Bitter Gertrude: One thing I want to say right at the start is that this is a list borne out of my own personal experience. These are things I personally see early-career playwrights do over and over and over. I also expect that there will be people who disagree with me, or who say, “But [name of play] does that and it’s the BEST PLAY EVER.” Sure. A genius can take a tired trope and use it ingeniously. But these tropes, I’m telling you, are tired.
4 comments:
Wow, this person is really fussy about the shows. I do appreciate the criticism of playwrights, but none of that was constructive in the slightest. Even her "What I love" section wasn't useful at all. She just wants people to send her their plays so she can read them and then post about how much she doesn't like them. If something has worked for playwrights for centuries and it is still working now, why not leave it? Don't mess with things that work. Sure the six things she listed do get annoying after a while of seeing a bunch of shows that pull all those gags, but there are a lot of shows out there that don't include any of those. It is just the recent trash that you see in the movies that makes the new trend for the "six things I hate" list. This lady needs to get out more and watch more good theatre.
I've never really seen the first complaint- the overuse of a song. I suppose these plays are so bad that they usually don't even make it to production.
I've also been annoyed by the whole magical-minority thing- I've seen it more in film, but sometimes it seems like the second an elderly black man walks on you know he's going to drop some amazing words of wisdom and then disappear entirely from the rest of the plot, unless he's called on for more words of wisdom.
I can understand how writing out accents would be annoying to someone trying to read the play, but that wouldn't affect the actual production and I'm not sure if slightly annoying writing would actually make a play bad. However, I can see that it probably would be a good idea to avoid any annoying writing techniques, since it's hard enough to get a new play produced.
Although this article could be taken with a grain of salt, I think it presented a very honest and useful set of advice. I especially appreciated the final “four things that playwrights do that I love.” This section was less focused on content of style and more on how to sell your plays and make yourself likable towards the companies that may buy them. I imagine those final points gave a few playwrights out there some confidence and a little nudge in the right direction.
I'm glad this article was included on the Green Page Blog. The point that hits me the most is the part about the the diverse deus ex machima. While the playwrights may have good intentions by including this person, the connotations surrounding them delve into a world that I didn't fully realize until reading this article. The implications of adding a person just because they are different and for no lasting place in the plot are cast. I disagree with the article in that I think that at times, plays should be written like films. From a stage manager's perspective, it gives me a greater view into the physical world of the play, the world that includes a broader scope of props and set. The excessive acting notes are exactly that, but overall, this was a solid article.
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