Scenes from a table?

KTC · Mar 23, 2009

I'm writing a scene that takes place at a dining room table. My guess is that none of the actors could have their backs to the audience. Is this right? I'm picturing the rectangular table to have the head at upstage centre and the foot of the table to be empty. All others at the sides. Would this be the optimal sitting arrangement?

Sorry. I'm completely new to this sort of thing. (-;

dpaterso · Mar 23, 2009

Insolent of me to intrude, but I'd say that's the director's problem, I'd give a general description of who's at the table (and who's at the top, if needed) and leave it up to the experts to arrange the scene.

-Derek

KTC · Mar 23, 2009

dpaterso said:
Insolent of me to intrude, but I'd say that's the director's problem, I'd give a general description of who's at the table (and who's at the top, if needed) and leave it up to the experts to arrange the scene.

-Derek

Not insolent at all, Derek! Thanks. I'm absolutely new at this and trying to figure out the limits of the playwright. I don't want to put in too much stage direction, but I don't want to put in too little. I'm afraid of crossing the line in either direction. Thanks for the insight. It helps much.

Doug B · Mar 23, 2009

dpaterson is right - leave it to the director.

Putting on my director hat for a moment, I've done it several different ways. For "Over The River and Through The Woods", I needed to sit six at a table on a very small stage. I used an oval table, one on each end, one on each corner and two on the upstage side. The people sitting on the ends had to sit back away from the table and the rest had to sit as close to the table as possible so everyone could be seen from all points in the audience. In "Fiddler On The Roof", we sat the younger kids on the downstage side of the table - they had no lines and we could see the adults over them easily.

In a more general sense, you know what your set looks like in your mind. The chances of it looking like that in a production are slight. Stages are so different that what works on one stage won't work on another.

Our stage is wide but shallow, some are deeper than they are wide, some are 3/4 round (audience on three sides) some are a combination.

Pick a play that you have seen and google pictures from that play - many theaters show pictures of past productions. It will give you a good idea of the great variations in sets for the same show.

Doug

KTC · Mar 23, 2009

Thanks very much, Doug. That was such a helpful post. I didn't even think to google plays to see pictures of stages. Thanks for the feedback. Yes...I know what you mean about seeing a set in your head and it being different in production. I haven't seen that first hand...but I have seen it through a friend. (the only play I had performed was based on a set that was given to me prior to writing the play...and I was only allowed to use the props found within that set...limiting, but what you see is what you get.)

Thanks much.

endless rewrite · Mar 23, 2009

Saw August Osage County on Broadway recently (brilliant writing) where the dinning table scene meant that you saw sides of actors depending on where you were in the theatre and it didn't detract. But all you need to put in the scene introduction is that your characters are at the dinning table, that's the beauty of theatre, how it looks is somebody else's problem. The chances are that there will be plenty of movement in the scene anyway.

BTW that's very unusual being given a set outline and props before you write a play, or at any stage of writing a play. I've never heard of anything like that. When writing a play, unless you are Arthur Miller, less is more and anything more than a couple of lines here or there is just going to annoy a director. It's also helpful to remember that published plays are mainly a record of a first performance/production run and so have far more stage details than a script you would send out to a theatre/director and even then most stage directions are minimal. The same goes for directions to actors, they mainly hate anything but the occasional and essential direction on how a line is delivered or what movement/expression is needed.

lexxi · Mar 23, 2009

A few questions:

How long does the scene last?

How many characters need to be sitting at the table?

Are there opportunities for any of them to get up and move around the room? Switch seats with other characters?

I would strongly discourage a long scene with many characters sitting around a table for a long period of time with few opportunities to move around. I have had to a whole one-act play of that nature, and it was very frustrating.

Such a scene can work better in a film, because switching camera angles can give an impression of movement even when the actors are just sitting still.

Even so, scenes in films tend to be a lot shorter than scenes in stage plays because it's so much easier to change location on film.

KTC · Mar 23, 2009

endless rewrite said:
Saw August Osage County on Broadway recently (brilliant writing) where the dinning table scene meant that you saw sides of actors depending on where you were in the theatre and it didn't detract. But all you need to put in the scene introduction is that your characters are at the dinning table, that's the beauty of theatre, how it looks is somebody else's problem. The chances are that there will be plenty of movement in the scene anyway.

Thank you. I'm so glad that all the advice here seems to be pointing me in the same direction. It's reassuring.

endless rewrite said:
BTW that's very unusual being given a set outline and props before you write a play, or at any stage of writing a play. I've never heard of anything like that. When writing a play, unless you are Arthur Miller, less is more and anything more than a couple of lines here or there is just going to annoy a director. It's also helpful to remember that published plays are mainly a record of a first performance/production run and so have far more stage details than a script you would send out to a theatre/director and even then most stage directions are minimal. The same goes for directions to actors, they mainly hate anything but the occasional and essential direction on how a line is delivered or what movement/expression is needed.

This really helps. I've been reading published plays like crazy to get a feel for writing them. I'm glad you pointed this out to me...being a novice, I had no idea this was the case.

