THE PLAY’S THE THING

To have a play that feels satisfying one scene to the next, you must have Rising Action (also known as Rising Conflict). What exactly does “Rising Action” mean?

The term was first coined in 1863 by German novelist and playwright, Gustav Freytag and later refined by the eminent drama theorist Lajos Egri.

As Freytag wrote in Technique of the Drama, “What drama presents is a struggle, which, with strong perturbations of the soul, the hero wages against opposing forces.” He then said that “action rises to the point of climax, and then falls away.” Lajos Egri wrote: “Two determined, uncompromising forces in combat will create a virile rising conflict.”

Notice the type of language used in these two descriptions: “struggle,” “wages” “opposing” “virile,” “uncompromising,” “combat,” “forces.” These are strong, active words that pulse with energy and vitality. That is what you want your play to do, pulse with energy and vitality. So, how do you do that? Both Freytag and Egri insisted that the creation of strong rising action depends upon opposing forces struggling against each other in ever escalating tension until a climax is reached. Note, also, the importance Freytag placed on both internal conflict (perturbations of the soul) and external conflict (opposing forces).

Egri added that rising conflict is achieved best through strong multidimensional characters who, in their desire to reach their goal, prove the premise of the play. Remember premise? It is the clear throughline that drives the entire play. Conflict is, in other words, the means to express your premise. Or you can also view the premise as your blueprint for mapping out each conflict and how it leads to the next.

But, warned Egri, if you are not careful, you can fall into the traps of creating what he calls, “static conflict,” or “jumping conflict.”

Static conflict is conflict that does not bring about any change, but remains at the same level. The Hatfields and McCoys can fight on and on, but if nothing changes between them, the conflict is static. Two characters can argue until they’re blue in the face, but if neither ever persuades the other of anything or moves the other to action, that conflict is static. Jumping conflict, on the other hand, does involve change, but it is change that is too abrupt. Someone being irritable in one scene and homicidal in the next, is an example of jumping conflict.

Instead, Egri argued, a playwright needs to create “slowly rising” conflict. Slowly rising conflict means that each conflict in a play logically causes the one that follows and each is more intense than the one before. In other words, with each successive conflict, the tension builds, not in some arbitrary way, but in a way that is organic to the needs of the characters and the premise of the play.

As an analogy for Rising Action, think of a tea kettle set to boil. First there is one bubble, then two, then three, then the intensity of the roiling water which sets off a piercing whistle. That whistle is like the climatic scene, when all the progressively intensifying scenes come to a head. It is only after that, that the kettle is taken off the flame and the water starts to cool. In like manner, resolution, a releasing of the tension, follows climax. Every play must have Rising Action, but making sure that action rises at just the right pace and intensity is one of the challenges a playwright faces.

Dale Griffiths Stamos is an award-winning playwright whose work has been produced and published in the United States and abroad. She has been on the faculty of the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, and a guest artist at Cal Arts where she taught the workshop, Finding Your Story. For more information, go to www.dalegriffithsstamos.com