Sharpening Tools: Writing Exercises
As a theatre maker, I am hungry to continually making work and practicing my techniques.
When more projects are in the initial phases of planning and testing, engaging in small exercises with people who inspire me and are fun to work with feeds my need to work with more concrete material.
I recently participated in an exercise where writers were paired with an actor and tasked to write a monologue that the actor who want to perform.
This project lasted two weeks and sharpened my tools of analyzing a character’s journey and encouraging the actor to approach the role in way that is unique to them.
Working a powerhouse of performer and friend, Brian Caelleigh, here’s a look into our process and where we ended at the end of the exercise.
Some research.
Brian and I began by answering initial questions to get a feel of what kind of character Brian wanted to explore today.
What type of character/ themes inspires you today?
True Grit. Western. Dark Comedy. Post-apocalyptic could be cool. Characters with depth and a journey. Themes of managing loneliness. Someone stubborn whose realizes that their stubbornness has gotten in the way.
What type of monologue do you need right now? To challenge yourself, to break out of traditional casting, etc?
Not a villain — other people can think he’s a villain, but not the mustache twirling kind. A moment of transformation.
What given actions interest you right now? What do you want to play?
Repairing damage done to an important relationship. Choosing between love of solitude and feeling alone.
What would be the worst/ most not fun role to work on right now?
The man who ties the damsel to the train track. Someone who does bad things with no real purpose other than because they are bad.
Some background.
Setting: A wild west arena with a modern tone.
Characters:
Mad-Eye Marshall: mid-40s, Sheriff appointed early in life but more capable at his job than most; issues with alcohol and gambling; stubborn, observant, calculated
Andres: Age 19, will do anything to not be like pseudo-father figure Marshall; impulsive, smooth talking; would take a bullet/scorpion sting/just about anything for his mama
Cecilia: mid-40s, Andres’s mother, physically present yet unconscious during the entire scene.
Given Circumstances:
Marshall and Andres need to cross the desert to get to a hospital for unconscious Cecilia.
Marshall and Cecilia have had an on-and-off relationship for the last ten years. The youths would call them endgame.
Andres is being hunted for stealing from the Rustboro gang, a clan of pillagers that Marshall has been trying to stop for years.
Andres knows he will be arrested or killed by the gang once they arrive into town. He could abandon his mom in the desert and run or help save his mom and be arrested.
The monologue.
MARSHALL
You still here, ain’t you? Then you didn’t die of starvation at four.
You were able sneak into the gang’s hideout unnoticed, weren’t cha? Then at age six you got to play and run around and get into trouble with other kids.
You knew how to cook at seven or eight teaching you how to hold a knife to protect yourself and your mother. And you only got better from there.
You knew how to smile at the nice, older women at church so they would give you extra bread by ten years old. I seen you use that smile to get anything you want for almost a decade now. You ain’t gotta steal when you can melt the hearts of people with money
That was all you. So you ain’t fully wrong. But now I’m here to tell you to not mouth off to people. Once you mouth off, that smile doesn’t work so well, and you won’t always be the fastest one. And I don’t plan to drink my way through your funeral.
Do that. You'll live to be twenty one. And then I’ll teach you to hold your liquor to last longer than any nitwit in five-card stud. And with that and the smile, then you set.
Now. We still got six miles of scorching desert to go before town. So unless you got a good story about the Bronson sisters, quit your yapping.
Cool people mentioned:
Brian Caelleigh
