Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Scene Structure

Manjima madam,
Luckily (or otherwise) in Proof of Love, the scenes have always been clear:
The funeral and setting up of the task. Then 2 scenes each, present and past, with the three women in his life. And finally the 'reporting back with proof to the powers that be' scene.
But then this whole new guy popped up, unplanned, but I think now perhaps the most critical scene in the play.
That was the only scene for which I attempted something approaching a structure before I actually sat down to write. The outline went something like this:
A public place at 2 a.m. Rustom meets other ghosts. Is taught a few operational basics and is 'acclimatized'. He must learn 1) The power of music, 2) The power of thought, 3) His ability to see in time as well as space. He must learn all these without any of them being obviously taught. Tone and texture of the scene must serve to ease the way from the fun and lightness of the funeral to the relatively dukhi quality of his scenes with his women.
I found it helped me to do this outline, sketchy though it is. The scene is still in progress, so this may all end up total bumph in hindsight.
Hope this helps. I think eventually, as Ram said, whatever works for you.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home