Week 6 Foundation of Plot:

Given Circumstances and

Background Story
 Serena,
Claire, D
Genetic i ya
aturgy Fallacy
e dram
c
ula, y and dan
a k
,M ar
Zoé isciplin Maggie
Inte
rd
tive Fa ll acy
ce, Lo Week 5 Forum Affec
e, Gra
riss
e, Cla
arl i
C h
a,
a rth king Kriste
e, M d thin n
l a i d n ron Dram , Adelaide
Ade ndha Aa aturg ,
y a n d I n es
o l i a,
Se c a h
D erns trans
lation
Patt
Lo
Grote's system
Ma k
u
Rep la, Dahl
etiti i a, Z
sa o rc h ed ) on oé
Mélys 1 ≠2 (S c
en 1 +
Wh
rlie
Ch a
e
Tast
 Week 5 Forum
A few related discussions:
Dramaturgy, translation and adaptation of stage plays at Ciudad de México LMDA Conference (the whole
conversation, but especially starting at 22:12: "the value of translation does not lie in equality between two
things, but rather, in [...]”
On interdisciplinary dramaturgy: Decolonizing Dramaturgy: Situating Dramaturgical Discourse in Africa
(Howlround) (the whole conversation, but especially — for interdisciplinary dramaturgy —
starting at about 27:12)
On Dance Dramaturgy: Jacob’s Pillow podcast and videos of dances with dramaturgs
Elisabeth Schellekens Damman on Disagreement About Taste
Week 5 Forum Exercise

Part 1: assemble in groups of 2 to 3

Part 2: select one of the links on the previous page and watch (on device of your choice) for 5 minutes
Part 3: discuss in your group for two to three minutes: how did these speakers (or dance) answer your
questions on the topic? What questions of yours on the topic(s) remain unanswered?
Class Exercise
Behaviour by Darrah Teitel
Warning: This excerpt is taken from a Digital Staged reading done through PWM and the Segal
Centre in 2021. The play deals with sexual violence. The scene you will be watching does not have
any visual images of violence, but it does speak to many forms of rape. Content includes explicit
descriptions and depictions of sexual abuse, workplace harassment, gaslighting, and abuse of power
Playwright: Darrah Teitel is a Canadian socialist and a playwright. Her most recent credits
include Forever Young: A Ghetto Story (GCTC 2022), The Omnibus Bill (Counterpoint Players, May
2019), Behaviour (GCTC, 2019), Corpus (Teesri Duniya 2014, Counterpoint 2014), The
Apology (Alberta Theatre Projects 2013, Next Stage Festival 2011), Marla’s Party (SummerWorks
2008), the CBC radio drama Palliative (2007), and She Said Destroy (National Theatre School of
Canada, 2007). Darrah was the GCTC’s Playwright in Residence in 2015 and 2017, during which her
two most recent plays were written. Her journalism, fiction and poetry have appeared in various
periodicals and journals throughout the country. Darrah is the winner of several awards, including
the 2011 Canadian Jewish Playwrighting Award, and the 2007 Canadian Peace Play Prize. Her plays
have received nominations for Dora, Betty Mitchell, Rideau, and META Prizes for Outstanding New
Plays. Darrah also works for Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights and is a founding member
of the Courage Coalition, and a proud member of Independent Jewish Voices.
(From PGC Website) How does being a feminist and a socialist activist affect your playwriting?
Activism is also something I always did. I staged my first school walk out in grade eight and got suspended. That kind of
civil disobedience gets addictive. Those themes and people show up in my plays, which have been described as
compulsively contrary. But fiction has never been ideological for me. I have journalism and political writing for that. I
use art to complicate and problematize the problems with political dogma, and I suppose doing that is also an
expression of my socialist feminist politic. Today, after seven years working in Ottawa in professional left-wing politics, a
theme that emerges in most of my plays is the hypocrisy of ideologues and the bad behaviour of activists. Several of
my characters are ego maniacs with Christ complexes.
The actor playing Mara is the amazing Amelia Sargisson. Digital production by potatoCakes_digital
1. What is the character’s objective or what does the character want?
2. What is the point of view for this segment of the play?
3. Who is she speaking to?
4. Name the beginning, middle, end of this segment?
5. What are the events in this segment?
6. What clues are there to her state of mind?
7. What can you tell about the environment the character finds herself in? Where is she?
Behaviour Pt 2 Rape is Rape is Rape: Content warning, explicit language used to describe Rape

Part 2: Rape is Rape is Rape

Chapter 2: Given Circumstances
(Foundation of Plot)

Definition:
Plot has both static (given circumstances and background story) and dynamic features (action, events). The
static features include the past and present conditions in which the action takes place. Present conditions
are called given circumstances, past conditions are called Background story.

