Dramatic Conflict and So Can You

WHAT IT ISN’T: People fighting against people.

WHAT IT IS: People fighting for things.

Audiences don’t pay to watch characters crap all over each other. If the actors are going to keep the audience’s attention while they argue for their characters’ wishes, it’s got to be about which argument is better, not which person is worse. Dismantling one another’s integrity, “signaling superiority,” or acting contemptuously towards your scene partner, besides being unpleasant to watch, are all signs that the actor has withdrawn from the dramatic conflict altogether.

The dramatic argument is the point a character makes when they speak; it is what they believe is true. Every good play comprises a near-constant stream of arguments; the actor’s job is to find and use them to their character’s advantage.

The dramatic conflict occurs when two of these arguments collide. I want one thing, and you want something else; our objectives are mutually exclusive; we argue about which one of us will leave happy.

An early sign that the conflict has begun to deteriorate from dramatic to personal is when the actors start dismissing one another. Arguing for something we want in the face of strong opposition can be fatiguing and frustrating, but if we give in to those things, we are not keeping up our end of the bargain.

The first problem with this is that the two characters are only arguing because they want something from the other, and when they stop behaving that way, we no longer understand why they’re arguing. The story disappears behind the curtain of their contempt. You’ll recognize the same phenomenon dominating our country’s political discourse. The “characters” in our national drama are so busy pitting themselves against each other that it is nearly impossible to tell what they’re fighting for. It’s a cautionary tale for actors; making a scene is not playing one.

The second problem concerns how the audience perceives a character’s value on stage. In a play, we do not set our own character’s value in the eyes of the audience. How other people on stage treat our character instructs the audience on how seriously they should take us and what we care about. The opposite is also true: The audience perceives our scene partner’s value based on the “quality of attention” we place on them and their needs. Say that my scene partner is prevailing upon me to help her pay for her college tuition, and all the while, I’m busy rolling my eyes and sighing with exasperation. I am telling the audience that she is not significant enough to warrant my attention and that they should pay her no mind. I’m also diminishing the audience’s respect for her as they begin to wonder why she’s letting herself be treated that way and not telling me to fuck myself… A line that my behavior warrants but which the writer has not given her permission to speak.

Plays are chances to watch and see if people get what they want, so when I undervalue any character’s desires, I undermine the whole narrative movement of the play. What creates a particularly disorienting paradox for the audience is when a character behaving rudely wins the argument. The audience thinks, “That would never happen,” and will often pin this incongruity not on the actor but on some deficiency in the script. This makes writers homicidal. That’s the destructive power of an eye roll.

I call any behavior that seeks to diminish our scene partner’s character in the eyes of the audience “signaling superiority.” Effectively, it qualifies as a breach of the fourth wall because when we roll our eyes at our scene partners, we go over their heads to enlist the audience's support by rallying them against our common enemy. When we act superior, we say to them, “What a waste of our time this person is, don’t you think?” The problem is that they will agree with you. Arguing with someone you need nothing from is a waste of time, and they will begin to wonder why they are being made to suffer through such a pointless encounter. It's not exactly a recipe for an exhilarating evening at the theater.

In real life, we pursue happiness, but not onstage. Plays are only written about people who want something more than their well-being, and inner peace must be the first thing we lay on the altar of sacrifice to our character’s objectives. If tranquility were a character’s priority, they would never survive in the dramatic ecosystem; they’d take one look around the madhouse of whatever play they were in and get out of there as soon as possible. But the dramatic character is not a happy wanderer. They have agendas and spend the action of the play fighting for them; other people’s displeasure be damned. It’s not that characters want to be unhappy; it’s just that they’re willing to be. Think of Nelson Mandela, Gloria Steinem, and Judy Heumann… They pissed a lot of people off, living with tremendous opposition and in real peril. They also changed the world. Tranquility is lovely, but it was not their priority. Characters are like that; actors must be activists for hire, willing to stand in conflict for as long as their character’s journey requires.

When an actor presents as conflict-averse, I congratulate them for not being an insane person and then set about helping them fall in love with arguing. Conflict is the actor’s medium; an actor who doesn’t like arguing is like a painter who doesn’t like paint.