Act II: The Problem Child

THE PLAYWRITING SEMINARS > STRUCTURE > SHAPE > DIAGRAM > ACT II

'. . . [my director] was excited by it, but he had definite reservations about the third act . . .. He felt that Big Daddy was too vivid and important a character to disappear from the play except as an offstage cry after the second act curtain; he felt that the character of Brick should undergo some apparent mutation as a result of the virtual vivisection that he undergoes . . . in Act Two. He felt that the character of Margaret . . . should be, if possible, more clearly sympathetic to the audience. . . .I was fearful that I would lose his interest if I didn't reexamine the script from his point of view. I did.'

-- Tennessee Williams

The key is to remember that you must save a large portion of the source of the conflict for the play's second movement. That's where the Climax has to be. Unless it's going to be a long one-act.

You've got two technical bits in your favor as you ponder the launching of Act II . . .

• It usually has to start at a lower level of conflict than the end of Act I.
  The audience has been away from the play during intermission -- perhaps for as much as 20 minutes. They simply won't return to their seats after all that drinking, eating, and chatting, with the same level of tension and connection to your work as they had at the Curtain Line of Act I.

• There's the good possibility of having a long Time-Break in the story.
  This gives you a source of new conflict to help drive Act II. Nearly all contemporary playwrights take advantage of this device. Tennessee Williams was brave -- even reckless -- by starting each new act of CAT with no Time Break at all. Needless to say, he pulled it off.