'All my films have the same themes, albeit in different forms. My evolution is in the way I excavate the same themes. I suppose there's some autobiography, but it's totally deformed. It's fiction that interests me. But for this fiction to work, it is fed by distant experiences that return to the surface.'-- André Téchiné
Available Now: Playwriting Seminars 2.0
The revised and expanded e-book edition.
Here's the full Table of Contents and ordering link for the new edition.
Here's an annotated version of 'NIGHT, MOTHER's Obligatory Scene -- as Marsha Norman wrote it -- starting from the
CLIMAX: Suspense Plot | MAMA Jesse! Please! (And we hear the shot, and it sounds like an answer, it sounds like No.) |
Resolution begins | (Mama Collapses against the door, tears streaming down her face, but not screaming anymore. In shock now.) |
Minor CLIMAX: Emotional Plot | MAMA Jessie, Jessie, child ... Forgive me. (Pause) I thought you were mine. |
Resolution continues | (And she leaves the door and makes her way through the living room, around the furniture, as though she didn't know where it was, not knowing what to do. Finally, she goes to the stove in the kitchen and picks up the hot- chocolate pan and carries it with her to the telephone, and holds on to it while she dials the number. She looks down at the pan, holding it tight like her life depended on it. She hears Loretta answer.) MAMA Loretta, let me talk to Dawson, honey. |
Curtain |
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