by Will Dunne
■ DOUBT: A PARABLE
Inciting event: A sermon
When we meet Sister Aloysius, the principal of St. Nicholas school, she is predisposed to mistrust Father Flynn, the parish priest and gym instructor, because of something she saw in the backstory: a boy on the playground recoiling from his touch. The incident occurred weeks ago on the first day of school and aroused her concern, but not enough to do something about it. Because no action ensued, the play did not begin then.
What incites Aloysius to action now is the sermon Flynn gives in scene 1, a sermon on doubt that begins with the question “What do you do when you’re not sure?” As we hear the sermon delivered, we see only Flynn at the pulpit. We do not yet know that Aloysius is in the church listening to the sermon and being affected by it. In scene 2, as she discusses school business with the new eighth-grade teacher, Sister James, we begin to see that Flynn’s sermon has disturbed Aloysius and prompted her to grill James about the priest and his choice of topic. “Is Father Flynn in Doubt?” Aloysius wonders. “Is he concerned that someone else is in Doubt?”
As they continue, her concern leads her to take further action. She orders James to be more aware of her students and more vigilant in reporting their problems. Knowing that her suspicions, if made public, could cause scandal, Aloysius remains purposefully vague about the reason for this edict: “I can only say I am concerned, perhaps needlessly, about matters in St. Nicholas school.” The scene goes on and the topic changes, but the story engine has been ignited.
Quest: To expose and expel a suspected child predator
Flynn’s sermon on doubt has stirred in Aloysius a quest that begins with suspicion and leads to a deep and relentless need to expose the priest and force him out of the parish. This goal is what drives most of the dramatic action and holds the story together. The play cannot end until Flynn has been removed or Aloysius has been defeated. As the story unfolds, the nature of her quest will become increasingly transparent until it leads to an open confrontation with the priest and a final showdown to force his resignation.
■ TOPDOG/UNDERDOG
Inciting event: A business proposition
Parks’s play has a dual-protagonist structure that centers on two brothers: Lincoln, a reformed card hustler, and Booth, a petty thief. Each functions dramatically as the protagonist of his own quest and the antagonist of his brother’s. Both quests are incited by the same event.
When the play begins, Booth has already decided to change his life and become a rich man with the resources he believes are necessary to win back his ex-girlfriend Grace. “She’s in love with me again,” he tells Lincoln, “but she don’t know it yet.” Booth plans to accomplish this rise in status through the art of three-card monte, a shell game played on the street for money. What incites the play is Booth’s proposal, in scene 1, to bring Lincoln in on the scheme and Lincoln’s rejection of his offer. It is a clash of wills that rekindles the brothers’ sibling rivalry and drives the rest of the play to its deadly conclusion.
Booth cannot walk away from this clash for two reasons. First, the scam requires at least two partners working together in secret: a dealer who uses sleight of hand to trick players into losing their cash and a stickman who lures customers by pretending to win the game. Second, Booth has no talent for card hustling, while Lincoln is a master dealer who can throw the cards with legendary skill. For Booth’s plan to succeed, he must get his brother’s help. “Oh, come on, man, we could make money you and me,” he tells Lincoln. “You would throw the cards and I’d be your Stickman.”
Lincoln declines Booth’s offer because of a commitment he made years ago to give up card hustling and seek only legitimate employment. His change of heart was inspired by the murder of his stickman Lonny. Fearing for his own safety, Lincoln reformed himself and has since resisted the cards, which he now views as an addiction. “You know I don’t touch thuh cards, man,” he tells Booth. “I don’t touch thuh cards.”
Booth’s dream of a new life and Lincoln’s pledge to avoid card hustling force the brothers onto a collision course that sets each brother’s quest into motion.
Booth’s quest: To become topdog
Lincoln’s rejection of his business proposition rekindles in Booth the burning desire to be topdog. For Booth, this means proving to both Lincoln and himself that he is the better of the two. He plans to do this by outperforming his brother at three-card monte, filling his pockets with cash, and winning back Grace. In the end, it is the desire to rise above his older brother that most drives Booth. This is why the other onstage character is Lincoln and not Grace. It is also why all of the onstage dramatic action takes place in the room he shares with Lincoln and not in other areas of his life.
Lincoln’s quest: To stay topdog
Booth’s business proposition has stirred up in Lincoln the need to protect his topdog status. For Lincoln, this means being the head of the family—what’s left of it—and keeping his volatile younger brother in tow. A key part of this quest is to maintain a legitimate job with a regular paycheck that can cover both brothers’ living expenses. Booth’s offer has threatened the status quo by creating an antagonistic home environment and arousing in Lincoln old demons he thought he had put to rest.
■ THE CLEAN HOUSE
Inciting event: A cleaning woman who won’t clean
The role of protagonist is shared by three characters—Lane, Matilde, and Virginia—who have individual dramatic journeys as well as a collective one. The event that sets these journeys into motion is Matilde’s decision to stop cleaning Lane’s house, even though it is her new job as a live-in maid to do so. Rather than see this inciting event unfold onstage, we learn about it through Lane in her opening words of the play: “It has been such a hard month. / My cleaning lady—from Brazil—decided that she was depressed one day and stopped cleaning my house.” This decision generates a chain of events that will change the lives of all three protagonists.
