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Five minutes play script1/21/2024 It establishes the world of the play as well as its tone (hopefully, your director defines both for you in scene class, you need to figure that out yourself.) As an actor, you must be faithful to both and not sacrifice either in the name of making yourself well-liked by the audience. The opening of a play is not just about grabbing and holding the audience’s attention. What about intentionally playing the humor of the first half of the monologue to deliberately contrast with the serious tone of the second half, as my student did? Make him a real human being with real feelings and needs, and the odds are very good that he will be likable. You may or may not want to have dinner with him, but audiences empathize with good people in painful circumstances. There is nothing in the script that makes Dysart unlikable. But in the early days of the production, you want to throw yourself into what your character is feeling.ĭoes the actor need to go out of his way to make Dysart likable? A good actor can make the necessary adjustments in a rehearsal or two. A month into rehearsals, once he begins to get a good handle on who Dysart is, the director can evaluate whether the first five minutes is strong enough to grab the audience. This frees the actor playing Dysart to simply play the truth of this man’s life. Equus plunges us into suspense on a number of levels almost immediately, and when we learn about the blinding at the five minute mark, we are firmly hooked. He uses words like “lost” and “intolerable” to describe himself, providing intrigue. Dysart is clearly a man in pain, at a crossroads we don’t yet understand. Shaffer’s gives Dysart a wonderful opening monologue, one that raises more questions than it answers. All the actor playing Dysart has to do is not lose the audience’s attention in the three minutes between Nugget’s exit and the revelation that the boy embracing him blinded six horses while tending them in the stable. This highly theatrical and creative imagining of the horse captures the audience’s attention from the moment the lights come up. The 1974 photo shows you what Nugget looks like. At the start of the play, Dysart sits to one side and speaks to the audience while Alan and Nugget embrace center stage. When the horses enter the action, the actors playing them rise from the onstage bench and strap on one of the horse heads that hang around the perimeter. Shaffer asks that the entire cast sit on benches behind the boxing ring throughout the performance and enter the ring for their scenes. The original Broadway set is below, with the “boxing ring” described by Shaffer. The photo above is from the recent Broadway revival, and it is loyal to the playwright’s concept in the important ways. It’s very likely that my student was worrying needlessly, but let’s not take anything for granted, and talk about why the script works in this regard.įirst, Shaffer prefaces the script with some Author’s Notes about the staging. Equus won a Tony, a Drama Desk, and a Drama Critic’s Award. Peter Shaffer is one of the best British playwrights of the 20 th century. In a quality script, the playwright has eliminated this problem. If it does, the director will notice and correct it. If you do that and the script is a good one, then the matter of “is the audience going to stay awake for the play” probably won’t arise. Your responsibility is to make your character a believable person who fairly represents the playwright’s intention. Should you, as an actor, concern yourself with this? Honestly, I think it’s the director’s responsibility. The major concern that impacted how my student interpreted the opening monologue in Equus was a need to grab and hold the audience’s attention in the first five minutes of the play.
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