Intention, Please, Intention!
I apologize for not posting yesterday. I'm a day late but not a dollar short. . .because no one's paying me to do this!
in·ten·tion n. An aim that guides action; an objective.
I had a conversation today with another director friend of mine and we got into a discussion about the intent of the author, which is a phrase in theater that's too often used to propagate excuses for lazy directing.
Theatrical directors are supposed to understand the intent of the author in character, scenes and theme. It takes studying the play, sometimes reading what other experts have to say about it, and even reading reviews by notable reviewers. But ultimately the intent of the author is the responsibility of THE AUTHOR.
Playwrights need to have the ability to clearly identify their intent. There are techniques in screenwriting and play writing to help the author do this; such methods as parenthetical Scene Directions (what's happening at the beginning of the play or an act); Staging Directions (describing what happens on stage during the scene); and Character Stage Directions (under the character tag, these directions give a clue to the style of the line or how the line should be said).
Novelists have over 100,000 words to tell their story. Novelists use an enormous amount of detail that leaves no room for invention while still stimulating the imagination.
Those of us who write plays don't have long prose to describe what's happening internally to our characters. We don't have the ability to use description of activities to the extent that prose writers do. By nature a play script is a guidebook for creativity.
Say that with me: A GUIDEBOOK FOR CREATIVITY.
That's right. Think about it. A great play script gives you the words that are spoken by the actors and some general directions, but this gateway has gaps in the slats offering an assortment of creative possibilities to the director and actors. As a playwright, I understand and accept the fact that someone else is going to interpret each part of my work: the words (actors), the environment (set, costumes, lighting, sound), and the theme and composition of my story (director).
But if I don't write the play with attention to my intention (oh, wasn't that lovely?), not only will I short-change those who have to interpret my play, but I lose control of the creative boundaries. Without the boundaries of Author's Intent, directors, in their quest to "make it their own," will inevitably replace interpretation with invention. Without clear intention of why characters are doing and saying what they are doing and saying, and without clear intention for why I am writing the play and why I am making the point I am making with the play, I leave myself open to invention. Invention is not creativity. Invention makes something from an idea. A play is not an idea. A play has substance already spread across the page if the playwright has made it clear what he intends for his characters and his story to be.
The 1996 film version of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes, is one of the best examples I can think of where the intent of the author was not depleted by the interpretation of the director. The film brought Romeo and Juliet's story to the present day gangster world in a beach community with the unlikely but intriguing appearance of crossing a Mad Max Australia with somewhere in Latin America, but all of Shakespeare's framework was left in place. Director Baz Luhrmann may have lost some of the intangibles in the translation, using fast cars and a rock sound track, but Shakespeare's intent is expressed, in my opinion, in totality.
When I write a play, I have to know what I intend--what's my purpose, my aim, my plan? Once I know, I can then write my play with the specificity of intention. The more specific I am about my intent for writing the play, and the better I guide the creative interpreter of my work, the less chance I have of finding my play becoming a director's lazy invention.
in·ten·tion n. An aim that guides action; an objective.
I had a conversation today with another director friend of mine and we got into a discussion about the intent of the author, which is a phrase in theater that's too often used to propagate excuses for lazy directing.
Theatrical directors are supposed to understand the intent of the author in character, scenes and theme. It takes studying the play, sometimes reading what other experts have to say about it, and even reading reviews by notable reviewers. But ultimately the intent of the author is the responsibility of THE AUTHOR.
Playwrights need to have the ability to clearly identify their intent. There are techniques in screenwriting and play writing to help the author do this; such methods as parenthetical Scene Directions (what's happening at the beginning of the play or an act); Staging Directions (describing what happens on stage during the scene); and Character Stage Directions (under the character tag, these directions give a clue to the style of the line or how the line should be said).
Novelists have over 100,000 words to tell their story. Novelists use an enormous amount of detail that leaves no room for invention while still stimulating the imagination.
Those of us who write plays don't have long prose to describe what's happening internally to our characters. We don't have the ability to use description of activities to the extent that prose writers do. By nature a play script is a guidebook for creativity.
Say that with me: A GUIDEBOOK FOR CREATIVITY.
That's right. Think about it. A great play script gives you the words that are spoken by the actors and some general directions, but this gateway has gaps in the slats offering an assortment of creative possibilities to the director and actors. As a playwright, I understand and accept the fact that someone else is going to interpret each part of my work: the words (actors), the environment (set, costumes, lighting, sound), and the theme and composition of my story (director).
But if I don't write the play with attention to my intention (oh, wasn't that lovely?), not only will I short-change those who have to interpret my play, but I lose control of the creative boundaries. Without the boundaries of Author's Intent, directors, in their quest to "make it their own," will inevitably replace interpretation with invention. Without clear intention of why characters are doing and saying what they are doing and saying, and without clear intention for why I am writing the play and why I am making the point I am making with the play, I leave myself open to invention. Invention is not creativity. Invention makes something from an idea. A play is not an idea. A play has substance already spread across the page if the playwright has made it clear what he intends for his characters and his story to be.
The 1996 film version of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes, is one of the best examples I can think of where the intent of the author was not depleted by the interpretation of the director. The film brought Romeo and Juliet's story to the present day gangster world in a beach community with the unlikely but intriguing appearance of crossing a Mad Max Australia with somewhere in Latin America, but all of Shakespeare's framework was left in place. Director Baz Luhrmann may have lost some of the intangibles in the translation, using fast cars and a rock sound track, but Shakespeare's intent is expressed, in my opinion, in totality.
When I write a play, I have to know what I intend--what's my purpose, my aim, my plan? Once I know, I can then write my play with the specificity of intention. The more specific I am about my intent for writing the play, and the better I guide the creative interpreter of my work, the less chance I have of finding my play becoming a director's lazy invention.
Posted by Tom Eubanks at 2/22/2011 8:35 PM 
Categories: On Writing, The Play's the Thing
Tags: Essay Working It
Categories: On Writing, The Play's the Thing
Tags: Essay Working It
This is just what I needed to read tonight as I get pumped for Ojai-5. That's what you intended, right?
Reply to this
Your lovely face was right there on my computer screen the whole time I wrote it.
Reply to this