It's interesting to plumb the ostensible differences between the a.e.'s I
claim we get from sporting events and "real life" dramas.
I watched the baseball game the other night in which the Red Sox pitcher Jon
Lester threw a no-hitter. Lester is the guy in his mid-twenties who two years
ago, when he had a great season going, had to leave baseball because he was
found to have cancer. He beat it, and came back to the majors.
There was TENSION the other night, which brought EXCITEMENT, the way a good
movie thriller might. (Note: excitement without tension is trivial. Scaring
someone with an unprepared-for "Boo!" is trivial.) The game certainly bubbled
up
the word 'drama' in my mind, but -- with Chris -- I recognized it as, call
it, a second-class drama -- not in a class with the great dramas of theater.
Why? Several thoughts came to mind. One, in a great drama, everything
contributes to a central "story" -- a story that is COMPLETE.
Two, it felt too brief -- which might seem odd since, from the time we fans
suspected a no-hitter might be in progress, it took a good hour until the final
out in the ninth inning confirmed the event. Still, it felt like an EPISODE
in a possible drama, not a complete drama. In other words, tension and
excitement may be necessary in a drama, but they are not sufficient.
Three, the element of drama it lacked was life-arc FINALITY. "He did it!" But
it doesn't change his a life a bit. He'll pitch again later this week, and
he'll have to continue to show great ability or he could be back in the minors
by season's end. If he stays in the majors, gets a raise and an extended
contract, it will be because of a whole successful season in 2008, not because
of
this one glittering game. The no-hitter was marvelous, but solely an episode,
not a final act.
It forces me to rethink my claim that Joe Montana, the essence of Nemesis to
the Bengals, gave us "drama" in the last three minutes of that Superbowl. Same
with Kirk Gibson limping to the plate to hit the world series game-winning
home run. I accepted tension and excitement for "drama". But they too were just
episodes -- albeit episodes at a level of tension and excitement seldom
reached in sporting events. Drama must have moments of tension and excitement,
and
when I sensed these elements in the Lester, Montana, and Gibson episodes (and
the "slow pursuit" of O.J. Simpson in the white bronco), it was very like
heightened moments in great drama, and I yelped, "Drama!" Mistake. I still
claim
there is a species of a.e. entailed in usch events, but I should have saved
the word 'drama' for something "bigger".
Yet another element necessary for great drama is this: We must see the
principals confronting DECISIONS, CHOICES, where we can imagine alternatives he
is
choosing among. And we must observe how their choices determine the outcome. We
can't observe this conscious act of choosing by Jon Lester. We saw him throw
excellent pitches, but every pitcher chooses to do that. In a foot-race, we
may never see a hundred yard dash that is truly dramatic. One guy runs faster
than the next -- but for us the audience to appreciate it as drama we'd have
to be aware of some conscious deliberation in the runner, and we almost never
can in that ten-second event. This is a reason why sports movies can provide
tension and excitement, but seldom drama.
Same with movies about other performers -- singers, pianists, composers,
dancers. It can be interesting and even exciting to watch an actor playing
Mozart
as he composes his own "Requiem", but the moment does not quite provide drama.
The central events in drama must be acts of observable choice where we grasp
alterntive possibilities, why the character chooses the way he does. In the
movie "Breaking Away", though the key event is merely a bicycle race, we do see
our hero DECIDE: After he is thrown to the ground and his bike smashed near
the end, he can either quit, or show grit, get up, find another bike, and keep
going. So that movie provides tension, excitement, and decision, and even an
element of finality -- his victory rounds off his quest in the movie. In
"Chariots of Fire", we see a similar moment early in the film: Eric Liddell,
running a one-lap race, is tripped and he tumbles to the ground. But we see his
determination as he makes himself get up and chase the now-far-ahead other
runners. He catches them; he wins. Finality to that moment. (In the final races
of
"Chariots", we certainly get tension and excitement and finality -- but no
naked
deliberation: Liddell and Abrahams simply run faster than the other guys.
Nevertheless, even the combination of TENSION, EXCITEMENT, OBSERVABLE
DECISION, and FINALITY are not sufficient to warrant the honorific label "great
drama". Why not?
Because it has to be LIFE-ARC finality, and that's a good part of why
"Breaking Away" and "Chariots", gratifying though they are, are far from
"Oedipus",
"Death of a Salesman", and "A Streetcar Named Desire".
In addition to TENSION, EXCITEMENT, OBSERVABLE DECISION, AND LIFE-ARC
FINALITY, there is arguably a fifth element needed in great drama, and that's
what
I'll call GRAVITY. If a life is at stake, is that enough to satisfy this fifth
necessary element for great drama? Or does it have to be the life of a "GREAT
man/woman", as Aristotle suggests? It does not seem so to me. Neither Willy
Loman nor Blanche DeBois seems "great", but still "Death" and "Streetcar" feel
to
me like great tragic dramas.
As a playwright, I myself am an elitist in that I seem to want to write only
stories that have a very gifted character at the center. But I take that to be
neither a virtue nor a flaw in me -- simply a characteristic. It certainly
doesn't imply that my plays are thus assuredly "important", nor, say I, should
they be condemned solely because they neglect the "common" person.
A "nice" question is, can the death of a child ever be the stuff of tragic
drama? After all, for all we know the kid might have grown up to be a serial
killer. In other words, young children are too "indeterminate" -- even when
they are "the last of the royal line". My answer is yes: the death of a child
can be the stuff of tragedy, but the "tragic figure" cannot be the child -- it
would be the parent.
I haven't addressed here the question of "style".
**************
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