HOW DO I NUMBER THE PAGES?

By Charles Deemer

 

From The Spirit of Writing

 

 

"HYPERDRAMA" is a recent form of theater generated by scripts written in hypertext. These plays generate into simultaneous story-lines that are developed with scenes running simultaneously throughout a performance space. An audience member, who cannot be in more than one place at one time, makes a series of choices that determines the flow of action--the "play," if you will--being revealed to her. Different audience members experience different "plays." In order to see all of the action, an audience member must return to the performance many times. 

To get a better grasp of what hyperdrama is like, imagine your last big family Thanksgiving dinner. You are in a house. Half an hour before the turkey is served, groups have formed throughout the house: in the kitchen, last minute preparations are made; in the den, a group watches football on TV; elsewhere through the house, groups form, all chatting at once. 

Now imagine that each person in the house is an actor and what they say is dialogue written by a playwright. That's hyperdrama! And the audience? Drop them into the house as invisible ghosts, able to wander at will. 

Hyperdrama is not for everyone. Many people are upset by the profound changes in dramatic storytelling that hyperdrama presents. For example: In traditional theater, the audience sits in the dark and is "shown" a story; in hyperdrama, the audience is mobile and puts together a particular "version" of the story on the run, determined by the flow of action one chooses to follow. 

In traditional theater, there are main characters and minor characters; in hyperdrama, all actors are in the performance space at all times, making such distinctions meaningless. 

In traditional theater, the audience practices voyeurism from a distance, as if peeking through a window; in hyperdrama, the audience practices voyeurism within the action itself, often watching the action by standing next to the performers, sometimes even spoken to by an actor. In traditional theater, the story is wrapped up at the end; in hyperdrama, each "viewing" of "the play" serves as additional input into the grander vision of the play that results when one finally has seen all of the action, which usually takes many viewings. 

In traditional theater, everyone sees the same play; in hyperdrama, each audience member creates the play (defined as the flow of action one follows, which is determined by individual choices along the way). This kind of dynamic "create-your-own-play" on the run is not for everyone. However, it is a model for how the real world works and as such is more "real" than traditional theater. 

At my recent hyperdrama, The Bride of Edgefield, a former student of mine told me afterwards that the play gave him a headache. "It was too real," he complained, "with too much happening at the same time." This is not an unusual complaint. This "reality of performance" can result in some dramatic intersections between the performance space and the "real world." 

For example, one of my hyperdramas, performed in a large mansion, ends with undercover narcotics agents firing at drug dealers as they dart into the woods surrounding the mansion. This play has been performed at the Pittock Mansion in Portland, Oregon, which is available to the public. 

One night, a family was picnicking on the grounds when the ending above happened. Not knowing a play was going on, the husband called the police. Also, as part of the play’s ending, an ambulance races up the winding road to the mansion, siren blaring. A dead body is in the mansion. On this night, our ambulance was followed by three uninvited police cars! Police officers, with guns drawn, raided the mansion to give my play's ending more a sense of reality than I had scripted. Fortunately, the director headed them off before the officers disrupted the play, and the audience later complimented me for adding such a huge dose of convincing atmosphere. 

Hyperdramas are not easy to produce--finding a "live" and appropriate space for the story is essential--but one, Tony and Tina's Wedding, has toured widely, even though this script uses much more improvisation than my own. This practical difficulty works against a wide exposure for this exciting new theater form, which is too bad. 

Hyperdrama scripts, with all their choices, are best written and read in hypertext, which makes the Internet a natural home for them. 

 

I still vividly remember the paralysis that met me when I began my first hyperdrama. I had a contract and a deadline, and an advance--but no notion what I was getting into. I also had a story concept that my producer had approved. All I had to do was to write the script. 

For two weeks I sat staring at the computer screen (an old Kaypro 2x with a CP/M operating system and a green screen; I felt like a radar man in World War II), unable to answer a simple beginning question: HOW DO I NUMBER THE PAGES? In other words, if there is no linear story—if many scenes are going to happen at the same time but in different areas of the mansion--HOW DO I NUMBER THE PAGES? 

I never did answer the question. Instead, I wrote scripts for each room, putting a "time code" down the margins, a guesstimate when each action was supposed to occur. I found myself writing with a stop watch, reading aloud and timing all the scenes. Alas, I neglected to include the time it would take for actors to walk from one scene to another--and even when that was added during rehearsal, we neglected to predict that sometimes audience members would be in their way, slowing them down! Needless to say, every hyperdrama includes considerable improvisation. Yet certain timing is essential in any story. What to do? My first director, Ghita Hager, whose background was opera, had a brilliant solution. Since the setting of the mansion story, Chateau De Mort, was a party hosted by a wealthy couple in a mansion, why not have live classical music performed throughout the play, just like the live entertainment that the upper crust might hire? Operatic singers were chosen who could really belt out an aria and be heard throughout the large mansion. This would serve as a cue for the actors, who would then know that a critical moment was coming up. Many actors cannot deal with this unusual demand of on-script, off-script, thinking-on-one's feet performance skills, and during every hyperdrama rehearsal I've been associated with, a few actors have dropped out in frustrated defeat. 

As far as I know, few writers are working with hyperdrama. 400-page scripts for a short two-hour performance are not something that appeal to many, yet there is something wonderfully addictive about the dimension and chaotic energy of live hyperdrama. I'm hooked on the form, and I know a few people who are hooked as audience members as well. So, if you get a chance to see a hyperdrama, don't miss out on the fun. It is an experience that you will never forget. 

 

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