When I took my first leap into the great unknown of independent theatre, the teams usually consisted of the following: a director, a designer, the cast, a stage manager and a mysterious fifth person… They’d sit in the shadowy back row of the theatre, watching intently, taking notes and occasionally exchanging a few quiet words with the director. “Who were they?” I thought to myself. “A critic? A talent scout? My long lost second cousin twice removed?” Turns out this person was the dramaturg—a student of the enigmatic field of dramaturgy, and the show’s secret weapon.
Dramaturgy is the study of how meaning is made and conveyed to an audience by all elements of a production. Dramaturgs (or dramaturges) are typically found in theatre productions, but may be employed on film sets to work with actors on deciphering character or text.
The more I learned about this mysterious figure, the more it became clear that their role in our little show was quite important. Their job wasn’t always 100% clear (even to them, and more on that later), but they seemed to contribute ideas and observations that just made everything better. What’s more, I realised that if you want to be a good actor, a lot of dramaturgy skills can help you become exactly that!
So let’s unmask these mysterious fonts of knowledge and learn to use the incredible power of dramaturgy as a force of good.
What is a Dramaturg?
According to a very reliable source, the concept can be summed up in a single sentence: “Dramaturgy is the study of dramatic composition and the representation of the main elements of drama on the stage.”
Dramaturgy was invented by a German fellow called Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, who coined the term in a series of personal essays published in 1767-69. He was also the first ever professional dramaturg and was employed by the Theatre of Hamburg to sit in the back row and take notes. Turns out if you don’t have a career, you can just make one up.
Since Lessing invented his very own career path, lots of very smart people have expanded on the dark arts now known as dramaturgy. As it is concerned with the study of story, it attracts a lot of writers, who I presume were trying to ignore their own writing. Playwrights such as Thornton Wilder, Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams all worked as dramaturgs.
Dramaturgy is both a field of study, as well as a practical job within a production. This is perhaps why the duties of a dramaturg vary wildly: day by day, job by job. And you do not have to be a dramaturg to utilise the principles of dramaturgy. It’s a lens you can apply to your artistic work in order to explore further and look deeper.
What Does a Dramaturg Do?
There’s an old joke in theatre circles about dramaturgs: ask three of them what they do for a living, and they’ll all give you a different answer. Often, a dramaturg is seen as a ‘support’ to other roles in a production. Let’s examine the different ways dramaturgs perform this role.
Dramaturgs work with writers on their material by examining genre, style, form and context. They look for how meaning is created by words on the page, and how that may be interpreted (or misinterpreted) by a director turning the text into an actual show. Dramaturgs also provide historical, social and cultural perspectives on a production—offering research, or even their own lived experience to ensure a degree of realism.
Dramaturgs work with directors by exploring the meaning of their directorial choices. Rather than offer up notes on what does or doesn’t work, they focus on how a particular choice might be ‘read’ by an audience. If it has an unintended meaning, the hope is to catch and amend that before an audience (or reviewer) has a chance to misconstrue.
Dramaturgs work with actors on script analysis and character development. They may aid in analysing the text for character relationships or backstory. On a film set, dramaturgs often help actors contextualise a scene within the larger script—which is helpful when a film is shot out of order.
But more than any other group or department, dramaturgs work for the audience. They watch a show develop with the audience in mind, ensuring the message of the show is clear and not diluted by any hidden ideas or interpretations.
Tapping into the Zeitgeist
The audience/artist relationship is a two-ways street. No matter how brilliant or exciting a show is, there’s nothing to guarantee that your audience will find something worthwhile in it. In fact, works that insist upon their own brilliance tend to drive people away.
This is why dramaturgs need to have their finger on the pulse of the current zeitgeist: “An invisible agent, force or daemon dominating the characteristics of the current epoch in world history.”
What’s driving audiences at present? What’s driving people, getting into their heads, keeping them up at night? These kinds of questions are important to us as actors, because we need to know what people are feeling in order to reflect it back to them on stage or screen. Even if we’re performing an old script or, dare I say it, a bad script, good dramaturgical practice can help us mine it for useful contextual queues that we can apply to the modern-day zeitgeist.
Consider Shakespeare. The reason his work is performed over and over again in a million different ways is because most of his plays have the human experience at the very heart of them. We can all relate to Hamlet’s feelings of crippling indecision in the face of tyranny, Macbeth’s vaulting ambition and Juliet’s yearning for love without consequence. It’s just about how we apply those timeless themes to a modern-day context.
