Process XXXIX

Lindsay Buckingham

An Effective Play, by August Strindberg c. 1900

Translation by Evert Sprinchorn

An effective play should contain or make use of:

• Hints and intimation.
• A secret made known to the audience either at the beginning or toward the end. If the spectator, but not the actors, knows the secret, the spectator enjoys their game of blindman's buff. If the spectator is not in on the secret, his curiosity is aroused and his attention held.
• An outburst of emotion, rage, indignation
• A reversal, well-prepared
• A discovery
• A punishment (nemesis), a humiliation
• A careful resolution, either with or without a reconciliation
• A quiproquo (ed.: “misunderstanding”)
• A parallelism
• A reversal (revirement), an upset, a well-prepared surprise.

I have been enjoying the assigned essays of Strindberg, in the same way that I enjoyed David Mamet’s book True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor. Each writes with the unapologetically bellicose certainty of a white, cishet man, but in this case each is expressing their abusively confident assertions in the service of the performing arts, which is kind of adorable.

Strindberg provides this brief list of items necessary to make an effective play, and while that’s just like his opinion, man, I find them to be instructive in retrospect rather than construction.

To wit; I am writing a play for class. I am daunted by whether or not it is any good, but fortunately that is not really the goal. The goal is completion, someone else can work about whether or not it is any good. But it should be well-constructed, and while I am putting all the pieces-parts together, I can check this list to see how well I am doing.

• Are there hints and intimation? All over the place.
• Is there a secret? Yes, a big secret.
• An outburst? No, not yet. That is a necessary ingredient to this particular play.
• A reversal? Also important, I will work on that.
• A discovery? Yes! A punishment? Unfortunately, yes!
• A humiliation? Not enough to my satisfaction, but we’re getting there.
• A careful resolution? There had better be.
• A misunderstanding? Totally.
• A parallelism? I think so?
• A reversal, an upset, a really big surprise? Yes, that comes with the careful resolution.

It's a mystery.