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Hey, I'm writing a stageplay for a 15minute play contest at my University. Basically, they pick the top plays for a staged reading, then they choose the best from audience feedback at the staged reading to decide which play they'll do a full production on.
Okay. So that's kinda the background on it. The play can't exceed 15minutes in length and needs to have stuff that can be performed without elaborate setups.
So I wrote this and was hoping for some feedback. It's a bit on the shorter side, 8 pages, so areas to expand on would be great.
Spoiler:
TWO MEN AT A BUS STOP -- GEORGE AND RICHARD
GEORGE is already sitting at the bus bench, reading a newspaper. RICHARD comes from offstage and sits next to GEORGE.
RICHARD
Did I miss the bus?
GEORGE
Just as I did. In it together for now.
RICHARD looks at his watch.
RICHARD
Considering we got some time, mind catchin’ me up on some news?
GEORGE puts down the newspaper.
GEORGE
Same old: people dying, people lying, you know how it goes.
RICHARD
Ain’t it the truth. Well, just gotta take it one day at a time.
GEORGE
What else can we do?
RICHARD gestures in approval.
A WOMAN with a sword comes running from offstage towards RICHARD, knocks him over the head, and cuts off his left arm.
She takes the arm with her. GEORGE watches.
GEORGE
Need help my friend?
RICHARD
About 30 seconds ago I did, my friend.
GEORGE
If only I could time travel...
RICHARD
Did you see who did it?
GEORGE
Clear as day.
RICHARD
And you didn’t stop him?
GEORGE
Her.
RICHARD
What?
GEORGE
Him was a her.
RICHARD
And you didn’t stop her?
GEORGE
Far be it for me to meddle into other’s affairs.
RICHARD
Meddle? She chopped off my fucking arm.
GEORGE
Maybe she had a good reason.
RICHARD
What the fuck reason could that possibly be?
GEORGE
Well...(pause). I don’t know, but that doesn’t preclude a rational reason for her disarming.
RICHARD
Dude, my fucking arm.
GEORGE
Yes, I can see. Have you thought about going to the hospital?
RICHARD
What, so I can come out still missing my arm and have a debt as big as Texas?
GEORGE
Don’t you have insurance?
RICHARD
Just lost my job.
GEORGE
That sucks, guess you’re just going to have to tough-it-out.
RICHARD glares at GEORGE.
RICHARD
I wouldn’t even be in this predicament had you the simple humanity to fucking stop her from cutting off my arm.
GEORGE
Are we still on about this?
RICHARD
I”m still missing an arm.
GEORGE
Okay, how about next time she comes, I’ll do my best to stop her. I can’t change the past. As the wise tautological phrase goes: what’s done is done.
RICHARD
Whatever, the bus should be here soon.
GEORGE
I wouldn’t bet on it.
GEORGE looks back at the newspaper, and RICHARD fiddles with his bloody stump.
The WOMAN comes from offstage again, sword in tow. GEORGE sees her, stands up, and confronts her.
GEORGE
Excuse me, miss.
She listens.
GEORGE
Would you mind returning his arm? I don’t know what you’re reasons are, but this is simply not something we do in America.
WOMAN
Okay.
GEORGE nods and turns to RICHARD.
GEORGE (TO RICHARD)
You see, the power of language hard at work.
The WOMAN chops off GEORGE’s right arm.
GEORGE
Ahhhhhhh!
The WOMAN takes his arm and runs offstage. RICHARD laughs.
RICHARD
Where’d your arm go?
GEORGE limps back to the bench.
RICHARD
It’s like one minute it was here, the next it wasn’t!
GEORGE
This is hardly the time for juvenile jokes.
RICHARD
Oh, it’s a big fucking deal now your arm is gone.
GEORGE
I was violated; she had no reason to secure my arm. I was merely having simple, civil discourse.
RICHARD
That’s more than me; I just sat down.
GEORGE
What could she possibly be doing with my arm?
RICHARD
I can think of a few things.
GEORGE
At least I have health insurance.
RICHARD
Still missing an arm. Look, we gotta stop her.
GEORGE
Like hell. I tried stopping her and look what happened to me. If only I stayed out of your business.
RICHARD
If only you had acted the first time neither of us would be here. As you so fucking elegantly put it: what’s done is done. She seems to be procuring arms for something, and since she came back for me, I think she’ll be back again to get the rest.
GEORGE
And? Maybe the bus will be here before she gets back.
RICHARD
And if it’s not? All I’m saying is we should work together.
GEORGE
Hah, laughable. She has a sword, and we are down half our arms. How do you suppose we surmount her?
RICHARD
Ah, but we have four legs. And what beast has four legs and two arms?
GEORGE
A Chair?
