Thursday, January 22, 2009

Creating Good Theatre

1. Sorry for my late blogging.
2. I have written all kinds of texts, but never a playwright. Of the three texts we focussed on, one thing seemed thus important to me. It is Jose Rivera's point 2: "Theatre is closer to poetry and music than it is to the novel." That means to me, I have to imagine the stage and all its possibilities and my audience more than in any epical form of text. Greg Allen hints at this in his Rules # 11, 12 & 16 in my opinion.
3. Both, Greg Allen and Jose Rivera stress the fact that you can only create really good theatre by aiming your script at something you really believe in. Thus I think, it is not necessarily important which idea triggers the creation of a drama. But you must introduce a topic you are seriously into, interested in and believe in.
4. The German author Thomas Mann used in his novel "Buddenbrooks" about the decline of a bourgeoise family many often repeated motifs and some compare this novel to a musical composition. I recognize that it is important to repeat motifs. What the authors in the script not mention is, that it also makes it easier for the audience to follow the plot. That is important, because it is not easy to follow a plot (possibly) for hours, not having the possibility to re-read lines or scenes you missed. I thought about this reading Greg Allen's Rule # 23.
5. In my eyes, Jose Rivera contradicts himself, if he pleads for writing "from your organs . . . your liver, your ass" (#15) vs. him telling us, "a play must be organized" and have a structure (# 26). I think, first you should learn how to structure a play roughly and it needs much routine and skill, just to write from your "organs". 
6. From the Oedipus page, I learn that you should already know about the most important turns of your plot to structure the rest of your theatre piece.

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