THE GERMINAL IDEA

The germinal idea is the origin of life for a play. What starts as a seed grows into a full-bloomed drama. You can plant germinal ideas in many varieties. Each must be nurtured in the feral ground of the mind before it reaches full maturity as a dramatic action. Thoughts about interesting incidents, compelling people, and issues of the day can be the beginning of your play.

Writing a germinal idea presents on paper your concept that will lead to your play. A play, as this book emphasizes, is a form of invention. For its method of presentation to an audience, the story will be acted out Each of the actors collaborate in the story telling by pretending to be the characters. At the script development level the playwright is the principal storyteller, actor, and scene designer.

People go to the theatre for many reasons, but one of the main reasons is, as Hubert Heffner said, "To hear an intriguing story well told."

Your germinal idea will not be a story, but will be the embryonic form of a story. You need something to get you started on devising your tale for the stage. Germinal ideas can come from many sources in several ways. You are looking for the bud of a creative process that flowers into a fully grown, stageworthy story.

Further important considerations for a playwright are contained in Heffner's list of why people attend the theatre:

"2. To become acquainted with various kinds of human characters. 3. To learn more about life. 4. To escape from the boredom or tedium of life."

What can you offer an audience in the way of insight into human beings struggling to cope? What are your strengths in entertaining an audience?

To escape life, people go to the theatre ; so, they can learn more about life. Great dramatist create plays that join the paradoxical goals of audience satisfaction. Most playwrights, however, will have succeeded quite well if they have managed to capture the audience's interest in at least one of the important ways mentioned above. Form an intriguing story by depicting one or more interesting human characters. Lead the audience into discovering something new about life. Allow them a momentary escape from their own lives. The end result is entertainment.

Much of modern drama was written to call attention to, and even correct, social injustice. Plays as different as Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House and Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun share the common thought of bringing to light a great social inequity. Ibsen's drama depicts the disturbing results of Victorian standards imposed upon a young woman's marriage, while Hansberry's shows through wit and candor the debilitating effects of blacks living in a pre-civil rights society. As long as there are social inequities, social action dramas will be written.

One of the earliest plays written, The Oresteia, by Aeschylus concerns itself with justice as a major turning point in the development of civilization. The play dramatizes the ruthless, unending horror of justice that demands an eye for an eye. The Eumenides, the last play of Aeschylus' trilogy, ends with a startling transformation of gods and mankind in a more reasonable form of justice, a trial by a jury! For Aeschylus a great concept of human civilization became the inspiration for a tragedy. Philosophical, political, social, psychological, and religious conceptions can lead to great dramas. These thoughts must frame commonly experienced events.

People that you have observed can be the source of a play. How would such a person respond to a specific situation? You can paint your characters as they are , or you can idealize them and have them respond the way they should. In our day of brawling baseball players and combative figure skaters, we have many public figures who command our attention, but not our respect. The hero has become a casualty.

You can create characters in plays who react worse than people in everyday life do. Violence is acceptable. Violence for violence's sake. A skilled playwright could take the audiences love for violence, as Shakespeare did in Romeo and Juliet, and create a romantic tragedy. The story that Leonard Bernstein and Jerome Robbins transformed to 1950s Manhatten for West Side Story.

In 19th Century America, melodramatic plays boasted heroic victory over evil . These dramatic contrasts of heroic ideals pitted against villainous objectives, when victoriously concluded with noble thoughts, inspired its audience. "The Octoroon is a play of singular interest, " explains Arthur Hobson Quinn. "Dealing with the slavery question in 1859, it represented so truly the actual conditions in Louisiana that it won the sympathy of Northerners and Southerners alike." This melodrama represents also the genius of Dion Boucicault, who dominated the American stage.

What is your notion of a heroic person? What are the qualities of such a person? What would be a dramatic context that brings to life the heroic potential? Plays, however, do not have to dramatize heroic actions. The common man undertaking the daily plight of existence is suitable.

Comic character can also inspire great drama. In the past, comic stereotypes have been a source for amusement. Moliere was inspired by the Commedia del Arte portrayals of stock comic characters and managed to take on Parisian high society when he has able to see foolishness in misers, hypochondriacs, and hypocrites. Oscar Wilde's portrayal of the English leisure class inspired his comedy of manners. Eccentrics and odd-balls still produce laughter. Larry Shue's use of the nerd as a comic hero in The Nerd proves the statement.

The foolish fathers, mischievous rogues, cowardly braggarts, and demanding mistresses of comedies past might suggest suitable contemporary counterparts. If you have an eye for comic contradictions, make people laugh.

Occurrences may lead to great germinal ideas. The unfathomable suicide of a teenager, the rape and robbery of an elderly woman exemplify everyday events that require explanations. The chance meeting of opposites could trigger either comedy or serious drama. A memory of a bygone day can be seen with new discernment All are examples of occurrences that could develop a play.

People, events, and issues are not all that can plant a germinal idea. Places can evoke images of romance, conflict, adventure, or raise important questions about how people live. Sarahavo in 1984 was an Olympic City full of glory, a decade later in 1994 innocent children sledding on a snowy slope were killed by brutally calculated mortar. Why? The beaches of Spring Break can bring to mind people and happenings.

Eroticism in Tennessee Williams' short play, Twenty Wagons Full of Cotton, seems inspired by location. A lonely farm house on a hot Southern day gives a man an opportunity to seduce the farmer's childish wife.

Language can urge you toward creative fulfillment. In Eugene Ionesco's case, the inability of people to successfully use language inspired a short absurdly theatrical moment. In The Lesson, a fashionable lecturer is depicted as speaking babble.

Let the ideas come forth! Your task is to write a germinal idea. In one respect, this is your most important step. Without an idea, the play will never take shape. A good germinal idea does not have to be the very best idea you ever had. Waiting for your best idea to come could mean that you never write anything. All that is necessary is an idea that you can use to enjoy the accomplishment of dramatization.

Do make your idea original. Do not try to dramatize a short story you wrote, not now.

Your first goal is to find an idea that will satisfy an audiences' desire for entertainment. This book will acquaint you with methods of developing every aspect of audience interest in story telling for the stage. If you go through each task, then review the task, you will achieve your goal of becoming a successful beginning playwright.

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