RICHARD
A Centaur! With us combined we’ll be able to overcome what mere men cannot.
GEORGE
Nice metaphor, what inspired that?
RICHARD
Winter’s Cricket, a book of poems by a young and talented poet.
GEORGE
Interesting, I’ll check it out.
RICHARD
Yes, definitely worth a purchase, but for now we’ll work together. So when she comes back we strike at her heart and stop this irrational fiend from stealing the rest of our body.
GEORGE
Alright, let’s do this.
RICHARD and GEORGE form a plan, then wait for the WOMAN.
The WOMAN enters, sword in hand. The two men ambush the WOMAN and GEORGE removes the sword from her hand. She is helpless on the ground.
GEORGE threatens her with the sword.
GEORGE
Now I shall take what you have taken.
RICHARD
Stop! What are you doing? I thought we agreed--
GEORGE
--Nonsense. We must take her arms.
RICHARD tries to grab the sword away from GEORGE. In the commotion, GEORGE cuts off one of RICHARD’s fingers before the sword falls to the ground.
RICHARD
My finger!
The WOMAN grabs the sword and the finger and runs offstage.
GEORGE
We had her!
RICHARD
I had 10 fingers!
GEORGE
Serves you right. I didn’t mean to, but serves you right.
RICHARD
How about I just bite one of yours off.
RICHARD chases GEORGE, making a chomping motion with his mouth.
GEORGE uses the bench as cover while trying to calm RICHARD.
GEORGE
I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Calm down. We can do this. Calm. Down.
RICHARD
Why should I trust you now? You’ve been nothing but fucking me over from the beginning.
GEORGE
They can sew fingers back on; we just need to get it back. Don’t worry. Don’t worry.
RICHARD
Yeah, but I hate fucking leeches.
GEORGE
They use leeches to put your finger back?
RICHARD
Promotes blood flow and cell growth. Learned it in Winter’s Cricket.
GEORGE
Huh. Cool.
RICHARD
But my finger is still gone, and I still don’t have insurance.
GEORGE
I’ll help pay, don’t worry. It’s the least I can do. I do suppose I’m partly responsible in all this.
RICHARD
Partly?
GEORGE
That’s the best you’re getting.
RICHARD
So what do we do now? She’ll be expecting us next time.
GEORGE
We are still two, united.
RICHARD
United? I thought we were last time.
GEORGE
Yeah, well. I mean it this time. I don’t know what else I can tell you, but I mean it. Trust me.
RICHARD
Heh, why not. I got 9 other fucking fingers to lose.
GEORGE
10.
GEORGE and RICHARD form another plan. They exit offstage.
The WOMAN comes back, sword raised and ready to strike. She creeps up to the bus stop bench.
GEORGE and RICHARD come running from offstage screaming their heads off.
The two men grab ahold of the WOMAN and the three fight.
RICHARD
Remember the plan!
The three continue fighting as they exit offstage. We HEAR the sword clank on the ground, and we see the blade onstage, the handle is still covered offstage.
Silence.
The sword exits offstage.
A new COUPLE enter from the opposite side and sit on the bus stop bench.
ONE PERSON FROM THE COUPLE
How long do we have to wait?
I'd focus on masking and drawing difference, in that case.
It's good, and I like it, but if some goose on a message board can see it, whoever is in charge of selecting plays will see it. Hell, in honesty I read the first bit and skimmed the rest. It was still clear as day.
Doesn't mean it's bad, just means it could use a revision to distance itself from the source.
One thing about playwriting to consider -- it's largely visual. Not to the same degree as screenwriting, but even in live performance, an audience begins forming an opinion about a play's influences and direction the moment they sit in their seats and see your set design.
Now, personally, if I were to walk into a black box theatre, and there was a bench with two guys waiting for anything, the absolute first thing I'm going to think is "Waiting for Godot." Which doesn't mean necessarily that I'm going to get "Waiting for Godot." Maybe one guy is going to turn to the other, offer him a chocolate from a box of candies, and observe that life is like a box of chocolates in so far as you're never sure which one you're going to get. Maybe one guy is going to turn to the other and start giving the gravedigger's speech from Hamlet. Could be any number of things. Doesn't matter. I, myself, will be waiting for "Godot." I could be wrong, but I could also be right.
What do you take from that? First, you can absolutely go ahead and use Godot as a jumping-off point if you'd like. Just be sure to get away from Godot quickly and give me something else. Which you largely did -- I mean, it's surreal, just like Godot, it's just a different instance of surreal. You could probably afford to put more of your own spin on it. I think the reason I agree with Crowing One's specific point about the very end is that you're using Godot as a beginning AND an ending, which sort of trivializes the part that's yours.
