It is interesting to me how well this little concept worked. This concept feels like cheating because its transition from directing to playwriting is a large transition and in the directing world this seems to rely solely on the presence of a script in very clear ways. However, all of the transitions to playwriting concepts are large, and this one proved to be helpful.
What I'm noticing is that the way plays are analyzed in terms of performance (what I'm doing), rather than in terms of the scripts like Aristotle and most playwriting texts, is of extreme value in getting past the idea that you are writing for some sort of perfection on paper. I never before realized that I was too focused on the page. Even when I was writing stage direction after stage direction to focus on what I felt were important elements to performance what I was really doing was slowing my process down (another nod to the directorial SPEED-THRU) and hindering my writing because my focus was on the page clearly communicating what I wanted rather than on the souls of the characters doing that for me.
I realize that this is a small shift in perspective, but for a guy who started out as an actor and migrated towards the idea that playwrights have the greatest impact on the theatre this shift is positively groundbreaking. I suspect that most people who are involved with the theatre began because of an interest or experience with acting. This shift in perspective is quite compelling for my writing process and may aid them as well.
The most successful part of this concept for me was the writing of significant lines. I spoke with Rodney, who realized that he already does this to a certain extent, though for different reasons. Rodney wrote monologues which explored the characters' pasts in their own words. He was able to successfully integrate these monologues (more or less) into scenes. I wrote single lines. What I realized was that these characters are 1) different, 2) concerned about different things, and 3) their direction of those concerns is clearly to different people. These lines were basically answering the question: What would these people say if they had to tell the truth about something that had changed for them?
What I started with was a scene between Lawson & Ted without the concept and I ended up with a scene between Ted & Henry with the concept. The scene between Ted and Henry is much better than the scene between Lawson and Ted. The “character relations” and “significant lines” made it obvious that the major conflict of the general content of the scene I was working on was between Ted and Henry and had little to do with Lawson. My fear of making Lawson anything but the main character led me (try) to include him in every scene and I realize now that this is unnecessary. His tragedy is no less severe if it is coupled with other tragedies surrounding him. In fact, after writing the scene between Henry & Ted I realize that the scene between Ted and Lawson will be much stronger simply because of the build up to it. There is a more (and less) effective sequence of events.
While I do not feel that the Henry/Ted scene is in a completely finished form (it still needs work, probably in the context of the entire play) I do know that it is better, more theatrical, and more revealing than the first piddly scene that emerged from my head. Is this planning? Perhaps. If nothing else it is an experiment in perspective and I'm finding it quite successful.
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