Points of Good Speech for Contemporary and Modern Plays
Questions to Explore by Elisa Carlson
How does the playwright use punctuation? What does this tell us about the rhythm and musicality of the play?
Example: In a Shaw play, try lifting your pitch after a semi-colon. Then reverse. Or, in an Arthur Miller play, try diminishing energy at a dash, then try accelerating energy.
What are the dialects used? What does that say about placement, articulation and musicality of the characters?
Example: Frequently the character of Tom in Glass Menagerie is performed without a southern dialect. What is gained? What is lost?
How are alliteration and internal rhyming used?
Example: What feelings do the repeated vowel sounds of the nonsense words in Caryl Churchill’s play The Skriker evoke?
How is length of vowel and diphthong sounds used?
Example: In August Wilson’s plays, characters may speak for some time before a period is used. Notice how long sounds help the speeches to take shape.
Are all caps, or italics used? How do they work?
Example: In an Albee play, do all caps mean more volume or do they mean that the words go faster?
Is the play written completely in prose, or are there poetic sections? How does the verse work? Is there use of poetic metaphor? How does that work?
Example: What happens when you use the verse line endings in a Charless Mee play, vs. when you run the lines together to make them prose.
Are the sentences long, short – anything in particular? How do they work?
Example: In Naomi Wallace’s play The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek, the sentences are often very short. When the periods are used (rather than run through) see if you can hear the repressive rhythm of the small town the characters inhabit.
Are there pauses written into the script? How do they work?
Example: What is the difference between a Pinter “silence” and. a Pinter “pause?” Is a pause shorter or longer than a silence? Does a pause imply movement or stillness?
Does the playwright repeat words and phrases? What is the effect of the repetitions?
Example: When Mamet characters repeat phrases, what happens when the same inflection is used each time? What happens when you vary inflection?
Has the playwright written instructions on how speech/voice/text is to be used? Is it helpful? Is it complete?
What have other artists and reviewers written or said about the playwright’s writing style, or ‘voice’? Is it helpful, useful?
How does the writing style of this play compare to other of the playwright’s plays? Are there similarities, differences?
