ANALYZING THE SCRIPT
CHARACTER ANALYSIS
From Patterson, Stage Directing, The First Experiences (Waveland Press, 2004)
READ AND RE-READ
• To understand how a play works, the director must
read and re-read the playscript.
STRUCTURE.
The heart of the modern realistic script is people in CONFLICT.
The way the conflict is arranged and developed is PLOT.
Well-written plays have a beginning, a middle and an end.
Aristotle’s elements
• PLOT is the imitation of the action...the
arrangement of the incidences
• CHARACTER, the agents of the plot
• THOUGHT (THEME) is a general truth
enunciated
• DICTION is the expression of the meaning
in words
• SONG is an embellishment whose sense
everyone understands
• SPECTACLE is the least artistic,
connected least with the art of poetry
GIVEN CIRCUMSTANCES
Details playwright provides to create the world of the play
• Time and place
• Social circumstances, age, sex, etc. of characters
• Prevailing mood/atmosphere
GIVEN CIRCUMSTANCES are
uncovered by a careful reading of
• What the characters say
• What other characters say about them
• Stage directions
Often grouped as a series of W’s
• When, where what, who
• Why (discovered in rehearsal)
WHO
The people of the play (Characters)
• Protagonist is who the play is about
• Antagonist is preventing the protagonist from getting
what is wanted (Central conflict)
Three W’s
WHEN--The specific time of the
action and its elapsed time.
WHERE--The environment of the
script. Geographical and exact
WHAT--The major conflict as
expressed in previous actions
MIDDLE
The development of the obstacles and complications
that escalate the conflict
...sometimes called RISING ACTION
END
The END contains the CLIMAX and the FALLING
ACTION. The action of the plot leads to the climax
and falls away from it (denouement).
CHARACTER
Dramatic action and character are intertwined
almost beyond separation because the action of a
modern realistic play is revealed entirely by what the
characters say and do and by what is said about
them by others. Character, then, is the instrument of
the dramatic action; that is, all action happens
through what characters do and say.
ACTION TRAITS
ACTION TRAITS illustrate character. Characters
can be complex or simple depending on the number
of defining actions. The director should begin a
character analysis by making a list of what each
character in the play does. Action traits are central
to delineating character.
PERSONALITY TRAITS
• The qualities that make a character unique. They are
discovered through the analysis of given circumstances
such as age, education, social class, environment,
appearance, language, etc.
• Personality traits not specifically indicated by the
playwright can be fleshed out by the director through
casting.
FUNCTIONAL TRAITS
• These help to define how the character
operates in the world of the play.
• Protagonist-antagonist are central characters
• Other characters help to define or contrast
the central characters (Confidante, Foil, etc.)
• Understanding the traits of each character
helps the director in casting
According the Stanislavski
-Encompass all of the character’s
individual objectives
-Be directed toward other characters
and not inward
-Reflect the inner life of the character
-Relate to the play’s large issue
-Be stated as a “to” construction
followed by an active verb. For
example: to find a place where I can
rest…to get back home to
Kansas…to revenge my father’s
murder, etc.
Minor characters may not have clearly
defined superobjectives.
Directors can develop a superobjective
that is in keeping with that character’s
functional traits.
ACTOR AND CHARACTER
Character development is a partnership
between the playwright and the actor.
SO--casting becomes an important tool
for shaping character
MEANING
• If plot is about what happens next; meaning is
the significance of those events in a wider
context. This is often called theme, moral or
message.
• ACTION AND MEANING. There can be many
meanings to a play and different productions will
emphasize different meanings.
CORE MEANING
• Look at the play’s title
• Examine key speeches
• Evaluate the qualities of
the play’s major character
• Research into playwright’s
background and other
works
CORE MEANING
CORE MEANING should
not be confused with what
happens to the central
character. A script’s core
meaning is greater than the
conflict and realization of
the main character. As
such, it should be stated as
a broad general statement.
OEDIPUS’ core meaning
might be “people who let
their pride in themselves
blind them to reality are
fated for tragedy.”
The CORE STATEMENT becomes a map for the
production
For example: Glass Menagerie - “Modern urban
and industrial society leaves no safe space for
the fragile and emotionally needy to live.”
Whenever a choice is made in production, the
outcomes of those choices can be measured
against the play’s core statement.