The Script, the Stage, the Play

When we sit down to see a play performed what we, the audience, witness is the culmination of artistic vision prepared for us by a host of actors, technicians and directors. When we sit down to read a play what we have before us is that vision in its rawest form. Without an orchestra playing below, or the gentle shifting of lighting effects and the provoking voice of actors giving life to the script, the reader of a play is left alone with his imagination and the words on the page before him.

What we see by reading a script is that a play is more than dialogue waiting to be spoken. A playwright has many more tools at his disposal when constructing the vision. As readers of plays, we can look to these tools to help us understand, and experience the drama as if we were the directors, scanning the pages for hints and revelations about the playwright’s work. We can look to what the playwright tells us through set, costume, props, blocking, and even lighting. Something as seemingly simple as an entrance can carry clues that reveal the true nature of the character, or the world into which that character is entering.

In Susan Glaspell’s The Verge, for example, each character allowed into the sanctuary of the green house enters with stage direction telling us, before he even speaks something about them. MR Harry Archer. Whom we learn later is a patronizing, and intrusive element in the green house is introduced to the reader with the words, “the glass door swings violently in, snow blowing in, and also Mr. Harry Archer, wrapped in a rug.” (Modern Drama, p227) In contrast, “The outer door opens just enough to admit Claire – is quickly closed.” (Modern Drama, p229) These two descriptions give us an immediate glimpse into, not only the characters themselves, but the relationship between them. Harry is revealed to us as an aggressive, intrusive man while his wife is given a more passive, “admitted” presence. Since we already know whose greenhouse they have entered, we can now look back at the place being entered and see it as a reflection of Claire’s inner self.

Dick, the poor man trapped by his love for another man’s wife, is “hurled in” (Modern Drama, p230) and then we see Tom Edgeworthy, “who is trying to let himself in at the locked door…” (Modern Drama, p232). While Dick reveals himself as a helpless victim in the shadow of the greenhouse, Tom is first shown to the audience through the glass walls, a kind of secret between us and him while the others fail to notice his attempts to enter. By the time he is given permission to enter the warmth and company within, we are pricked by our curiosity and his impact on the action of the play. This curiosity is given to us, also, by the use of another playwright’s tool: name.

While most of the other characters are given first names only, Tom has two. It is no coincidence that his name reminds us of still another character that had been introduced to us at the opening of the play and who needs no dialogue to announce its presence. The Edge Vine described to us as “a plant and its shadow. A violent wind is heard.” (Modern Drama, p227) We are given direct vision into Claire’s soul, and in it hangs a twisted, strange, and receding life in the form of her Edge Vine. When given Tom’s full name, we should ask what it means to be Edge-Worthy. As the play’s action unfolds we might think it means he alone is worthy of Claire’s heart, but the Edge Vine’s self destructive nature wins out in the end, and we realize that to be worthy of such a shadow is to be shattered by it.

Another play in which the playwright gives the reader clues about characters through the use of name is The Importance of Being Earnest. The very title suggest the mingling of name with adjective as one could read the title to mean ‘The Importance of Being Honest” And yet the characters who use the name Earnest, and who very much need to be Earnest, are the ones being dishonest about their names. Thus, a comedic scenario is constructed before we even read the list of characters. Simply by reading the title we know what to expect, and have a starting place when looking for further clues.

And they are given in “Lady Bracknell”, “Miss Prism”, and “Chasuble” All these names, or adjectives, define their characters accurately, boxing them into a set of opinions and actions as neatly ordered and restrictive as the society in which they move and speak. Indeed most of Wilde’s descriptions and props reveal this strict adherence to a civilized order to life. In Act One we are shown a Morning-room, “luxuriously and artistically furnished. The sound of a piano is heard…” (Avon Drama, p27) Afternoon tea is arranged on a table. Later we are reminded that the “presence of the servants exercises restraining influence” over two women who are bickering fiercely over a polite and lovely cup of a tea and cucumber sandwiches. Characters are given parasols as extensions of their costume, cigarette cases, and watering cans. All objects which reveal to us the nature of their reliance upon tradition, and social norms, rules, and restrictions.

