The Burning Stage: # 2
One Story, One Stage, One Day
I touched on the idea behind the Classical Unities in my last post: Unity of Place (The action should occur in one location), Unity of Time (Over a single day) and Unity of Action (Follow one event or course of action). The chap who first devised these in 1514, author and critic Gian Giorgio Trissino (1478 – 1550), reckoned they originated with Aristotle but, as Aristotle’s Poetics weren’t actually translated properly until years later, I think we can discount that as poetic licence. The problem is , because of that, the Classical Unities are seen as having little value and any attempt to adhere to them has resulted in plays of an unbelievably stultifying nature. Playwrights avoid them. After all, they reason, Shakespeare didn’t subscribe to the Unities in his plays one bit and he got by OK.
Gian Giorgio Trissino (1478 – 1550) holding his Poetic Licence.
Despite that, however, I think the Unities are somehow a natural manifestation of play making. What Trissino saw were emergent qualities of the drama. And they are a useful thing to bear in mind; if not to follow slavishly.
First, let me clarify something about the Triangle of Engagement in which I envision an equal responsibility for the drama from the writer, the actor and the audience. The audience sees an interaction on the stage between the characters. This is mediated by the actors and so their physical reality for the audience results in a sort of meta-interaction. At the same time there is an interaction between actors, audience and the playwright. This is a sort of meta-meta-interaction where the audience responds to the playwright and the way they have shaped the story to convey a narrative. These interactions are all present on the stage at one time and all are real. We are, at the same time, conscious of the characters, the actors playing them, the writer who has formed them as well as the reactions of other audience members.
The point being that, in the intimacy of the Burning stage, all protagonists: audience, actors, writer, are conscious of the each other and, even if the audience suspends their disbelief enough to follow the story of the drama, they are still conscious of the work of the actor and of the machinations of the writer. Consequently, the limitations of our physical world impose themselves. Time and distance are still same for all of us. It takes this amount of time for an actor to cross a room. If they leave by one door, we question how long it will take them to re-enter and what has happened to make them re-enter from another. What is the character doing whilst waiting for an entrance? Consciously or subconsciously, we are following that meta reality. Thus, the Unities can become less abstract, intellectual restrictions but more emergent, natural properties of the story being told. And even Shakespeare was conscious of this. On his stage he could shift focus but remain, largely, in one place. Thus: “Another part of the Battlefield,” “Another part of the Garden” and so on. Even if these aren’t strictly Unities of Place, they do not require a break in the action for the audience. The drama might occur in any fantasy location but it must be consistent and obey the inescapable laws of physics as we know them. As an audience member I do not want to be wearied by continually shifting place and time, or having to understand different realities, and having them signalled to me: Now we are Here. Now we are somewhen else.
That’s not to say I don’t like to play with these unities when I am writing but I remain conscious of the reality, the meta-reality and the meta-meta-reality that the whole enterprise is subject to. Occasionally it is fun to fold two time-lines together, to coincide two places, the let more than one course of action resonate off another. As wise people always remark “Rules are made to be broken” but, I think understanding what natural rules and restrictions there may be, make the breaking more artistically satisfying.
What’s more, there are a couple of definite advantages in using the Classical Unities as a guide to making theatre. One is that it avoids the temptation to show scene after scene after scene using a sort filmic language that can be wearying on stage and lead to a more alienated response. This alienation I call Spectacle. This dodging about from location to location also implies that we are in the hands of the writer and director who show us what details of place and time they want us to see and how they want us to feel about it. It becomes a Power Gradient in which the audience is manipulated into one response to the narrative. There is less room for engagement. The audience can only sit back and watch as the parade passes by.
For any writer brought up with the language of film, thinking in terms of the Classical Unities, may help to produce a crisper, more direct form of narrative. On the Burning Stage it is better to show us one setting in great detail rather than a sketchy attempt to reproduce a huge series of landscapes. It is using the very thing that is unique to theatre, a living experience, to its best advantage. In a Burning Stage drama, the audience is physically present in the bedroom as Othello murders Desdemona. Our response is immediate and genuine.
The other reason to follow the Classical Unities is to avoid a sort of nudge-nudge wink-wink cheap gag which breaks the fourth wall convention. In The Burning Theatre, there is no fourth wall. The actor does not refer to the audience either in character or out of it because that is to say in effect, “I have no faith in your commitment to the piece” and “I know you don’t believe any of this nonsense.” This can degrade any genuine emotional response into a forced humour. And while this might have its place. Anything that breaks the fourth wall has the danger of being obvious and lumpy. Set off on a journey and allow the audience to accompany you.
The great advantage in the Burning Stage is the intensity and focus given by the audience. This enables the writer and actors to explore characters and situations further and deeper than they might in traditional settings. We are told that a person’s attention span is 15 minutes. But my experience, backed up by contemporary research by Kings College London shows that, provided that there is a subject that the audience can identify with, an individual can and will concentrate for much longer than this. Given the right environment and a feeling that the experience is direct and personal the audience member will want to follow the narrative to the end without being constantly harassed by scene changes and effects. My advice to writers might be: Don’t be afraid to experiment with the Classical Unities. Keep the ideas flowing. Let the drama expand at its own speed and engagement will follow.
Are you a writer or theatre goer? How do you respond to a drama that takes time to unfold? Do you get bored easily or are you pleased when a writer treats you as someone who can follow a narrative without being prodded to stay awake every few seconds?
