Schools Need to Stop Encouraging Writing Meaningless Theatre

• Charlies Lupia

So many people in theatre disregard the basic rules of a good writer.  The theatre still hosts new good plays, even some great plays.  But such plays happen despite the best efforts of many in the theatre.

Perhaps the first rule of good writing requires the writer to deal with things they have some personal knowledge of.  It follows that the writer who knows their subject matter will also write on matters he or she cares about.  Substance and depth of writing will follow.

But many budding playwrights in recent years have been encouraged to ignore these rules.  A number of playwriting courses have mainly featured playwriting exercises.  In such an exercise, the student is encouraged to write a scene on a situation provided by the instructor.

The result is that the playwrights form the habit of writing on matters they have no personal connection with.  Their plays, therefore, are forgotten as soon as they are performed.

And if playwriting exercises weren’t enough, many theatres have come to feature such features as the twenty-four-hour play.  Competing playwrights are compelled to write their plays within twenty-four-hour spaces.  The plays then performed by these theatres thus lack both consequence and the integrity of craft necessary for good theatre.

A number of years ago I was fortunate enough to take what was essentially a master class in playwriting with the late Romulus Linney.  The session occurred through Ensemble Studio Theatre (EST) back when EST had a theatre lab in the Catskills.   

Linney, who had taught at Columbia and NYU, discouraged developing playwrights from doing exercises.  He encouraged playwrights rather to write plays on matters they cared about.

He also valued Aristotle’s rules of dramaturgy.  In recent decades, Aristotle’s principles have been all but ignored by playwriting teachers.  Only some top screenwriters, such as David Mamet and Aaron Sorkin, have paid attention to them.  As a result, so many playwrights have not advanced in their craft.  They lack the level of craft that successful film and TV writers possess.

For with the decline of the theatre of meaning has been a decline in craft.  I was at a one-act play festival a while back.  During one particularly endless play, I overheard a fellow audience member say, “Just shoot me now!”

If audience members are tortured by a play, it should be because the playwright is forcing them to deal with life’s difficult issues.  It should not from lack of craft, or because the playwright is rambling on with nothing of substance to say.

The theatre will not be truly vigorous until playwrights are again encouraged to follow the basic rules of writing.