While some clues are found, or formed, in the subtext of an object, or a line, Oscar Wilde seems to display these objects as boldly as he displays the characters holding them. While a director could interpret the set design, or how best to underscore his vision through lighting, the names, objects and their absolute impact on the play can not be questioned. Could it not be argued that, in a larger context of her life, Cecily is a watering can? Certainly Lady Bracknell is a bitch, and Dr. Chasuble is indeed inhibited in his passions by virtue of his profession. In many ways, these characters are objects themselves, to be moved about in their settings and propelled into action by their principles until the action of the play reaches ridiculous proportions. And then we see Oscar Wilde’s vision. Do we sympathize with the characters? Or do we sympathize with the furniture upon which they sit to expound their useless adages?

When we give our sympathy to the sofa, to the tea cake over Gwendolyn, and the watering can over Cecily, we are transported by these objects to a new perspective. These characters are on display; the absurd constructs of an absurdly rigid world. In the end, could it not be said that Oscar Wilde was asking his readers if any real significance could be placed anywhere in a society built almost entirely on procedure and trivial civilities?

In Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, names are less revealing than action. Within the stage direction is the early knowledge that Nora is hiding something from her husband. We are told, “She takes a bag of macaroons from her pocket and eats a couple. She walks cautiously over to the door to the study and listens.” (Modern Drama, p12) In fact, until the final conversation with Helmer, the reader is left with only her actions, and rarely her words, to get a true glimpse into her character. But they are there, and they tell us not be fooled as Helmer and everyone else is fooled. They tell us she is not the child they think she is. Or perhaps they merely tell us she wants a way to stop being the child everyone things her to be.

The scene in which Nora must dance the Tarantella to prevent Helmer from looking in the mail box is, I think, the most revealing. There are several complexities at work here. From the beginning, the name of the dance itself tells us something about the one dancing. The image of a spider comes to mind, and a deadly spider at that. A far cry from the little squirrel of a few acts ago. The costume she wears for the dance is a “many-colored shawl” and she carries a tambourine. She is now a perfectly constructed contradiction: the spider wrapped in the complexities of color like a web, beautiful and full of music. Something about the image of her is already reflecting the entangled predicament she finds herself in outside of the dance.

And Ibsen pushes the image further, as she must dance now as someone who needs tutoring. She must dance incorrectly. But one wonders how she could dance correctly in such a costume, at such a time. Ibsen describes, “Nora dances more and more wildly. Helmer stands over by the stove, repeatedly correcting her. She doesn’t seem to hear. Her hair comes loose and falls down over her shoulders. She doesn’t notice but keeps on dancing.” (Modern Drama, p33) If we have failed to pick up on the subtle hints given to us earlier in the play, we will initially see this dance as simply a ruse to keep her husband busy.

But Nora is infinitely more complicated than that. She is not simply the manipulative housewife who knows the right tricks. She is a vibrant and desperately passionate woman who has woven for herself a web of lies which she now clings to as both her only salvation and her only end. In this short, but crucial moment, when Nora dons the shawl and picks up the tambourine, we and Helmer are given a direct look at her truest nature in its rawest form. She is the beating heart of her house, and she is more powerful and more untamed than perhaps even the avid reader realized until this moment.

In each of these plays, the playwright has given shape to a vision through the use of object, costume, name, or set. But even the greatest playwright understands that what is committed to paper is sent into the world of artistic expression to be interpreted, and reinterpreted, again and again. As a reader of a play, and as a director, I believe it is my job to first uncover the playwright’s vision by looking critically at the clues he left behind beyond the dialogue. Failing to do so would leave us with a Nora who simply had a nervous break-down and went crazy enough to abandon her children. It would leave us with a dishonest Earnest. And it would leave us with a murdering hysteric rather than a desperate and beautiful attempt to live. The three dimensional world of theatre begins within these lines of stage direction.