Given Circumstances: denotes all the conditions in which the play takes place.
1. Given circumstances place the characters in a created word, which becomes the here and now of the
play. Without these we wouldn’t know where we were or what was at play.
2. They form a foundation for the plot by surrounding the play with psycho-physical parameters (internal
and external forces)
3. Given circumstances always contain crucial information important to understanding other aspects of
the play.
4. Given circumstances take place in the present, on stage, in front of an audience.
.
Given Circumstances has seven categories: time, place, society, economics, culture, politics and law, and
spirituality, all creating the special World of the Play.

Time: Breaks down into three headings

1. The time of the play’s writing-the era in which the author wrote the play (to be ignored for now)
2. Time of the Action- clock time, calendar time, season, year and era in which the play takes place.
3. Dramatic Time- the time that passes during the stage action (including all act breaks, entrances and
exits, etc). Dramatic time can compress or expand depending on the need, it can move backwards and
forwards, it can skip around, it can stand still. That is how time can illustrate the special world of the play.
Time can be found in the stage directions, or as part of the dialogue, by the costume or prop they are
carrying, etc.

Place: Breaks down into two Headings

4. General Locale- the neighbourhood, city, region, and country in which the action takes place. They evoke
social class, family dynamics, personal goals, all manners of character preferences and status. Someone
who lives in a castle is not someone who lives on a farm. Look at the plays you have read, can you see
the importance of the general locale?
2. Specific Locale- is the particular spaces in which the stage action takes place. You can often times find
it in the dialogue. Why are you here? Come in, come in, etc. Once again, the place can give you
important information on the characters status and psychological state. Someone who wakes up on a
bed, is not the same as someone who wakes up on the side of a road.

Society: Refers to the closed social system of the play-closed because the playwright has separated the special
world of the play from the world we live in for real for real. The social group chosen will absolutely determine
how we interpret the action of the play. We accept different dynamics depending on the social group.
Strangers versus friends or colleagues, Family versus friendships, etc.

Society breaks down into:

3. Family- a group of persons of common ancestry. Families are the primary closed social system-before we
are anything, we are of someone else. They serve as rich sources of conflict.
4. Love and Friendship-next to family, love and friendship is the next most common relationship in plays.
5. Occupation- refers to what the character does to earn money and their interaction with other of the
same or different profession. We can tell so much about the world of the play by other peoples attitudes
toward the professions held, eg a salesman, prince, a professor, etc.
6. Social Status- the position a character holds in the social hierarchy of a play, includes things like
education, wealth, power, ethnicity, race, gender identity, etc.
5. Social Standards- behaviours and beliefs that characters are expected to uphold and defend. They don’t
need to be proven because characters accept them as valid. Examples of royalty and religion in Historical
plays. Or middle class privilege, social equality in modern plays. Identifying the social standards at play are
crucial in understanding the rules of behavior in a play.

Economics: large scale monetary system the characters live under and the small scale financial dealings that
take place between characters. Willy Loman is crushed by the financial system he lives under. Look at page 26,
Amah’s speech, What does it reveal?

Politics and Law: Pretty self evident- governmental institutions and legislation established by political and
legal authorities. Both are central to Harlem Duet.

Culture: here meaning the arts and intellectual sensitivities or achievements. But progress is going to white
schools…proving we are as good as whites.

Spirituality: the belief in the divine, spiritual, or supernatural powers that are obeyed, worshipped, or
respected. Where jumping a broom was a solemn eternal vow
The Special World of the Play: the environment created by all the given circumstances working together. Every play you
enter, is a different world, with its own rules, set of behaviours, values, etc. Every play has a general world, belonging to
tragedy, comedy, melodrama, farce- but beyond that it has a special world of its own. We discover the influence of given
circumstances on a character by what they say and how they react. Example, every character in Tartuffe has a different
response to religious values, and this becomes the driving conflict in the play.

Use the questions at the end of the chapter to help you identify the given circumstances of Halem Duet. They are pretty
exhaustive, answer those that feel most pertinent to you for understanding the Special World of the play.
Background Story
The Given Circumstances of the past. Known as exposition, previous action or antecedent action. Every playwright
grapples with how to reveal the circumstances of the world that occurred before the play begins, but continue to have a
effect on the play taking place in the play’s present. The past has just as much meaning to the characters that have lived it-
example: Hamlet going abroad to study, his uncle and mother marrying soon after his father’s death, Oedipus leaving his
parents for fear of killing his father and marrying his mother, Magi reveling the miscarriage to Amah. Any examples of
Background Story from other plays read? (I tend to call it Backstory).
Background Story (when well done) is an integral part of the play. It reveals the past and also communicates information
about the characters exposing the background story-as well as the characters that hear and adjust to it. Examples are very
clear between Billie and Canada, as we learn why he left the family. Background Story should never be filler, it should
generate conflict, create mood, and strongly influence the present.
A play is criticized when the background story comes forward without it having an immediate or strong effect on the
present. That is when we usually say-there is too much exposition, the play has simply stopped moving forward, it
becomes information and not world building. In short, background story denotes everything that happened to the
characters before the beginning of the play, and should, in some important way, affect the present. Why do we hear the
story of the handkerchief over all the periods? Why are we told about Billie’s inheritance?
Method of Disclosure

1. Historically, heavily weighted to be found at the beginning of the play.

2. Realistically, in fragments found throughout the play.
3. Minimally, in harder to discover, hints, allusions found throughout the play

4. Historical Method

Plays written before Realism took hold in 1865. Historical Method refers to those plays written before then,
in which the Background Story is revealed very early in the play in a fairly comprehensive and full way. All the
essential facts of the Background Story are collected and placed at the beginning.
Benefit to the playwright: it allows the information to get the information out to the audience quickly,
leaving them the opportunity to write the rest of the play in the present, developing on stage present action.

