Metaphoric Titles

THE PLAYWRITING SEMINARS > CONTENT > TITLES > METAPHORIC

'My wife, Ophelia, thought MONSIEUR BUTTERFLY too obvious a title, and suggested I abbreviate it in the French fashion. Hence, M. BUTTERFLY, far more mysterious and ambiguous, was the result.'

-- David Henry Hwang

Metaphoric titles have excitement about them. They suggest through symbolism, double meanings, and general cleverness, what a play might be about and often focus on the play's primary Theme.

That's why it takes a bit of work to find those straightforward Descriptive Titles in the contemporary theatre. And theatre audiences seem to have a greater tolerance for ambiguity and symbolism about what they may get from a play compared to folks who spend their lives in front of the tube. Or at least that's what TV-land thinks.

Some inspired Metaphoric Titles . . .

DEATH AND THE MAIDEN: Ariel Dorfman's brilliant examination of a political torture victim's chance for vengeance, uses as its title a piece of music critical to the play's action: Franz Shubert's string quartet, Death and the Maiden. And the victim is a woman who finally gets to decide if death is the vengeance she'll deliver to the man who may have been her torturer of many years ago.
CRIMES OF THE HEART: Beth Henley's comedy about three alienated sisters learning to be supportive of each other uses a play-on-words, or rather a play-on-a-cliché: crimes of passion. And there is an actual crime at the heart of the play, though it's more a crime of dis-passion. But we discover all of the sisters have also committed crimes of the heart, by ignoring their heart's desires.

A few other great metaphoric titles . . .

AS IS: William Hoffman's wrenching comedy about a man who finally accepts his AIDS-inflicted companion as is, as they say in used car lots when there's no guarantee that comes with that heap of your dreams.
'NIGHT, MOTHER ['night, as in "Good Night"]: Marsha Norman's portrait of a daughter's decision to commit suicide in her mother's home this evening, a plan she does not keep as a secret.
M. BUTTERFLY: David Henry Hwang's darkly humorous chronicle of a French diplomat who claims never to have realized in twenty years that his Chinese bride is a man, played against the plot of Puccini's opera, Madame Butterfly.

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