Given Circumstances

Given Circumstances are the facts of the world of the play, including the specific conditions of place and time, details on all that has happened before the action of the play begins, as well as information on the Characters' lives in the past and their relationship(s) to one another. Any given circumstance that's vital to the story is usually shown to the audience in the form of Exposition. Given circumstances can change throughout the course of the play, scene to scene, and sometimes moment to moment. When a character dies, their given circumstances have changed: "living" is no longer on the list, "dead" is. When a character leaves the room, their given circumstances have changed.

For one of the biggest lists of given circumstances, and maybe one of the worst examples of exposition, check out the beginning of any Star Wars movie ever.

The life behind given circumstances is that they cause something in your play. They are not just static pieces of information, they are the jet fuel that propels your characters into Action.

Rules for Reality
Want to know one of the really cool things about plays? Anything is possible.

When beginning your play, you can literally write any kind of world you like, whether it's a world in which there is no oxygen, or whether gravity doesn't work, or maybe everyone speaks in a different language. Maybe every time the lights go out something disappears. You literally can do anything.

Many plays have the following set of given circumstances, whether the playwrights mean to use them or not: "Present day, on earth, with time running chronologically, and all the same physical rules as real life like gravity, friction, and so on." There's nothing wrong with these rules for reality. But, if all you need to make a piece of theater is a person moving across a space, in front of an audience, then any rule you add to reality after that is a conscious choice on your part, even though you may not realize it. So, examine whatever rules you set for yourself. Does gravity help tell your story? It seems silly to ask, but there's an off-chance it won't. Does it matter that this is in America? Does the fact that your play is set in your high school help move the story forward? If not, where should it be? When should it be?

You may want to write a first draft before you start asking these questions. See what about the world you've written helps move things forward, and keep it. If something doesn't, cut it. If anything is possible, you can always think of something better.

It's also important to make sure you don't break any of the rules you set for yourself. In The Miracle Worker, Helen can neither see, hear, nor speak. If she were to suddenly begin monologuing half-way through the play, the audience would be completely thrown. In fact, it takes the course of the play, and the Action of the main character, to change that given circumstance - Helen learns to speak. When finding things to re-write, be sure to examine your reality to make sure everything fits. If not, an audience might be thrown, even a little, and lose interest.

Details
Every play ever is more than just the physical rules that its reality functions by, however. Each play is filled with specific details that form a dynamic space in which a story can happen. These include character biographies, the history of your play's setting, the events of the previous day for all of the characters, and much, much more.

When brainstorming, sometimes these are the things that come to you first, either in the form of an opening image, or maybe a character description that you find particularly compelling. Early in the process, it's worth exploring these given circumstances to see exactly what they cause in the scene. How does someone react to a character who speaks three pitches higher than anyone else? Who does she act? And so on.

Once you're looking back on your first draft and editing, though, it's worth thinking about how many of these given circumstances play into the story. One way to really pare it down is to get rid of any given circumstance that doesn't help cause the play's Action, provide an Obstacle for a character, or they'll become a Tactic for one or more of the characters. This sounds like a tall order, but it can save you from using extraneous detail just for the sake of using it.

The 10% Rule
Hamlet begins with one line: "Who's there?" It ends up being another guard, but in that moment, it could be anything. In a sense, Shakespeare put the audience's first question going into any play into the mouth of the first character to speak. It's worth noting that when the lights go down, your audience will turn to your play and ask "Who's there?"

And you only get so much time to answer.

Generally speaking, for the first 10% of any play, an audience will believe anything, because they're still trying to figure out how the world of the play works. Throw in a ghost, they'll believe there's ghosts. Throw in aliens, they'll get that this is a play about aliens. But after that, they lock down whatever rules they've seen as the only way reality can function.

In a ten-minute play, this amounts to the first two pages (rounding up - one page works out to a little less than a minute, depending on what's written there). After that, any sudden shift in reality without an explanation in the first two pages will clash with how the audience thinks reality works, and take them out of the play. The best example of this is the "It's All a Dream" scenario, when a story is so intense, no one has any idea how the characters are going to make it. Then suddenly one of them "wakes up," and discovers that it was all a dream! And then the audience asks for their money back.

Compare with a Perception Shift to see how to do something like that properly.

The Plague in Thebes
There are usually a handful of given circumstances that are absolutely essential to your story. Think of them as an all-star pitcher winding up and throwing a knuckleball. The play hasn't started yet (the batter hasn't hit the ball), but already things are wound so tight that when it does start, everything jolts into action.

That handful of given circumstances is lovingly refered to as "the Plague in Thebes." More technically, it's called the "Dramatic Problem."

The Plague in Thebes gets its name from Oedipus Rex, which is set in the city of Thebes, and begins at the height of a plague. The opening image is various citizens pleading with their King, Oedipus, to do something about the plague. They convince him, and the play is about him trying to stop that plague. As the play continues, Oedipus learns more given circumstances about this plague - Apollo sent it, it won't be lifted until the previous king's murderer is found ... he goes on learning things about this plague until the play ends, and he finds a way to stop it.

When writing a ten-minute play, your Plague in Thebes will be the set of circumstances that one or more of your characters wants to change. It could be as simple as the fact that a certain person has never said hi to the character, if you want it to be. There's a problem there that a character can go about trying to solve for ten continuous minutes, with their Action.

Chekhov's Gun
There's an old theater adage that's been handed down from Anton Chekhov, that goes something like this: "If a gun goes off in Act Three, we need to see it on the wall in Act One."

Whatever happens at the end of your play, it needs to be connected to the beginning. The beginning causes the middle, which causes the end. This works whether you're looking at the play backwards, or forwards: however you play ends must grow out of your given circumstances. Whatever given circumstances don't contribute to the course of the play can be deleted.

Keep this in mind when you're starting, and keep this in mind when revising.