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.
/end