Hyper-Time

THE PLAYWRITING SEMINARS > STRUCTURE > TIME > FLASHBACKS > PAST-PAST > HYPER-TIME

'. . . there was no problem intermingling time frames or epochs. The golf course was one of the first few scenes that came to me. What would two doctors from different epochs be doing but playing golf?'

-- Lisa Loomer

By mixing both past and present simultaneously -- and even mixing several diferent pasts -- you can create a kind of Hyper-time. It's neither Past or Present, but a limbo that can embrace centuries without blinking an eye. When you do this with no use of Formal Scenes to contain each time frame -- you create something that is simultaneously now and then. Or then and then.

These are the folks who've pulled this off . . .

Tom Stoppard in ARCADIA
After 6 scenes of doing it the usual way -- with formal scenes containing distinct chunks of the 1809 story and the Present -- the final scene of the play blends characters from both times. But they don't acknowledge anyone who's not from their own era.
Lisa Loomer in THE WAITING ROOM
Characters from different times come together in the same setting. And they interact with each other. It works because her Theme stresses the similarities across Time rather than the differences.
A. R. Gurney in THE DINING ROOM
A number of different and unrelated Pasts mingle in the same dining room. Scenes are not formally indicated, but they're there. During the transitions between them, the same sort of cohabitation-without-acknowledgment takes place.

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