OLEANNA
By David Mamet

CHARACTERS
CAROL A woman of twenty
JOHN A man in his forties

             The play takes place in John’s office. 

JOHN is talking on the phone. CAROL is seated across the desk from him.

JOHN: (on phone): And what about the land. . .. I love you, too. As soon as … I will.
(He hangs up.) (He bends over the desk and makes a note.) (He looks up.) (To CAROL:)
I’m sorry …

CAROL: What is a “term of art”?

JOHN: (Pause) I’m sorry … ?

You may write a monologue if you choose, but I expect you’ll probably have a two character play (so you have the conflict of dramatizing two people who want different things—and remember that no conflict = no narrative interest). Certainly you won’t want to create a short play like this with more than four characters (two or three is perfect and generally the size of most full-length contemporary plays currently produced).

Your goal in playwriting is to create fully-formed characters through what the audience sees them do and hears them say. What you have to create with, then, is primarily the dialogue, which should quickly hook us with a problem and reveal your characters in how they respond to achieving what they want. Knowledgeable readers should be able to identify the elements of narrative structure: exposition, rising action, turning point, climax, falling action, denouement (resolution), as well as an inciting incident (in “Trifles,” John Wright kills Minnie’s bird) that probably happened before your play’s point of attack (where you choose to begin, which, of course, should be in medias res [in the middle of things]). It’s the inciting incident that has thrown the protagonist into greater or lesser chaos. Drama, like other narrative literature, is fueled by a protagonist with a goal (and/or in some type of terrible trouble) and an antagonist with a conflicting goal (one that runs counter to what the protagonist wants). In drama, how the goal is met or not met is the story arc, also known as the “through-line.”

Create round, realistic characters capable of surprising the reader in a convincing way thorough specific details. Try and be realistic in creating your characters; avoid being stereotypic or melodramatic. Your characters should talk as real people do, which is through natural conversation, sometimes including interrupting the other character (most likely to retain power). Parse out information naturally through dialogue and without repeating what the audience already knows. Also, avoid having characters give long speeches. Real conversation involves turn-taking and is often clipped. Whatever backstory or exposition in needed should be communicated gradually and naturally through dialogue. In the rising action, complications should become increasingly serious until the turning point, where the power never again switches between protagonist and antagonistic forces, and a climax (highest emotional point) that feels justified by what the audience has seen and heard.

If you’re having problems thinking of some conflict or issue to dramatize, you might consider one of these writing prompts:

A husband and wife are meeting in a restaurant to finalize the terms of their impending divorce.

Write a scene showing a man and a woman arguing over the man’s friendship with a former girlfriend.

A female or male confronts her or his best friend after discovering she or he has widely revealed what was supposed to be a kept secret.

Your main character finds a severed head in the refrigerator of the apartment they share with her or his single college roommate (or family).

Your protagonist, after a very bad day, is having to break it to the person whose car she or he has borrowed that it is now totaled.

A character returns home to find his or her minister on the couch (maybe just talking, maybe doing more) with someone else (wife/husband/child/roommate) who lives with him or her in the house.

A friend has lent money to another friend for her or his weekly lottery ticket. The ticket has won big.

Write about a famous historical figure and her or his (up until now) unknown shortcoming/weakness/perversion.

Your protagonist discovers that her or his pet can suddenly talk and has complaints.

Write about a couple surprised that actions have led to pregnancy.

Two friendly coworkers are both seeking a promotion only one will receive (and the one denied will then be working for the promoted coworker).

A gigantic meteor is headed into the atmosphere that is predicted to end most life on earth. Two characters are outside watching it grow larger in the sky and are left with living what they know will be their last minutes.