Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

On to lesson 5, The One Act Play

On to Lesson 5

This has been the by-week for my class, the One Act Play. Everyone has made a submission in one form or another. In an e-class if someone turns in their homework that is a plus. If they don’t there isn’t much the instructor can do about it except to continue on with the class. However, I have been gratified that my students are at least submitting something each week.

Now the something they submit might be less than I think they are capable of but what else is new? This is after all a workshop class (less the workshop) and in a given week I get one shot at them or at best two if they submit early. Having a by-week was one of the smarter things I did in setting up the course because it gives everyone a chance to catch up after week 3.

Another good thing about the course design is that the first three lessons are really into the science of writing the play and the last three focus on the art. There is the outline, the character sketches and the rough draft in the first three weeks, then a break and finally will come the artsy part in lessons five through eight.

The hardest thing about phase 1 has been getting the students to really buy into the model. Basically the model says a drama is about a Central Character (CC) with a want or need, who decides to act on it, faces several crisis, until there comes a climax that transforms the CC into a new person. In a One Act Play these have to happen fairly soon and in sequence and if one is missing the drama has a hole in it. In lesson 3, The First Draft, words must be written to flesh out the outline but even those should only give the structure a thin veneer. They should be written as well as the writer can but not agonized over. So even lesson 3 is more science than art.

In phase 2 however there comes a not so subtle transition. This is where the serious writing begins and the art comes into play. Teaching science is one thing and art quite another. I think the whole notion of “Teaching Art” is a contradiction in terms. Still it is an aspect of literature that must be addressed to the extent possible.

So lesson 5 will talk about artistic structure, Lesson 6 about monolugues, lesson seven about dialogues and 8 will be a catch-all for devices such as undercurrents (themes) symbolism, repetition, dialect and a host of other things that rear their lovely heads. Every student will come in at a different level and need help of a different sort and actually the second part while impossible to really “teach” is the most enjoyable, if the instructor just kicks back and deals with each issue as it comes up.

Nobody is going to write a prize winning drama on the first attempt and there is no sense making the workshop more difficult than it needs to be. At the same time improvements must be pointed out, even if the students choose not to accept them. I can see potential in their dramas the students will never achieve and I need to know when to accept this fact of life and when to nudge them into the abyss of frustration. It is a fine line.