Mine was a very unusual case...or maybe not, depending on how you look at it. I was shown a room in a castle, given two actors and was told to write a play in 8 hours. The actors and director came in when I was finished and rehearsed and the play had 4 performances the following evening. The room I was given was all I was given. I wasn't allowed to introduce any extra props to the scene, but only use what was there. This was what whetted my appetite for playwriting. If I ever get an actual play produced I will consider it my first...until then, this one will do.

Thank you for the info.

KTC · Mar 23, 2009

lexxi said:
A few questions:

How long does the scene last?

How many characters need to be sitting at the table?

Are there opportunities for any of them to get up and move around the room? Switch seats with other characters?

I would strongly discourage a long scene with many characters sitting around a table for a long period of time with few opportunities to move around. I have had to a whole one-act play of that nature, and it was very frustrating.

Such a scene can work better in a film, because switching camera angles can give an impression of movement even when the actors are just sitting still.

Even so, scenes in films tend to be a lot shorter than scenes in stage plays because it's so much easier to change location on film.

This brings up some interesting points for me to ponder. I was very hesitant to stage the characters at a table...but it's how I am picturing the scene. It's not overly long, and there is movement. People enter and leave. There is some action from the main character sitting at the head of the table and the other characters react to it. Movement, yes...but I'm wondering if I can sustain a scene at a table. I'm still sketching the scene in pre-first draft. If it doesn't work, I can always change the scene. I'm working hard on the dialogue at the moment. Thank you.

endless rewrite · Mar 23, 2009

I remember the castle play! Hope it went well.

As for your dining scene, you have to write the scene that best serves your play and if that is a dining scene round a table so be it. Lots of plays have similar scenes and for good reason. I can think of half a dozen plays I have seen over the last 18 months that had people sitting round tables eating.

Whatever best serves your play is the scene you should be writing and if that dining table scene has the movement and life you've described it isn't a problem.

When readers look at plays for production and development they know they can fix directions and settings, the wrong format won't kill your play's chances, great dialogue, engaging characters and a compelling story that can be told in an interesting way on stage is what will sell it.

Remember that white space is your friend. Leaving enough space between your lines for everyone else to do their job. And yes, getting that balance right between overwriting and underwriting is hard but that's why plays take so long to be put on from commission. There's always a good lengthy development process and a few more rewrites (with guidance) because you're not even expected to get it right on your own, the first time. Being a playwright is great because you get to play, test, try out ideas and your writing and ideas with others to make it work, often over several months before rehearsals even start.

You need to show you can write sparky dialogue, complex characters and tell an interesting layered story. Everything else can and will be found later.

KTC · Mar 23, 2009

thanks. great post! I really do have to get to the theatre more often. I'm going to write the scene and see what happens. I've been getting glimpses of dialogue for it all afternoon. It's really percolating and I feel good about it. Hopefully it pans out the way I see it in my head. (-; Thanks again!

(PS...I went into the castle completely planning on writing a drama...but it was a comedy that came to me. I was in the audience for 2 of the 4 performances and the actresses actually had to freeze to wait for the laughter to stop on several occasions...so I feel really good about it. Incredibly enough, they got every line word for word with only a few hours rehearsal time too! They nailed it and the audiences loved them. The first couple times they froze, I thought they forgot their lines...but I figured out what they were actually doing. They made it so much more than it was on paper. At 2 oclock in the morning when I read the next to final draft I wasn't finding anything about it funny...great actors are a gift to a play, man!)

lexxi · Mar 23, 2009

KTC said:
I was very hesitant to stage the characters at a table...but it's how I am picturing the scene. It's not overly long, and there is movement. People enter and leave. There is some action from the main character sitting at the head of the table and the other characters react to it.

That should be OK then.

In a proscenium stage, maybe the setup would be something like this

...................X

............X............X

............X............X

............X............X

(or angled slightly)

To put the focus on the upstage character and let everyone else be more or less in profile.

In a thrust or arena setup, anyone who stays seated the whole time would likely mostly have their backs to some of the audience for the whole scene, but they can swivel around in their chairs to talk to (or look away from) different characters.

You could also just say something like "They are seated for dinner" and let the set designer and director decide whether a setup other than everyone around one table would work better in their space and still make sense with your story and characters.

Anyway, it sounds as though you won't have the actors being completely static, and it's not a very long scene.

Stijn Hommes · Mar 28, 2009

KTC said:
This brings up some interesting points for me to ponder. I was very hesitant to stage the characters at a table...but it's how I am picturing the scene. It's not overly long, and there is movement. People enter and leave. There is some action from the main character sitting at the head of the table and the other characters react to it. Movement, yes...but I'm wondering if I can sustain a scene at a table. I'm still sketching the scene in pre-first draft. If it doesn't work, I can always change the scene. I'm working hard on the dialogue at the moment. Thank you.

Whether a scene like this works, usually comes to light in a rehearsal or on opening night. If you work closely together with the director. I'd recommend writing a backup scene and handing it to the director if the table-thing doesn't work out.

Scenes from a table?

KTC

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endless rewrite

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endless rewrite

KTC

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lexxi

bold enough for both those XXs

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