules by mentioning him to their guests. Hence, George felt justified in ending the game. By announcing their son's death in front of Nick and Honey, George has effectively ended their solace forever. They will have to learn to live without it.
The point I want to stress is that good drama always has a crisis moment that leads to an action much like George's decision. It's an action that brings the middle of your play to a close and paves the way for the final confrontation. In Hamlet, it's Claudius' plot with Laertes to challenge Hamlet to a duel. In The Odd Couple, it's the fight between Felix and Oscar that sends Felix off into the night and, finally, to the Pigeon sisters. In 'Night, Mother, it's the moment when Thelma confesses that she wishes Jessie had never told her she was going to commit suicide; she'd rather not have known in advance; after this Jessie shoots herself. Not all these actions are exactly alike, but they are similar in their general effect and provocation.
When you're planning your play and you've determined your middle and your ending, ask yourself: Do I have a crisis point, a fulcrum for the end of the middle and the beginning of the end? Can you look at the climax of your play and then find the crisis action late in the middle of the plot that moved the characters in the direction you had determined? Don't be blurry on this point. Audiences love crisis moments like these. Moments like George's decision make an audience say these things to themselves:
• What's going to happen when George puts his plan in action?
• How will Martha respond?
• What will we finally learn about “the little bugger” when George “kills” him?
• Who will win the final battle?
• What will the outcome of the conflict tell us about the characters, their world and our own?
Your great middle needs that moment of high expectation. You can feel the excitement in an audience build. You can hear an audience say to itself: “I can't wait for this!”
A play is a strip tease. The end of the middle is that moment when the stripper's hand hovers above one key piece of clothing. All it takes is a flip of a finger to reveal everything. The playwright's hand is poised and ready.
And then you reach the end.
EXERCISES
1. Pick a play idea you developed in one of the previous chapters. You've already chosen an ending, and you've chosen a beginning. You know your inciting incident. You know your point of attack. Between the point of attack and the climax is the middle of your play. Study the point of attack and the climax. What combination of (a) plausible forward pursuit by the protagonist of her goal, (b) obstacles thrown in the way by antagonists of every kind, (c) coincidences, and (d) opportunities can connect these two points in your play? Write down at least twenty actions performed by your character(s) that could link these two points.
2. Once you've determined this chain of actions, find the crisis point at the end of your middle, the moment at the end of the middle that propels your characters towards their final confrontations. Is it a decision on the part of a character? Is it a challenge? Is it an outside, offstage event? An opportunity? Is it a revelation, a surprise, a reversal? Write it down and add it to the twenty actions. Put yourself in the mind of the audience. You've been watching the play for a long time now. If it's a one-act, you've been watching it for many minutes. If it's full-length, it could be two hours or more. You want the audience to have a sense of expectation prior to the final conflict. What expectations does your crisis raise? If the expectations prompt questions like “What will happen next?” “What will one character do to another?” “How will one character respond?” and “What do these questions and their potential answers mean in terms of the play's themes?” you're on the right track. If not, can you find another crisis that can propel your play toward its conclusion?
3. If you find yourself stranded in the middle of your play, unsure about how to reach the climax you've already determined, try this first: reassess the climax you've chosen. Then look back over the play to earlier decisions you made about action, plot and character. Were there any earlier decisions that now seem to have less potential? Are there some scenes, characters and actions that have potential but seem to push your play in a direction you don't really wish to pursue? Or could those directions lead you to a more interesting and satisfying climax than the one you'd first planned? Revise.
4. Have you left clues for yourself in the earlier parts of the play? Details, lines of dialogue, physical actions—even ones that seem odd or extraneous at first glance—that you can go back to focus on and use to push the play toward the most, effective, most dramatic and most interesting crisis and climax. If so, use them. Revise again.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Great Endings
The Russian actor, director and teacher Konstantin Stanislavsky once said that the most important part of any play comes in its last five minutes. Stanislavsky guided the four great plays of Anton Chekhov through their premieres at the Moscow Art Theater a hundred years ago. He knew from experience that a well-crafted play moves its audience forward in their seats in expectation of its conclusion, at its end.
Many times, after a successful play ends, you'll hear this uttered by an audience member: “It took a while to get going, but once it did, the show was great.” But here's something you never hear after a successful play: “The play was great, but the ending was disappointing.” Why will an audience forgive a disappointing beginning, but not a disappointing ending? The point, of course, is not to disappoint—everything in a play should be terrific. But audiences, even ones that are extraordinarily difficult to plea
se, will often give a playwright time to establish the rules and set up the game. They'll give the show some leeway, but they want to arrive somewhere by the time they've reached the play's end. And an ending that does not provide that sense of arrival is not satisfying. That's why we call it a climax. Your job as a playwright is to provide satisfaction.
Don't frustrate your audience at your climax. Frustration is a useful sensation for an audience to experience at strategic points throughout the play, especially when you want to generate suspense. But a sense of frustration at the end of a play, by design or error, is worse than a wasted opportunity. The playwright who accidentally flubs the ending and frustrates the audience's expectations is incompetent. The playwright who chooses to frustrate the audience is immature, arrogant and hostile.
Certainly writers may play tricks on audiences and pull the rug out from under expectations (murder mysteries and comedies come to mind), but those tricks must be done with affection, on the level of a favorite uncle playing peek-a-boo and yelling “Fooled you!” to a roomful of delighted nieces and nephews. The trick about trick endings (O. Henry endings) is that the trick should be delightful.
HAPPY VS. SAD ENDINGS
A play can have a happy ending, a sad ending, or an ending mat mixes the two. But when crafting your climax, a question I suggest you consider strongly is this: Was there hope for a happy ending? Novelist Erica Jong, in her preface to Three Eighteenth-Century Novels once wrote: “The best novelists of all periods … usually have in common their ability to suggest the redemptive possibilities of human life. They complete the action as the arc ascends. That it can also descend, we surely know. But we need (to be reminded) of the possibility of ascension.” Jong was writing about novels, but I think her point is just as true for plays. Audiences believe in redemption. They believe in the possibility of goodness asserting itself over evil. They hope for a happy ending. If the playwright has provided no chance for her characters to achieve their goals, suspense is lost—as is the audience's sympathy and interest.
The Art and Craft of Playwriting Page 15