If the undestanding of chronotope (time-space) is important for actors, for you, directors, it's crutial. Where do we start? The script, of course.
I should have an online test on every intro or title pages in order for you to know where you could start. The lowest level is 200X Aesthetics; the basics on theatre theory. Next -- Script directory [for both DramLit and Play Analysis classes (must read)]. There are pages dealing with the text in Film Directing.
I do feel that I'm repeating myself, but teaching or couching requires it. A lot of it.
Do you know what the exposition is? Can you identify it in a scene or a monologue? Could you point the line where the exposition ends? Do you know to test your choice? What about the climax? What questions do you have to ask and answer in order to determine it? No, it's not theory, but applications of theatre for very practical needs.
Maybe I am lucky, because I deal most of the time with the great scripts, masterpieces. It's easy for to trust Shakespeare, because I know that my answers are in there. All I need to do is to know how to read it right. The same with Chekhov. Well, when you have not great writers, you HAVE to put the structure in, you have to reinforce the text. Yes, I am talking about the basic composition.
In acting and directing classes I do not allow students to go further, if the exposition is not established. We do it once, trice, three times... If the 5Ws are not answered (physically), we can't go for a buildup. Sometimes it's easier to find the climax and then return to the exposition. What matters is to express it, or we will never arrive to the resolution.
After we are done with "acts" -- we go to the scenes (or french scenes, you have to define for yourself), then -- to the episodes and, finally, the beats of action.
How does it start, friendship or marriage?
Yes, you have to be a poet.
Please, do not rush, court them; exposition is a foreplay.
Remember, that you have to lure them to your place -- the stage. They to cross the line between stage and house... you have to do it first, you go there, you go to them, invisible and silent.
I do not like pure Brecthian theatre, I think that should let watch me first; let them not to be confronted right away -- they are not ready. I need their gaze -- I want them to get attrictive to my story, my actors... Only then I will drop my pretence that I didn't notice them. As if we are not on stage because of them!
Only if they SEE that it is their story to be told.
Yes, if they HEAR that you are to talk about THEM!
Anatoly, why do you say -- they, them? It's ME, me only!
Spectator? Yes, one and only. The show is not for them -- the story is for ONE soul!
You have to dance with ONE and only then you turn them into PUBLIC. Only then MANY become ONE.
Let me tell you a secret. Each of us is MANY.
You have to -- how else will you be able to work with so many on stage?
Listen, use your own experience. Start with your own confession, if you want them to open their heart.
Yes, yes, hearts and minds.
Do you have an open mind and heart?
Here is the line of thought from The Book of Spectator. Of course, the order could be different and is different, depending on what I work on, but the components are always the same. Important to remember that ALL of them must be present, when you think about your show. I want to say that you, director, must learn how to exist simultaneously on all those levels. You should move between them easy, switching from one world to another to find the harmony of many voices (Bakhtin -- multivocal, poliphonic principle).
SELF You go ahead and try to reverse this piramid, or change the places (I included the design into Directing). In fact, this is dynamic construction with the floating positions. But in this Part One we are talking about writing for theatre.
I am using the shows I directed. As the showcases for student-directors. I try to keep my notes before, during and after each production.
Part One -- the text. Yes, the play.
Part Two -- performers. Actor creates this 4D field around him, you, director, coordinate them, the dimensions and objects. The Chronotope.
In fact, they do it within the STAGE EVENT you create for each beat of acting on stage. This is why I call it "StageMatrix" or "StageMetrics" (depending what I want to stress).
Between Text, Actors and Stage (space) we arrange the Mise-en-Scenes (call it "staging" or "blocking").
Wait! When the Conceptualization begins?
Well, one way or another we have to start with the understanding of the scriptplays. If you never had Playscript Analysis, you should take a tour of Script Directory. For a good reason we ask directors to go through Fundamentals of Acting; you must know the play' structure and the actor's nature. At least, read the basics at 200X Aesthetics! I have to mix play, actors and stage into one universe of spectator's experience. I need actors to connect the space with the text in order to get involve the public, because it is their space... but only potentially subjective. I start with my directorical exposition -- set, pre-show music, poster... the vision, or concept, as they say.
What is "To be or not to be" monologue for you? Aha, here is the concept again! Ask questions. Is Hamlet about to kill himself at this moment? Strong choice. But why? What triggered it? Is ready to break with Ophelia? (The scene to follow). Does he suspect that she betrayed him? Capable of the betrayl? Be concrete as possible. Your actor needs it, to see, to feel. He can't be abstract.
We have to become equal partners with Shakespeare, I must be his co-author, as much as the actors -- because his story is about to be "their" story, the people, who will experience the show.
Of course, there are non-scripted shows and many moment in every show are not based on the dramatic text, but in Fundamentals of Directing I do talk much about this kind of theatre.
First "scene breakdown" round is to define the exposition, climax and resolution. Select the scene/monologue from the SHOWS directory or PLAYS online.
A prominent theater director, Peter Brook of Britain, has said that for theater to take place, an actor walks across an empty space while someone else is watching. In this empty space, called a stage, actors present themselves in a story about some aspect of human experience. The actors, the audience, and the space are three essentials of theater. The fourth is the performance, or the actors� creative work in production. The performance is very often a play�a tragedy, comedy, or musical�but it need not be. Theater performances include vaudeville, puppet shows, mime, and other forms of entertainment.
Anthropologists and theater historians trace the origins of theater to myth and ritual found in dances and mimed performances by masked dancers during fertility rites and other ceremonies that marked important passages in life. Early societies acted out patterns of life, death, and rebirth associated with the welfare of village tribes. Imitation, costumes, masks, makeup, gesture, dance, music, and pantomime were some of the theatrical elements found in early rituals. At some unrecorded time, these ceremonies and rituals became formalized in dramatic festivals and spread west from Greece and east from India. [Encarta] Script Writing Freytag's analysis of dramatic structure is sometimes represented by means of a visual aid known as Freytag's Pyramid.
In the exposition, the background information that is needed to understand the story proper is provided. Such information includes the protagonist, the antagonistThis article refers to literary antagonists. For the biological meaning, see receptor antagonist . The antagonist is the character (or group of characters) of a story who represents the opposition against which the heroes and/or protagonists must contend., the basic conflict, the setting, and so forth.
The exposition ends with the inciting moment, which is the single incident in the story's action without which there would be no story. The inciting moment sets the remainder of the story in motion, beginning with the second act, the rising action.
1.2 Rising action -- During the rising action, the basic conflict is complicated by the introduction of related secondary conflicts, including various obstacles that frustrate the protagonist's attempt to reach his or her goal. Secondary conflicts can include adversaries of lesser importance than the story's antagonist, who may work with the antagonist or separately, by and for themselves.