In the case of a bad script, dramaturgy allows us to see things that aren’t there. Maybe the poorly-written dialogue is a part of the artistic vision for the project? What if bad dialogue becomes a deliberate choice to highlight the degradation of good communication? It might not be perfect, but it’s better than bad dialogue with no justification.
Should I Become a Dramaturg?
Absolutely! In case I haven’t made this absolutely clear at this point: dramaturgs lift everybody else up on a production, and have a whole heap of knowledge around how good stories are told. Why wouldn’t you want to tap into this as an actor? Taking on the role of dramaturg is also a terrific thing to do in between acting jobs. You will learn so much that you can fold back into your own process.
Elsewhere on StageMilk, we have an article written by the wonderful Alexander Lee-Rekers about how to become a dramaturg which you should definitely check out. It really follows this ‘career change/expansion’ angle and gives you tips on how to start on a new branching path of your acting journey.
However, my case (although aligned with his) is slightly different. Let’s talk about how you can apply principles of dramaturgy to your work as an actor:
Read. A lot.
I’m talking books, scripts, news articles, opinion pieces, personal essays. Just about anything you can get your hands on that has more than a few words in it. The written word captures the feelings and thoughts of our moment in human history (here’s that zeitgeist again). It also serves as a time capsule, freezing in place the values and feelings of a particular time.
Read it all. Enrich your understanding of art, history, society, culture. Identify something in the present-day zeitgeist and see if you can trace it backwards. When it comes to analysing your character/script/whatever, you’ll be able to draw the conclusions and make the comparisons set out by the author in the text. Research and information: such things will always put you ahead.
Talk to People
As an actor, you are a study of human character and interaction. So fill your lives with interactions and moments of connection—learn from the very people you hope will buy a ticket to your next film or play.
A lot of my inspiration for characters and stories comes from interacting with other people. You can sit and read in isolation and intellectualise the world around you as much as you like. But until you get out there and put some effort into understanding the lived experience of people around you, you’ll be little more than a walking encyclopedia.
Analyse the Script
The point so nice I’m making it twice. You have got to put the time into understanding and deciphering a text—whether it’s something you’re working on for a job, or simply a new monologue you’ve picked up for practice. Don’t focus on your lines and blocking and forget the rest.
Dramaturgical script analysis is very similar to Earle Gister in a lot of ways. When you do your preliminary read, you should take notes about both the context of the world of the script and the context of the real world when the script was written.
- What is actually happening in the script?
- Where is it set?
- What are the characters doing?
- And what do they think about their current circumstance and each other?
Contextualise this with some knowledge about what was happening in the world at the time the script was written. What ideas or themes is the writer drawn to? And how much of it about their personal context?
Dramaturgical analysis helps you to find how the author has created meaning in a text. Sometimes it’s very obvious. Other times, and most times in good scripts, it’s buried in the most subtle of details. It could be a recurring rhythm in a character’s speech, the lack of adjectives, the description of a room missing one glaring detail…
In the Room
Finally landed that job you were crossing your fingers and toes for? Well, it’s time to put all of your experience into practice. The best way to approach work dramaturgically in the room is this: don’t forget all the good work you’ve done. Keep your research, your characters and your analysis in mind and let that research inform your choices.
All of this detective work is dramaturgy that can help you develop a relatable and believable character. Report your findings to the director and your cast-mates and discuss them together. See what kind of discoveries they have made and note how it influences your own findings.
Remember though: you’re an actor, not a dramaturg. It’s not your job to redesign the script, it’s to develop a character and their relationships that fits the director’s vision for the play.
Conclusion
All the best actors are nerds. That’s my working theory. If you’re really serious about acting, you’re probably a little bit obsessed with humanity and want to find ways of understanding it through your work. So get out there and soak it all up. Make observations, ask people for their opinions and feelings. Don’t take everything at face value–remain curious and excited about this crazy world and take your findings into the theatre or onto set.
And how does dramaturgy fit into this? Dramaturgy is a philosophical idea about how we can understand art and storytelling. Which, when you think about it, makes it just another way of understanding life. Sounds pretty nice, right?
Hope this helps. See you around the traps!
