The Art of Dramatic Writing

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Re Lajos Egri's
"The Art of Dramatic Writing"

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[AB]

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Premise

. . . if there is no clear-cut, active premise, it is more than possible that the characters were not alive. How could they be? They do not know, for instance, why they should commit a perfect crime. Their only reason is your command, and as a result all their performance and all their dialogue are artificial. No one believes what they do or say.

If the reader accepts our reasoning, he will drop the idea of writing a play about how someone committed a perfect crime, and turn to why someone did.

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I began reading this book because I was thinking about the three-dimensional player. Here I can clearly see something that I'd like to use as a lens when thinking about games I actually want to design — reasons for designing games that I actually want to investigate.

". . . drop the idea of [making a game] about how [the player commits] a perfect crime, and turn to why [the player does]."

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p68 "Every character a dramatist presents must have within it the seed of its future development. There must be the seed, or possibility, of crime in the boy who is going to turn criminal at the end of the play."

What does this mean for a player? You, the one playing, must have that seed of possibility there... not placed within you so that you might follow the designer's "command"

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This reminds me as well of the value of doing things without reward. "The right thing," i suppose, but i mean a personal "right". It is a seed.

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P 94-95

The situations are inherent in the character.
 . . . Isn't it strange to ask everyone what should be done in a situation, except the character who created the situation?

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. . . every organic thing is at all times itself and yet something other than itself.
     A character thus has the capacity to completely reverse himself under internal and external stimulus. Like every other organic being, he changes continuously.

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A player, as an organic being, then also has this nature, this capacity.

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103
"What is a character? A factor whose virtues have not yet been discovered."
Then so too for a player.

Chapter 7, p104- "CHARACTERS PLOTTING THEIR OWN PLAY"

Chapter 8, p110- "PIVOTAL CHARACTER"
". . . the protagonist is—"one who takes the lead in any movement or cause." . . .
     Without a pivotal character there is no play. . . . The pivotal character knows what he wants. Without him the story flounders . . . in fact, there is no story."

Consider the player in this role — they take the lead. Without them there is no play. They know what they want. Without them . . . there is no story.

What about the player in another role?

same page
"Anyone who opposes the protagonist is an opponent or antagonist."

Can the player be the antagonist to the pivotal character? What must the antagonist know, or be?

"A pivotal character must not merely desire something. He must want it so badly that he will destroy or be destroyed in the effort to attain his goal."

. . .

p112
". . . a pivotal character never becomes a pivotal character because he wants to. He is really forced by circumstances within him and outside of him to become what he is.
     The growth of a pivotal character cannot be as extensive as that of the other characters. . . . if it would take the average character ten steps to go from love to hate, the pivotal character would only travel the last four, three, two or even just one step."
"when your play starts the pivotal character is already suspicious or planning to kill."

—

P113
"When we say that poverty encourages crime, we are not attacking an abstraction but the social forces which make poverty possible. These forces are ruthless, and their ruthlessness is represented by a man. In a play we attack man and through him, the social forces which make him what he is."

P115
"Q: Is it possible for an element like cold, heat, fire, water, to be a pivotal character?
A: No. those elements were . . . the status quo, a state of affairs which had existed unquestioned, unchallenged, for billions of years.
. . . a pivotal character is forced to be a pivotal character out of sheer necessity, and not because he wills it." [And these elements, this eternal status quo, have no necessity to drive them.]

—

Chapter 9, p117, "THE ANTAGONIST
. . . the antagonist must be as strong as the protagonist. The wills of conflicting personalities must clash."

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10 — ORCHESTRATION

P119

Orchestration demands well-defined and uncompromising characters in opposition, moving from one pole toward another through conflict.

Do I agree with this? This sentence, emphasis not mine (i.e. the author emphasized this entire sentence among the other unemphasized sentences in the chapter), is built upon a strong foundational belief that good dramatic writing demands conflict. I'm not in outright disagreement, by any means. But I will still hold gently on to my questioning nature, regarding this underlying claim.

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11 — UNITY OF OPPOSITES

P123-125

. . . what assurance have we that the antagonists won't make a trust in middle and call it quits? . . . The real unity of opposites is one in which compromise is impossible.

. . . the play [Doll House] ended only by the "death" of some dominant quality in one of the characters-- Nora's docility, . . . Naturally, death in the theater need not apply to the death of a human being. . . .

     In nature nothing is ever "destroyed" or "dead". It is transformed into another shape, substance, or element. Nora's love for Helmer was transformed into liberation and thirst for more knowledge. His smugness was transformed into a search for the truth about himself and his relation to society. A lost equilibrium tries to find a new equilibrium for itself.

This unity Egri describes is like the seal on a pressure cooker. Enclosed within are our opposites: walls of motivation are built to keep them where they must interact, where they might fight and conflict. Very simple concept.

If opposites are allowed to reject one another, then they will, and perhaps not in an 'interesting' way. We must look for situations which force the conflict to take an 'interesting' shape; the conflicting characters cannot themselves be saddled with the responsibility of selecting for dramatically or narratively interesting conflicts... without losing something of their legitimacy as real characters inhabiting a real world. Hmm.

Then, if I extend this to my player, is it necessary that the player not be responsible for choosing an 'interesting' way to play? This is the first time, reading, where I think: characters and players are fundamentally different. A player is not a character to be pushed around... hmm...

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III
CONFLICT