The disadvantage to both playwright and audience: extended narration expressed in crowded passages
which we have to accept as psychologically plausible. Do you find yourself thinking-no one would speak that
way, or why are they saying that now?

And the audience needs to retain all of this information throughout the play. Or be reminded, which can lead
to a sense of repetition.
2. Realistic Method

Realism appeared in France in the early 19th century, the well-made play by Eugene Scribe (complex and
highly artificial plotting, a build-up of suspense, a climactic scene in which all problems are resolved,
and a happy ending). He began to employ the concept of cause and effect “to make the accidental seem
necessary.” The plays also began to explore the idea of the effect of past experiences on present behavior.

In Scribe’s realistic method, background story is divided in small passages, shared among many characters,
and disclosed throughout the entire play. This method made the revealing of the past plausible, revealed in a
way that did not seem forced or planned-psychologically plausible.

Known as Retrospective Method: the on stage action moves forward in time, while the background story, the
past, moves backward in time. The key being to not reveal the most important facts of the background story
until as late as possible, when it is most dramatically compelling-at the climax. Two obvious examples of this
method are Oedipus and Scorched (which follows the Oedipus structure)
3. Minimalist Method

The background story is so altered, reduced, or concealed that it is almost impossible to distinguish
without close reading. Minimalist is a radical extension of the modern retrospective method, by
reducing the quantity of background story to the bare minimum, and in complex ways, without
completely removing open disclosure of the past.
This kind of revealing of background story needs a great deal of attention from the director and
performer. This information is crucial and needs to be made attainable for the audience. This is the
method used in Harlem Duet. The history of their story is revealed in the present though their conflict
as a couple. However, we also get a fair bit of Background story when Magi and Amah discuss Billie’s
state of mind at the beginning of the play.
Identification of Content

1. Events

In background story, events are turning points that changed the behavior of those involved in the event as
well as to those who hear or receive the news in the the plays present. Eg The weight of Othello telling Billie
he cannot afford to pay for one of her courses at University.

2. Character Descriptions

In Background story, character descriptions help shape how we perceive the characters, including those
named, in the present.
Eg We have a clear idea of Billie’s state of mind before we even meet her in the play. Let’s look at page 30,
what do we learn Billie? Any other examples from other plays?
3. Feelings

In Background story, past feelings and perceptions are revealed, as well as present feelings resulting from the
disclosure of past feelings. Characters reveal their feelings from and about the past. Think about how Billie
describes the moments when making love to Othello.

Again, Background Story happens before the beginning of the present on stage action. How characters
integrate the information, react, change make Background Story an essential part of how we perceive the
world and characters on stage.
Dramaturgy, Black Refusal and Possibility Howlround 48 minute podcast

I like this interview because it is a clear description of one person’s journey into the world of theatre and dramaturgy in
particular. The idea of knowing what excites you about the art form and how you might find your place in it. I love the
way they put everyone at ease with short phrases like: Thank you very much for that question. Thank you for such a clear
question. I love there honesty and clearness of thought.

Otis Cortez Ramsey-Zoë: I think the first place that I want to go with this question is thinking about sort of my Black body,
my queerness, how I moved through the world and that what it means for me to be a Black dramaturg and what I bring
into the room is kind of an awareness of care I think. I think about the artists that I work with and I'm sort of hyper-
vigilant in thinking about the space and thinking about how people are treated in that space.

And I also love the way in which we wear our sort of geographical origin stories differently in our bodies and our voices
and where are we revealing where we are obfuscating. All of those interesting tensions that just come up with Blackness
because Blackness is sort of so nuanced and multifaceted, right? But that gets flattened out sometimes on stage because
as you said, it's Black and it's Black. It's a certain kind of Black.

What does Black Theatre do well: For me, the answer to what Black theatre can do well and that is to sort of continue to
refuse to acquiesce to formulas, right? So continue to refuse these limitations or these concepts that it ought to be a
particular thing. And actually, let me go back and check myself when I say limitations because I think that limitations are
wonderful, but where is the innovation that is available within the limitation? How can, within the limitation, you can still
have surprise or wonder or inquiry or question or whatever that is, right? And so I think that for me, what Black theatre
does well is its type of refusal.
Next week

• Julie Tamiko Manning will be joining us to discuss her process for creating Mizushöbai and any questions you
may have about the play.
• Plot Chapters 4 and 5
• Assignment 2 has been uploaded to Moodle. Submission deadline is November 7, 2023