Descriptive Titles

THE PLAYWRITING SEMINARS > CONTENT > TITLES > DESCRIPTIVE

'Some people were quite shocked by the fact that there was no nudity, no swearing, no sex in BEDROOM FARCE. The joke I wanted was: Let's write a play about three bedrooms, and the first thing you expect to happen in that bedroom never happens.'

-- Alan Ayckbourn

Descriptive titles can be a real bore. They're the kind of thing commercial television thrives on: THE DECLINE OF JOE, A POPCORN ADDICT. TV audiences supposedly like to know what they're getting before they get it. But as always, there are no rules you can't break in this game and some great classics of the theatre have used descriptive titles . . .p

THE TRAGEDY OF HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK: Bad things happen to this Danish guy. No mystery about that.
DEATH OF A SALESMAN: A salesman dies. No kidding. But it's still a grand piece 50 years later, even if lots of us -- Tony Kushner included -- can't resist knocking it.

And the ultimate descriptive title from Peter Weiss . . .

THE PERSECUTION AND ASSASSINATION OF JEAN PAUL MARAT PORTRAYED BY THE ACTING COMPANY OF THE ASYLUM AT CHARENTON UNDER THE DIRECTION OF MR. de SADE: And it's a great, crazy, brilliant play, even though you'd never need to see it to know what happens.

GO ON TO: | Metaphoric Titles |

RETURN TO: | Content | Seminar Homepage |