Abbey Theatre - Amharclann na Mainistreach

In late July we had a workshop on the issue of language and dialogue. Though quite a specific theme, I found it also tied in to several workshops we’d had previously, not because material was repeated, but because of the growing awareness of the inseparability of the various elements that make up a successful play (or indeed any work of art).

We glimpsed through various examples of language, ranging from political speeches to prose, from naturalistic to poetic drama, and touched on the specificity (or otherwise) of the phrases and imagery we encountered. What I found stimulating was not just spotting the differences between concrete and abstract speech, or between realistic and heightened language, but contemplating the beneficial effects that the deliberate juxtaposition and yoking together of apparent contrasts can yield.

What struck me above all, however, particularly in the dramatic texts we analysed, was the link between dialogue and action, or rather dialogue as action, and through this the emergence of character. In this sense it recalled the session on character that we did concerning Hedda Gabler, coming at it from a different angle but reaching many of the same conclusions, one of the primary ones of which was: dramatic dialogue is motivated by a need and a striving towards a goal. Dialogue underpinned by this principle ought to have its own momentum and if done well can reveal more about character than any amount of laboured conversation or speechifying.

Then there was one final element which I have a particular interest in: the eloquence of silence. In other words, how dramatic language functions not only by what’s said, but also by what’s left out, the subtext and layers that instead of explaining invite the audience to project their own interpretations, in the best cases creating a rich ambiguity.

Of course, it is one thing knowing all this, the real challenge is to go and do it…