David Ball Play Summary
Author Background Information Originally from Stamford, Connecticut, David Ball serves as an award winning playwright and novelist. He has taught playwriting, directing, theatre history, and literature at Carnegie-Mellon, Lawrence, and Duke University, while also serving as the Artistic Director at the Pittsburg Metropolitan Stage Company. He has published several plays, with his two most known being Assassins! and an adaptation of Woyzeck. Ball also currently serves as a Jury and Litigation Strategy consultant for Malekpur and Ball Consulting. He has been coined as one of the nation’s top CLE speakers and trial consultants. His book Backwards and Forwards has been one of the best selling theatrical books for over 28 years.
Book’s Scope In less than one hundred pages, Ball provides his readers with an easily digestible, post-modern approach to understanding the basic elements of a script, using examples from Hamlet to make his technique more clear and understandable. His main focus circles around “action” and how it affects and shapes the entire plot structure of a play. Instead of giving you a strict set of rules to follow in order to successfully …show more content…
analyze a script, Ball encourages his readers to find their own interpretation of the material by using his tools as a guideline to develop richer understanding of the play. Survey of Book’s Content Part One of Backwards and Forwards focuses on the shape of the play, beginning with a study of the events that make other things happen in the script.
Chapter one, “What Happens That Makes Something Else Happen?”, identifies plays as a series of actions, with each event followed by another. The second chapter, “What Happens Next?”, describes a play as a series of dominoes, where the first domino/trigger event causes the next domino/event to occur. Ball also emphasizes the importance of studying the play “domino to domino”, avoiding any misleading interpretations of the play. Chapter 3, “But Do It Backwards”, discusses the importance of studying the events in a play in reverse order. Ball states, “Going forwards allows unpredictable possibility, while going backwards exposes that which is required.” (Ball
15) Chapter 4 defines stasis as the state in which a play is in before the intrusion occurs, throwing everything off balance. After the intrusion, the new goal of the play is to reestablish stasis. Chapter 5 links a play’s obstacles to conflict, saying “a play’s conflict is between what someone wants and what hinders the want: the obstacle.” (Ball 28) Chapter 6, “Ignorance is Bliss”, emphasizes the importance of leaving the audience in suspense as long as necessary, not depriving them of the unknown too early. Chapter 7, “Things Theatrically”, points out that anything theatrical must bring about a strong audience response, and that hardly any of these things can arise without conflict. Part Two focuses on Methods, with Chapter 8 defining the two types of exposition as either information known to everyone onstage, or information known only by some or one of the characters. Even if exposition seems irrelevant, it is important to search for its meaning in the script as a whole. Chapter 9, “Forwards: Hungry for the Next”, points out the importance of forwards, saying they focus the audience’s attention where the playwright wants it. It also reminds the reader and audience of what is to come in the script, not just what has past. Chapter 9, “Missing Persons (Character)”, discusses how the playwright provides actors with the basic bone structure of each character in order to give them more artistic freedom in their performance. Chapter 11 points out how images serve as things the audience already know that can be used to describe or expand things we may not know. Ball also points out that the best images lead audiences to have different responses that still fall within a specific range. In Chapter 12, Ball emphasizes that Theme is a result of the action in the play, and should be looked for last. In Part Three, Ball reveals several “Tricks of the Trade”. Chapter 13 emphasizes the importance of knowing background information on the playwright, era, environment, and so on. Chapter 14 discusses how you must always trust the playwright and the content they placed in their script. Chapter 15 identifies that family connections are almost always at the center of a play, and Chapter 16 emphasizes the importance of finding the specifics in a play in order to allow the atmosphere to emerge organically. Chapter 17 talks about how the unique factor can be a combination of elements in the script, which reveals why the events a play take place in a certain way. Chapter 18 discusses the importance of considering the era in which the play was written, and figuring out how you need to adjust the play’s performance to best suit the current era it is being produced in. Chapter 19 identifies the climax, and chapter 20 states “the ending of every play could be the beginning of a new play, and the beginning of every play could be the end of another.” (Ball 93) Chapter 21 identifies the importance of reading a script several times, while the final chapter directs the reader to view the script as a tool you must know how to use properly.