By reporting the inciting event in a monologue rather than revealing it through character interaction, the playwright compresses a month’s worth of experience into a few lines that immediately establish the opening conflict. The monologue also creates the opportunity to reveal Lane. From her description of the event, we can see that she has a lofty opinion of herself and a condescending view of the woman she expects to clean up after her.
Lane’s quest: To regain control of her universe
When her new live-in housekeeper stops cleaning, Lane begins to lose control of her house and the dust and dirt that is ever accumulating in it. When her efforts to order Matilde back to work fail, Lane has her professionally medicated. When that also fails, Lane ends up having to clean the house herself, a vexing development for one who sees herself above such menial labor.
Matilde’s decision to stop cleaning thus presents a challenge to Lane’s authority and arouses in her the need to reassert control of her universe. Initially, her eye is on the cleanliness of her house and the efficacy of her position as a housekeeper’s employer. Over time, Lane’s need for control will expand to include her interfering sister, her unfaithful husband, and the exotic older woman whom her husband introduces as his soul mate.
Matilde’s quest: To heal from the loss of her parents
The daughter of parents who lived and died in laughter, Matilde wants to follow in their footsteps and become a comedian. Having to work as a cleaning woman makes her feel sad, not only because it’s a job she dislikes but also because it removes her from this legacy of humor. Sadness is what motivates Matilde to stop cleaning and reclaim her time and her future. It is a decision that arouses in her the determination to think up the perfect joke and, in doing so, to recover from the loss of her parents, for whom she still mourns.
Virginia’s quest: To have a meaningful task
With a life that has been in a downward spiral for three decades, Virginia is looking for ways to distract herself from her failures. When she learns that her sister’s new maid is too sad to
clean, Virginia concocts a scheme to rescue the maid by secretly cleaning the house for her. Underlying this scheme is a desire to have a meaningful task in her otherwise empty life and to reconnect with her estranged sister, Lane, whom she cannot help but envy.
ANALYZING YOUR STORY
Explore the event, positive or negative, that sets your main character’s quest into motion.
INCITING EVENT
• What is the inciting event of your story? Where and when does it take place?
• Who is present when the inciting event occurs? If the main character is not present, how does he or she learn about it?
• What causes the inciting event to happen?
• Right or wrong, how does the main character perceive this event?
• What is his or her immediate emotional response to what happens?
• How does the inciting event affect the character physically? Psychologically? Socially?
• How has the balance of the character’s life been upset in either a good way or bad way?
• Who else, if anyone, is affected by the inciting event, and how?
• What, if anything, happens onstage prior to the inciting event? If it does not occur early in the script, what is the reason for delaying it? How does this delay serve the story?
QUEST
• What goal, or superobjective, does the inciting event arouse in the main character?
• Why is this goal important to the character? Identify what’s at stake.
• Is this goal positive (a desire to acquire or achieve something) or negative (a desire to get away from something)? If the latter, how would you restate it as a positive goal?
• Why is this quest an appropriate choice for this character in this situation?
• What does this quest reveal about the character?
• At the time of the inciting event, what allies, skills, and resources does the character have available to complete the quest? What challenges does the character anticipate?
• Large or small, what is the first step the character will take to pursue the goal?
CENTRAL CONFLICT
Drama is often called the art of conflict. Whether large or small, ordinary or unusual, there is always a problem to be solved from the beginning of the play to the end. Conflict tends to be associated with argument, but that is only one form of conflict. Anything that stands in the character’s way and makes his or her objective difficult to achieve is a conflict.
Such obstacles may arise from the inner world of the character, as in Jenny Schwartz’s God’s Ear, where a mother tries to heal from the drowning of her child but suffers from inconsolable grief that makes healing seem impossible. Or conflict may arise from another character with opposing needs, as in August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson, where a woman wants to preserve a valuable family heirloom—a hand-carved piano—but is confronted by her brother, who wants to sell it. Or conflict may arise from the current situation in the world of the story, as in Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, where a young gay man with AIDS in the 1980s wants to survive but faces a society that rejects him because of his sexual identity and medical condition.
The central conflict of the story is the most difficult obstacle that the character must overcome. This big problem is typically introduced early on and not solved, if at all, until the end. It is by observing the character’s efforts to deal with the central conflict that we come to understand the quest and its importance to the character. If the quest feels unclear or unimportant, it often means that the conflict is not strong enough.
■ DOUBT: A PARABLE
Since the play is structured around a single protagonist, the dramatic conflict arises primarily from the obstacles Sister Aloysius faces as she pursues her story goal.
Aloysius’s main problem: Flynn
Aloysius wants to protect the students of St. Nicholas from Father Flynn, a priest whom she suspects of child abuse. Many problems make this quest difficult. For example, she has no proof of his wrongdoing, and the nature of her suspicion is so explosive that, if made public, it could backfire and harm not only herself and the child in question but also the whole school.
