Today in Plays and Playwrights we read a short one act with two young children sharing an afternoon of hooky from school. There is no one in the play other then these two children. On the surface not much happens: they meet each other, challenge and play with each other, and then the girl simply walks away down the railroad track – much as she began the story.
After reading this short play, we do not discuss a single moment – until students can break into groups to figure out the major dramatic curve and get at the central protagonist and struggle. Should be easy, right?
Before the groups began one young man came up ever so politely and said, “Mr. Higgins – I don’t think anything happens in this play.” He presented it so politely it was as if he was telling me that the play was perhaps “broken” or that I had become a bit senile and was now assigning plays that didn’t follow the formula.
I assured him that there was indeed a conflict in this play. No body talks and talks without an agenda. I asked him to recall the last LONG LONG diatribe from his mother. Through all of the words upon words that came out of her mouth – – did not he detect that his mother had a non too secret agenda. Didn’t he find that this monologue from his mother could be boiled down to one simple objective. Sure, he said. No body “just talks” without an agenda. Nobody. Not in plays – not in life.