Second, if you don't want to be immediately recognized as having Beckett as an influence, you can change the ending, or you can leave it -- what you absolutely need to change is the beginning. Like I said, it's the opening image that's actually defining your play. Think carefully about it.
Oh, hey, so I realized I forgot a technical detail that I wanted to mention yesterday:
You identify the characters in your script, but you forgot to identify them for the audience -- an audience member can look at the playbill and see that one is Richard and one is George, but they can't actually tell which one is which because neither George nor Richard refers to the other by name. The names may not be important, but when an actor's name is listed on a playbill, he prefers that you know which role he's playing.
If you'd prefer to leave the characters nameless, give them a prop or a physical characteristic that the audience members can use to identify the character -- you've already successfully done this with the lady with the sword, for instance.
EDIT: Actually, I lied, another technical detail. The bit with the sword blade falling half on the stage, with its handle off stage and obscured, presumably by the curtain? About a quarter of your audience will never be able to see that simply because the position of their seats obscures what would otherwise be apparent if they were sitting in a different part of the theatre. Another quarter probably will see something but not really be able to tell what it is their seeing because they're too far back and not at a great angle.
I'd suggest that you either commit to throwing the sword onstage, or do away with it.
One thing about playwriting to consider -- it's largely visual. Not to the same degree as screenwriting, but even in live performance, an audience begins forming an opinion about a play's influences and direction the moment they sit in their seats and see your set design.
Now, personally, if I were to walk into a black box theatre, and there was a bench with two guys waiting for anything, the absolute first thing I'm going to think is "Waiting for Godot." Which doesn't mean necessarily that I'm going to get "Waiting for Godot." Maybe one guy is going to turn to the other, offer him a chocolate from a box of candies, and observe that life is like a box of chocolates in so far as you're never sure which one you're going to get. Maybe one guy is going to turn to the other and start giving the gravedigger's speech from Hamlet. Could be any number of things. Doesn't matter. I, myself, will be waiting for "Godot." I could be wrong, but I could also be right.
What do you take from that? First, you can absolutely go ahead and use Godot as a jumping-off point if you'd like. Just be sure to get away from Godot quickly and give me something else. Which you largely did -- I mean, it's surreal, just like Godot, it's just a different instance of surreal. You could probably afford to put more of your own spin on it. I think the reason I agree with Crowing One's specific point about the very end is that you're using Godot as a beginning AND an ending, which sort of trivializes the part that's yours.
Second, if you don't want to be immediately recognized as having Beckett as an influence, you can change the ending, or you can leave it -- what you absolutely need to change is the beginning. Like I said, it's the opening image that's actually defining your play. Think carefully about it.
Haha, yes that opening scene. I'll think about how I can change it. I mean, I have thought about it, but bus-stop bench just seems so surreal. Perhaps I won't even change it in the end, but this is a great observation that really pinpoints the feeling of Godot. I think I can use this and change the ending, which brings me to the second post.
Oh, hey, so I realized I forgot a technical detail that I wanted to mention yesterday:
You identify the characters in your script, but you forgot to identify them for the audience -- an audience member can look at the playbill and see that one is Richard and one is George, but they can't actually tell which one is which because neither George nor Richard refers to the other by name. The names may not be important, but when an actor's name is listed on a playbill, he prefers that you know which role he's playing.
If you'd prefer to leave the characters nameless, give them a prop or a physical characteristic that the audience members can use to identify the character -- you've already successfully done this with the lady with the sword, for instance.
EDIT: Actually, I lied, another technical detail. The bit with the sword blade falling half on the stage, with its handle off stage and obscured, presumably by the curtain? About a quarter of your audience will never be able to see that simply because the position of their seats obscures what would otherwise be apparent if they were sitting in a different part of the theatre. Another quarter probably will see something but not really be able to tell what it is their seeing because they're too far back and not at a great angle.
I'd suggest that you either commit to throwing the sword onstage, or do away with it.
I caught the script name issue a bit later, but it's pretty awesome how such an obvious detail can be so easily overlooked (by me).
And the sword bit, I went into screenplay mode, which obviously gives you an exact image for something. The details about stageplay and the audience is something I would never have considered without you pointing it out, so thank you.
But then I'm like...but that's awesome that one side of the audience will see who takes the sword, the center won't, and the other side might not even see the sword because all this lends to what I was trying to do with the sword at the end and that was create ambiguity.
I'm definitely going to re-think that end. I want them to fight and I want the audience to have to guess who won. Did the lady with the sword? Did the men? Did George betray Richard again? And then of course by bringing in the other people, I think it adds an element to danger to their interpretation.
