Dialogue is a very tricky thing. Unlike monologues, a character cannot stand on his/her own, and the stream of consciousness must be guided by another person. As in the scene from Closer, it was a call and response that built to a climax. In this way, it is almost more honest and developed than a monologue because, not only are you held responsible by what you say, but there is someone interacting and responding to your answers. Because of this, it allows a more astute development of the problems, and of the characters. A person needs a driving force to allow a guide to their story. As in Death of a Salesman, having someone deny you creates an obstacle. It clearly demonstrates who the protagonist and antagonist is, and thus furthering the development of plot and character analysis. This cannot happen in a monologue, because, even the antagonist will be able to defend his own point of view. The duality of characters allows the audience to become attached to one or the other, and thus become more emotionally invested.
The series of questions and answers is, perhaps, the most important feature of the dialogue. A play/movie/any story really is made up of questions; some big, overlying questions that drive the entire plot, and some smaller, more immediate questions that keep the audience intrigued and dedicated throughout. Dialogue is the easiest and most satisfying way to answer questions quickly and directly. Angels in America is a perfect depiction of direct question and response that develops the characters, as well as involving the audience. Many times they are asking questions that the audience already knows the answer to, and that allows the audience to become omniscient views, and includes them in something that the characters themselves have been left out of. This creates a bond between the audience and the characters, and gives them a sense of power or control over the situation (which everyone likes).
Even with Shakespeare, dialogue provides an outlet to allow the audience to see the characters interact. This is much more effective than monologue in Shakespeare because, I am willing to admit, it is easy to get lost in the language and miss the point of a character. But, as in Henry IV, dialogue is intriguing, and creates character just from their intonation and body language. The way two characters interact physically tells almost more about them than the words themselves, and this is a crucial part of character development. Because of this, dialogues are not only more entertaining for the audience, but more precise, and thorough with representing and furthering character and plot development.
Dialogue is better than monologue, I agree. It's more precise. More real. Although, I would argue that dialogue can be equally as effective as monologue to show us both points of view (or to get us to feel empathy for both characters) -- just more "precisely."
ReplyDeleteI also noticed the questions/answer trick. It's effective and not really something I realized until these readings.
"The way two characters interact physically tells almost more about them than the words themselves."
ReplyDeleteInteresting idea Annie. What are you referring to here exactly? And if this is so, do you, as playwright, need to write it in? Do you want to be really specific about the direction and intonation of lines? Do you want to dictate stage directions? Or can you make those clear in the lines themselves? What do our examples do on this front? And how do they?
The question/answer idea as the organizing principle for all storytelling is an interesting one. Good approach. It's a good point too that often characters are asking questions we already know the answers to. Sometimes this is empowering. Sometimes it's just boring. Figuring out when it works vs. when it's tiresome is key here. That said, I like the idea of looking at all stories this way. And I think a dialogue composed of all literal questions and literal answers might be fun to try.
From reading your blog, I got this idea of learning more about a character by their body language rather than their words almost, especially when you mentioned that you learn more about a character by seeing them interact with someone else. I feel like this is true, because we can more clearly see how important what someone says is by how they say it to someone else, or by how the others react to it. Definitely an important thing to think about.
ReplyDeleteI like what you said about Shakespeare. I love Shakespeare, but I would agree there are definitely moments where I get lost in monologues because they are so long, it is hard not to simply listen to the beautiful language. Sometimes, I lose part of the point. But with the back and forth, we see people playing off each other and keep track of what is happening more easily.
Annie,
ReplyDeleteI especially like your post because it reminds me of an idea regarding entertaining fiction that has been plaguing me lately. Some author (forget who, sorry) said in a book on how to write that the most important thing in writing is suspense. By which she did not mean that you should make your stories "suspenseful" but that in good works, readers want to know what's on the next page, want to know what the next sentence is going to be, etc. That's really the only thing that keeps them going. I was shocked by your note that any story is really made up of questions, but on reflection you are perhaps right, as these questions in the audiences mind are what maintains the suspense that actually keeps them there.
"Many times they are asking questions that the audience already knows the answer to, and that allows the audience to become omniscient views, and includes them in something that the characters themselves have been left out of. This creates a bond between the audience and the characters, and gives them a sense of power or control over the situation (which everyone likes)." I would argue here though that that sort of dramatic irony where we know something the character doesn't actually creates distance between us and the character, we become more of the voyeur. However, in these question based sections of Angels in America, I would actually argue that we don't really know more than the characters do, and that that actually brings us closer to them.