Playwriting Workshop – Day 4 – Voices [updated]

Well playwrights, we’re doing it! We have settings, we have characters, we have characters moving around inside of settings doing their business. I think it’s high time we let them speak, don’t you?

Day 4 – Give Them Voices: Invent some sort of antagonistic relationship for the two characters you have been working with. For each character, write a 3-minute (about a single-spaced typed page) monologue, addressed to the audience. The characters should describe each other, and give their point of view of the relationship of the two characters. Adapted from The Playwright’s Handbook, by Frank Pike and Thomas G. Dunn (Revised Edition, 1996).

So, what is a monologue? It’s just a fancy word for any time a character gets to talk at length without interruption, either to the audience or to another character. In their monologues, each of your characters should demonstrate a unique voice, based on (1) what he or she chooses to talk about (content), (2) the words and phrases used (syntax), and (3) speech idiosyncrasies (vocal patterns). Does the character mumble? Whine? Is his speech punctuated with grunts and sighs? Does she ramble or talk in a sing-song way? Does every sentence sound like a question?

The authors of The Playwright’s Handbook encourage new playwrights to become collectors of interesting vocal patterns. How? Shameless eavesdropping! I read or heard someone recently say that a person was as “ugly as homemade sin.” Let me tell you, I could not grab my pen and notebook fast enough. The phrase–vaguely southern, with undertones of religion, equating the beautiful with the good, and perhaps preferring things store-bought to those homemade–evokes a place, a time, a culture, maybe even a social status. We know (or think we know) half a dozen things about the speaker from that phrase alone.

Have fun writers! See you tomorrow as we prepare to write our first scene.

[updated]

Here are the monologues I wrote for my characters Allister Frisbie and Collum MacElroy:

AL
So this guy walks into the Arrowhead yesterday–older guy, my dad’s age, I guess, if he was still alive. So what, 80? 85? And I can see right away this guy’s homeless. No, no, not homeless homeless. But he’s lost his place, right? His morning place. I can just see this guy, hunkered down on a red vinyl barstool at some old-school diner, every day for 20, 30 years, ordering the same black coffee, cracking open the morning paper. Then one day there’s a sign: “Under New Management.” And all of a sudden they’re rippin’ out the bar, fixin’ up the place with big-screen TVs playing international soccer, serving up frappuccinos and macchiatos. But this isn’t Chicago, this isn’t Detroit. People aren’t lingering in coffee shops on their way to work, man. Nah, they’re gettin’ in their cars, queuing up the podcast, and slipping into gridlock on the freeway. They want drive-through service, double lanes, in and out. So the place limps on a while, but then, one morning, the kiss of death:  a “Space For Rent” sign. And bam, the old dude’s homeless. He’s got nowhere.

Now, I feel for the guy, really I do. But here he comes strolling into the Arrowhead and, I gotta say, that’s my place. Sounds silly, I know, but I got my table by the window, my paintings on the wall. Cheryl sees me walking in and hollers out, “Hey Al, I’ll bring it right around.” I don’t wait in line here. They know what I’m having. Hell, the concoction’s named after me, right there on the chalkboard: “The Frisbie”–a latte with dark-steeped turmeric tea. I know, it sounds nasty, but the name’s catchy, right? People order it all the time. And they like it! Turmeric’s a natural anti-inflammatory. Did you know that? Good for the joints. People don’t pay attention to their joints. Then one day, they’re 80 years old, shuffling into a strange coffee shop, stooping to look under a broken table, and wishing they’d paid attention to their joints.

So back to this guy. I could tell he wasn’t really into the place. I get it. I felt the same way at first. But the Arrowhead, man it grows on you. It’s the kind of place that folds you in, right? You feel like you’re stirred into some great bubbling soup. Like it called for a dash of you in the recipe all sling.

So, yeah, I think. Just fine. Let’s stir the old man right in. No problem. He’s got the making of a real regular. A steadfast old dude. But then, this morning, I walk in at my regular time, and this new guy, he’s sitting in my seat. Cheryl shrugs at me, like, “What’s to be done, Al?” And I don’t know what, but I’ll tell you this much. Something. Something’s gotta be done.

* * *

MAC
Allister Frisbie. Sounds British, doesn’t it? Stuffy. Whatever. I know an Al when I see one. What did I think of him? I thought he was a prick, okay? I guess he’s a real celebrity around her; bigshot lawyer, charitable, well-liked. He’s got a nice hobby–that I’ll grant him–people like to look at his paintings. But I could tell, right from the get-go, he was just a small-town bigshot, a big fish in a little pond. Man’s got a complex. They name some disgusting foamy tea after him, peg his pictures on the wall, and you’d think the guy was some exotic turbaned prince flown in on a magic carpet. People like that. It’s exactly why I didn’t care to try this place, if you must know.

But a man’s gotta have his morning coffee. And not from a drive-through window! Kids are whining and crying about the landfills, what are we going to do about the landfills?! Yeah, I know there are swirling masses of shopping bags in the South Pacific, baby sea turtles impaled on plastic straws or whatever nonsense. But then you see them idling in their cars for 15 minutes, air conditioning blasting, and they order drinks the size of swimming pools–plastic cup, plastic lid, plastic straw, little paper straw wrapper and receipt paper floating away on the breeze. Hypocrites.

And the mermaid? It’s got two tails. Has anyone stopped to think about that? Utterly wrong for swimming. I mean, why not legs, if you insist on two of the things? And the name. The place may or may not be called after the ship’s first mate in Moby Dick. Okay, well which one is it? You don’t even know what your multi-billion-dollar business is named after? Did that detail just slip your mind? I’d sooner die than drink coffee from that place.

I’ll tell you this much, no one at Delia’s would have pulled this business about the window seat. Delia’s was strictly first come, first served. I mean, what, are we babies on the playground? Is your name on the seat on a little gold plaque? No? Then quit being a child and sit somewhere else! But of course by then it was morning rush and there was no place else. Damn it! what did he expect me to do? Jump up and courtesy? Back out of the room bowing like he was the King of England? I told him if he wanted his swamp water tea so damned bad he’d better take it to go or suck it up and pull up a chair.