{"id":243,"date":"2018-07-01T14:10:42","date_gmt":"2018-07-01T18:10:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/screenplayasliterature.com\/?p=243"},"modified":"2018-07-01T14:10:42","modified_gmt":"2018-07-01T18:10:42","slug":"the-pivotal-character-revisited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/screenplayasliterature.com\/?p=243","title":{"rendered":"The Pivotal Character Revisited"},"content":{"rendered":"

In an earlier post I mentioned that although the late drama theorist Lajos Egri was indeed brilliant, many of his dictums on the art of playwriting are extremely dated. That is not to say that his insights were not valid for the plays of his day, but tastes change, particularly when it comes to playwriting and screenwriting.\u00a0 I made reference to one of Egri\u2019s central tenets: the premise<\/em>.\u00a0 I defined this as a thought-provoking idea, usually of social significance, that must be proved or demonstrated; Egri insisted that any play worthy of the name must have one.\u00a0 However, I pointed out that such premises<\/em> are rare today because audiences have \u201cseen it all\u201d and don\u2019t like to be preached to (although that hasn\u2019t dissuaded more than a few stubborn playwrights and filmmakers from \u201cpreaching to the choir\u201d).<\/p>\n

Another of Egri\u2019s insights that you don\u2019t hear mentioned much today is the concept of the Pivotal Character<\/em>.\u00a0 According to Egri, without such a character there would be no play: he (or she) sets the action in motion.\u00a0 As an example, Egri points to\u00a0 Krogstad, a minor character in Ibsen\u2019s A Doll\u2019s House<\/em>, whose demand that the main character, Nora, repay a loan sets the play in motion. A pivotal character may be a secondary character or, more commonly, the main character or protagonist.\u00a0 According to Egri, a pivotal character must not only set the drama in motion, he or she must be \u201cnecessarily aggressive, uncompromising, even ruthless.\u201d\u00a0 Ironically, Egri considered Hamlet, whose name is almost synonymous with vacillation, as a pivotal character because he (Hamlet) \u201cferrets out his father\u2019s murderers . . . to bring the guilty to justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do I think that Egi\u2019s concept of the pivotal character is dated?\u00a0 The answer is \u201cyes\u201d and \u201cno\u201d. There are pivotal characters in contemporary drama, but less so than in Egri\u2019s time, because many of today\u2019s dramas don\u2019t have concrete beginnings and endings: there is no action to set in motion because the characters\u2019 lives change little from day to day.\u00a0 This is particularly true of \u201cslice of life\u201d dramas that periodically fall in and out of fashion.\u00a0 And as far as characters being \u201caggressive\u201d and \u201cruthless,\u201d you are likely only to find those traits in psychopathic villains.\u00a0\u00a0 Furthermore, males today\u2014particularly American males\u2014are more likely than not to be depicted as being complex and sensitive. Thus when the pivotal character is a male, you can be certain that Alpha Males need not apply<\/em>!\u00a0 And if the pivotal character is an aggressive male, there is a dearth of actors to portray them.\u00a0 As one American screenwriter not so long ago warned his fellow writers, when choosing their characters, they should\u00a0keep in mind\u00a0that \u201cthere are no more Lee Marvin\u2019s.\u201d\u00a0 To which I would add, no Humphrey Bogart\u2019s or John Wayne\u2019s either. So why am I revisiting this concept?<\/p>\n

I am doing so because although there are indeed pivotal characters– and should be– in contemporary drama, employing them presents a challenge for both the writer and the actor.\u00a0\u00a0 It is essential for both in practicing their art to know the motivation of the characters they write of or portray.\u00a0 For most characters this is very straight forward.\u00a0 For example, we can assume that a mother will always protect her children and a father will always protect his family because that is what we expect parents to do.\u00a0 But when a character is \u201cpivotal,\u201d motivation may not be so clear.\u00a0\u00a0 Case in point is the pivotal characters in American \u201cRoad films.\u201d\u00a0 In this genre the main characters, usually seeking a better life, pack up whatever belongings they possess and drive across country, along the way encountering interesting people and embarking on unusual adventures.\u00a0 The problem is, despite the perception that Americans are very mobile and move around a lot, most would never make so consequential a journey unless they had the offer of an exceedingly good job\u2014and even then it\u2019s not certain that they would actually make such a bold move.\u00a0 Writers of these films often come up with stronger motivations for the pivotal characters, such as reconciling with a dying relative, searching for a lost child, or collecting a large inheritance or some other large sum of money.\u00a0 These \u201cstronger\u201d motivations are obviously contrived, but audiences don\u2019t seem to mind as long as the rest of the film is engaging and entertaining.\u00a0 Let us now look at an example where a writer skillfully met the challenge of the pivotal character and found an actor to capably execute it:\u00a0 Peter Shaffer\u2019s masterful play Amadeus<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The subject here is the alleged murder of the 18th<\/sup> century Viennese musical genius Mozart by the jealous court composer Salieri.\u00a0 Mozart, of course, is a historical figure.\u00a0 Salieri is, too, although a minor one.\u00a0 In fact there is no real documentation that the two had much interaction, although Salieri had been the music teacher of Mozart\u2019s son and had even conducted some of Mozart\u2019s work.\u00a0 The drama really doesn\u2019t start until Salieri renounces God and commits himself to undermining Mozart (and possibly committing murder).\u00a0 This then is the ultimate pivotal act by the pivotal character.\u00a0 Without Salieri\u2019s treachery, instead of having an engrossing play, all you would be left with would be a faithful biography of Mozart.<\/p>\n

Now here is the challenge for the playwright: while the motivation for Mozart is quite clear and straightforward, the motivation for Salieri is not.\u00a0 Mozart, despite his character flaws, wants nothing more than to be successful in his art; furthermore he sees himself as a dutiful husband, father and son.\u00a0 Salieri\u2019s motivation is not so clear or uncomplicated.\u00a0 Salieri is driven by resentment and professional jealousy.\u00a0 These feelings are understandable; but is it really credible that a devout Catholic would renounce his religion and be so driven by hatred?\u00a0 Real genius is required on both the part of the playwright and the actor portraying Salieri to make the play succeed.<\/p>\n

And succeed they did.\u00a0\u00a0 The original Broadway production received the Tony for Best Play, and the motion picture adaptation a few years later received the Oscar for Best Picture.\u00a0 The actors who played Salieri, Ian McKellen (play) and F. Murray Abraham (film), both received Best Actor awards: the Tony and Oscar, respectively.<\/p>\n

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In an earlier post I mentioned that although the late drama theorist Lajos Egri was indeed brilliant, many of his dictums on the art of playwriting are extremely dated. That is not to say that his insights were not valid … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,66,65,9,63],"class_list":["post-243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theiory","tag-amadeus","tag-f-murrary-abraham","tag-ian-mckellen","tag-lajos-egri","tag-peter-shaffer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/screenplayasliterature.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/screenplayasliterature.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/screenplayasliterature.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/screenplayasliterature.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/screenplayasliterature.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=243"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/screenplayasliterature.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":244,"href":"https:\/\/screenplayasliterature.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243\/revisions\/244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/screenplayasliterature.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/screenplayasliterature.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/screenplayasliterature.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}