One technical thing I noted was when Richard was remarking that he still had 9 fingers to lose, that should probably be 4 since he only has one arm, right? Also, why does George say 10 afterwards? I figured he was referring to his own fingers in some way, but I couldn't really grasp how he would be saying it so I wasn't sure.
One technical thing I noted was when Richard was remarking that he still had 9 fingers to lose, that should probably be 4 since he only has one arm, right? Also, why does George say 10 afterwards? I figured he was referring to his own fingers in some way, but I couldn't really grasp how he would be saying it so I wasn't sure.
Yeah, good catch. I was trying to make a penis joke, but I've removed that part for now as I'm not quite sure it comes across.
Alpha Queue Registered User regular
Posts
I'd cut/rewrite the "How long do we have to wait?" closing line to ovoid being accused of Becket-worship.
Even just two more coming onstage and looking at their watches and then each other.
And do similar edits. The sword is engaging.
Thanks for the suggestions
I'd focus on masking and drawing difference, in that case.
It's good, and I like it, but if some goose on a message board can see it, whoever is in charge of selecting plays will see it. Hell, in honesty I read the first bit and skimmed the rest. It was still clear as day.
Doesn't mean it's bad, just means it could use a revision to distance itself from the source.
Now, personally, if I were to walk into a black box theatre, and there was a bench with two guys waiting for anything, the absolute first thing I'm going to think is "Waiting for Godot." Which doesn't mean necessarily that I'm going to get "Waiting for Godot." Maybe one guy is going to turn to the other, offer him a chocolate from a box of candies, and observe that life is like a box of chocolates in so far as you're never sure which one you're going to get. Maybe one guy is going to turn to the other and start giving the gravedigger's speech from Hamlet. Could be any number of things. Doesn't matter. I, myself, will be waiting for "Godot." I could be wrong, but I could also be right.
What do you take from that? First, you can absolutely go ahead and use Godot as a jumping-off point if you'd like. Just be sure to get away from Godot quickly and give me something else. Which you largely did -- I mean, it's surreal, just like Godot, it's just a different instance of surreal. You could probably afford to put more of your own spin on it. I think the reason I agree with Crowing One's specific point about the very end is that you're using Godot as a beginning AND an ending, which sort of trivializes the part that's yours.
Second, if you don't want to be immediately recognized as having Beckett as an influence, you can change the ending, or you can leave it -- what you absolutely need to change is the beginning. Like I said, it's the opening image that's actually defining your play. Think carefully about it.
You identify the characters in your script, but you forgot to identify them for the audience -- an audience member can look at the playbill and see that one is Richard and one is George, but they can't actually tell which one is which because neither George nor Richard refers to the other by name. The names may not be important, but when an actor's name is listed on a playbill, he prefers that you know which role he's playing.
If you'd prefer to leave the characters nameless, give them a prop or a physical characteristic that the audience members can use to identify the character -- you've already successfully done this with the lady with the sword, for instance.
EDIT: Actually, I lied, another technical detail. The bit with the sword blade falling half on the stage, with its handle off stage and obscured, presumably by the curtain? About a quarter of your audience will never be able to see that simply because the position of their seats obscures what would otherwise be apparent if they were sitting in a different part of the theatre. Another quarter probably will see something but not really be able to tell what it is their seeing because they're too far back and not at a great angle.
I'd suggest that you either commit to throwing the sword onstage, or do away with it.
Haha, yes that opening scene. I'll think about how I can change it. I mean, I have thought about it, but bus-stop bench just seems so surreal. Perhaps I won't even change it in the end, but this is a great observation that really pinpoints the feeling of Godot. I think I can use this and change the ending, which brings me to the second post.
I caught the script name issue a bit later, but it's pretty awesome how such an obvious detail can be so easily overlooked (by me).
And the sword bit, I went into screenplay mode, which obviously gives you an exact image for something. The details about stageplay and the audience is something I would never have considered without you pointing it out, so thank you.
But then I'm like...but that's awesome that one side of the audience will see who takes the sword, the center won't, and the other side might not even see the sword because all this lends to what I was trying to do with the sword at the end and that was create ambiguity.
I'm definitely going to re-think that end. I want them to fight and I want the audience to have to guess who won. Did the lady with the sword? Did the men? Did George betray Richard again? And then of course by bringing in the other people, I think it adds an element to danger to their interpretation.
Thanks for the comments.
One technical thing I noted was when Richard was remarking that he still had 9 fingers to lose, that should probably be 4 since he only has one arm, right? Also, why does George say 10 afterwards? I figured he was referring to his own fingers in some way, but I couldn't really grasp how he would be saying it so I wasn't sure.
Yeah, good catch. I was trying to make a penis joke, but I've removed that part for now as I'm not quite sure it comes across.