'Teaser' Point of Attack Examples

THE PLAYWRITING SEMINARS > STRUCTURE > SHAPE > DIAGRAM > PT. OF ATTACK > EXAMPLES > TEASER > EXAMPLES

'[My dialogue in THE HOPE ZONE] is not a specific regionalism; it's made up out of Americanisms, a little Eastern Shore, a couple of other Southern things and stuff I've heard. To me, everything begins with how people talk.'

-- Kevin Heelan

The Teaser -- or False -- Point of Attack usually requires that each act of the play be structured in a series of formal scenes. It's possible to avoid formal scene breaks by having the central character speak to us as a kind of bookend for many of the scenes, especially if the Teaser Point of Attack is done with this character talking to us.

Some examples of the 'Teaser' Point of Attack . . .

M. BUTTERFLY: David Henry Hwang's play begins with the French diplomat addressing the audience from his prison cell where he finds himself as a result of the history of the story related in the remainder of the play. After the Teaser Point of Attack monologue to us and a following scene occurring at roughly the same time, the play drops back to the true Point of Attack which is 41 years earlier in 1947. What follows are scenes, or excerpts, from the diplomat's history prior to his talking to us from prison.
THE HEIDI CHRONICLES: Wendy Wasserstein's play begins with Heidi's end-of-term lecture to her art history students, actually delivered -- complete with slides -- to the audience. The real Point of Attack comes in the next scene when Heidi was in high school, 24 years before the "lecture" we've just seen.
A SOLDIER'S PLAY: Charles Fuller's play begins with the murder of Sergeant Vernon Waters in 1944, a scene that won't make complete sense to us until we see it again in context at the play's Climax. This beginning draws the audience along through the initial reaction of his platoon to the killing and the early stages of the murder investigation.

And then there's . . .

EQUUS: Peter Shaffer's play begins with the psychiatrist drawing our attention to a teenage boy embracing a stylized horse. And then he tells us that he must start at the beginning for us to understand the story. The image of the boy and the horse won't make complete sense to us until we see it again in context at the end of Act I.

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