by Jeffrey Hatcher
Hatcher highlights the six essential ingredients for writing successful drama.
Reviewed by: Joan Prefontaine
About Joan Prefontaine
Budding playwrights will find much to help them carry their work forward in this practical, insightful book. They will be reminded of Aristotle's six fundamentals for good drama: character, action, ideas, language, music and spectacle. And they will be encouraged to write scenes using these essential elements. How does one create a compelling character? How does an idea become an action? What is a subplot? How does one invent believable dialogue? Jeffrey Hatcher, who is himself a successful playwright, screenwriter and teacher, addresses these and many other questions here.
Hatcher makes it clear why the beginning of a play is so crucial. He explains: "In writing a play today, you have approximately ten to fifteen minutes to set space, time, tone, situation, most major characters and the central issue of the drama. If these central points are not elucidated early on, your audience will lose focus quickly and become frustrated in their attempt to understand and enjoy the play." He gives his reader many pointers on how to get a play underway and how to keep it rolling smoothly.
Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabbler is put forth as an example of how excellent plays are made. (Many other plays are also mentioned in the course of the book, from Shakespeare's Hamlet to David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross.) There are chatty interviews with dramatists Lee Blessing, Jose Rivera and Marsha Norman in which many topics important to playwriting are broached: rules and rule breaking; first drafts and rewriting; production and rehearsal; passion and inspiration; adaptation and collaboration. In allowing readers to listen in on his conversations with fellow playwrights, Hatcher makes the business of playwriting more personal and accessible.
Writing first-rate plays depends on many intangible factors, Hatcher admits. Technique can be learned, but a writer's imagination, sensibility, heart and soul, all figure into the end result. There are also factors of luck (being in the right place at the right time) that cannot be denied. Still, one can improve and grow from reading and attending plays, as well as from the world itself. Hatcher advises new playwrights to keep their eyes open, to listen to the universe for ideas and direction. He encourages them to think and dream, to work and experiment, to learn from both success and failure. With this book in hand, a playwright will have the nuts and bolts needed to begin to put together something of merit.
Click here to buy this book, or read more about it at Amazon.com: The Art & Craft of Playwriting
Copyright © by Joan Prefontaine, 2003
Reviewed by Joan Prefontaine:
-- The Secret Life of Dust - by Hannah Holmes
-- Lying Awake: - by Mark Salzman
-- The Art & Craft of Playwriting - by Jeffrey Hatcher
-- On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft - by Stephen King
-- Earth Prayers From Around the World - Edited by Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon
-- The Beauty of the Beast - Selected by Jack Prelutsky, Illustrated by Meilo So
-- The Intimate Merton - Edited by Patrick Hart and Jonathan Montaldo
-- Plainsong - by Kent Haruf
-- The Stone Diaries
- by Carol Shields
-- City of God - by E. L. Doctorow
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