Of all the obstacles she faces, the most overwhelming is Flynn himself, who is, in classical story terms, the antagonist. As a priest in the 1960s, he is a trusted and respected religious figure who is virtually beyond reproach. He is also a charismatic and popular leader in the parish, a factor that further protects him from insinuations about his moral character. Moreover, he ranks above Aloysius in the patriarchy of the Church and has friends, such as Monsignor Benedict, who are even higher. Most importantly, Flynn will deny wrongdoing and fight back to stop Aloysius from damaging his reputation. If her quest is to succeed, Aloysius must find a way to bring Flynn down.
This central conflict is introduced in scene 4, when Sister James first reports her concerns about Flynn and Aloysius acknowledges the difficulty of defeating him. “I don’t know what to do,” she says. “There are parameters which protect him and hinder me.” The conflict rises to a boil in the showdown between Aloysius and Flynn in scene 8 and reaches its end point in scene 9, when Aloysius must finally acknowledge that Flynn has triumphed.
■ TOPDOG/UNDERDOG
As the dramatic journeys of Booth and Lincoln unfold and intertwine, each must deal with certain conflicts, the most formidable of which is a brother who wants to be better than him. The fundamental dilemma is similar to that in a fight to the death between two dogs: only one can end up the winner.
Booth’s main problem: Lincoln
Booth wants to be topdog, with Grace at his side and pockets full of cash. His biggest problem is his older brother, Lincoln, who intentionally and unintentionally creates obstacles to Booth’s success, whether by resisting his pleas to join him in a three-card monte scheme or by walking around in a strange outfit—an Abraham Lincoln costume—that could scare Grace away. Booth expresses this central conflict in scene 1 when Lincoln refuses to become his partner in throwing the cards: “Here I am trying to earn a living and you standing in my way, YOU STANDING IN MY WAY, LINK!”
Lincoln’s main problem: Booth
Lincoln wants to stay a topdog who earns an honest living and holds the last shreds of his family together. His biggest problem is his brother Booth, who denigrates Lincoln’s job at the arcade and keeps trying to tempt him back to life on the street as a three-card monte dealer. Booth knows that Lincoln has an addiction to the cards and uses this weakness throughout the play to wear him down. The conflict rises to the three-card monte game the brothers play in scene 6, when the demons that Booth has awakened turn against him.
■ THE CLEAN HOUSE
Each of the three protagonists faces obstacles that will make her individual quest difficult to achieve.
Lane’s main problem: A failed marriage
Lane wants to regain control of her personal universe. Her biggest problem is that life is far from perfect and not everything can be the way she wants. Just as a clean house is an impossible dream due to ever-accumulating dust and dirt, Lane’s desire to create a perfect world is unattainable. Instead, she must deal with life’s inevitable messes, whether it’s a cleaning woman who refuses to clean her house, a sister who schemes behind her back, or a husband who falls in love with another woman.
Of these problems, the one that taxes Lane most is the unexpected and devastating loss of Charles, whom she still loves, even after he has left her. It is a conflict that tests her to the core and brings her to a crisis in which she must do the unthinkable: forgive the woman who ruined her marriage.
Matilde’s main problem: The challenges of a perfect joke
Matilde wants to heal from the loss of her parents. She believes she can accomplish this by learning what they both knew but never shared with her: a perfect joke. Discovering this treasure is a difficult task, requiring time, inspiration, and comedic skills, all of which are hard to come by. Matilde’s attempts to tackle such challenges account for much of
her inward behavior during the play, as in act one, scene 12, when Lane returns home late and discovers her new maid sitting alone in the dark living room. “I was trying to think up a joke,” she explains. “I almost had one. / Now it’s gone.”
In the world of The Clean House, the problems associated with conjuring up humor also include the threat of death, since a perfect joke has the power to make one die from laughter. This threat explains why Matilde, after thinking up the perfect joke in act two, scene 8, asks herself, “Am I dead?”
Virginia’s main problem: Lane
Virginia wants to do something meaningful in her otherwise empty life. She starts out with a plan to rescue Lane’s new maid and ends up with a plan to rescue Lane in the aftermath of her failed marriage. A key purpose of both plans is to get more involved in Lane’s life and to become “real sisters who tell each other real things.”
Virginia’s biggest problem is that Lane is too busy for such a relationship, does not think she needs anyone’s help, and resents Virginia’s attempts to interfere in her life. This contrary position is supported by years of rivalry tracing back to their early childhood. Lane’s resistance to Virginia’s unwanted help reaches a peak in act two, scene 9, when Lane lets her have it for secretly cleaning her house: “I WILL NOT LET MY HOUSE BE A BREEDING GROUND FOR YOUR WEIRD OBSESSIVE DIRT FETISH. I WILL NOT PERMIT YOU TO FEEL LIKE A BETTER PERSON JUST BECAUSE YOU PUSH DIRT AROUND ALL DAY ON MY BEHALF.”