Assessment of the book’s usefulness Backwards and Forwards serves as a guide for both theatre students and practitioners on how to conduct proper script analysis. Ball constructed his book in a way that makes it accessible to individuals at both the beginning and advanced levels. It can function as a starting point for those new to script analysis, while building upon and enhancing other well-known analysis techniques for his more experienced readers. Actors, directors, playwrights, and designers can use this book, especially if they are analyzing a play that they are going to produce. Its condensed scale makes it not quite as beneficial for a beginning playwright as they work on one of their first scripts.
Evaluation of the book’s strengths and weaknesses From both a theatre student and practitioner’s viewpoint, I found David Ball’s Backwards and Forwards to be very insightful and eye opening. Although I know the basic parts of a script and how to study them in script analysis, Ball’s book highlighted the importance of understanding how they are linked together in a play. He gets right to the point in each chapter, not wasting your time with extra information on the subjects he discusses. While you would need to further study some of the elements mentioned in this book, it serves as an excellent starting point for new theatre artists, and a “refresher’s course” for the more experienced.
Book’s Scope In less than one hundred pages, Ball provides his readers with an easily digestible, post-modern approach to understanding the basic elements of a script, using examples from Hamlet to make his technique more clear and understandable. His main focus circles around “action” and how it affects and shapes the entire plot structure of a play. Instead of giving you a strict set of rules to follow in order to successfully …show more content…
analyze a script, Ball encourages his readers to find their own interpretation of the material by using his tools as a guideline to develop richer understanding of the play. Survey of Book’s Content Part One of Backwards and Forwards focuses on the shape of the play, beginning with a study of the events that make other things happen in the script.
Chapter one, “What Happens That Makes Something Else Happen?”, identifies plays as a series of actions, with each event followed by another. The second chapter, “What Happens Next?”, describes a play as a series of dominoes, where the first domino/trigger event causes the next domino/event to occur. Ball also emphasizes the importance of studying the play “domino to domino”, avoiding any misleading interpretations of the play. Chapter 3, “But Do It Backwards”, discusses the importance of studying the events in a play in reverse order. Ball states, “Going forwards allows unpredictable possibility, while going backwards exposes that which is required.” (Ball
15) Chapter 4 defines stasis as the state in which a play is in before the intrusion occurs, throwing everything off balance. After the intrusion, the new goal of the play is to reestablish stasis. Chapter 5 links a play’s obstacles to conflict, saying “a play’s conflict is between what someone wants and what hinders the want: the obstacle.” (Ball 28) Chapter 6, “Ignorance is Bliss”, emphasizes the importance of leaving the audience in suspense as long as necessary, not depriving them of the unknown too early. Chapter 7, “Things Theatrically”, points out that anything theatrical must bring about a strong audience response, and that hardly any of these things can arise without conflict. Part Two focuses on Methods, with Chapter 8 defining the two types of exposition as either information known to everyone onstage, or information known only by some or one of the characters. Even if exposition seems irrelevant, it is important to search for its meaning in the script as a whole. Chapter 9, “Forwards: Hungry for the Next”, points out the importance of forwards, saying they focus the audience’s attention where the playwright wants it. It also reminds the reader and audience of what is to come in the script, not just what has past. Chapter 9, “Missing Persons (Character)”, discusses how the playwright provides actors with the basic bone structure of each character in order to give them more artistic freedom in their performance. Chapter 11 points out how images serve as things the audience already know that can be used to describe or expand things we may not know. Ball also points out that the best images lead audiences to have different responses that still fall within a specific range. In Chapter 12, Ball emphasizes that Theme is a result of the action in the play, and should be looked for last. In Part Three, Ball reveals several “Tricks of the Trade”. Chapter 13 emphasizes the importance of knowing background information on the playwright, era, environment, and so on. Chapter 14 discusses how you must always trust the playwright and the content they placed in their script. Chapter 15 identifies that family connections are almost always at the center of a play, and Chapter 16 emphasizes the importance of finding the specifics in a play in order to allow the atmosphere to emerge organically. Chapter 17 talks about how the unique factor can be a combination of elements in the script, which reveals why the events a play take place in a certain way. Chapter 18 discusses the importance of considering the era in which the play was written, and figuring out how you need to adjust the play’s performance to best suit the current era it is being produced in. Chapter 19 identifies the climax, and chapter 20 states “the ending of every play could be the beginning of a new play, and the beginning of every play could be the end of another.” (Ball 93) Chapter 21 identifies the importance of reading a script several times, while the final chapter directs the reader to view the script as a tool you must know how to use properly.
Assessment of the book’s usefulness Backwards and Forwards serves as a guide for both theatre students and practitioners on how to conduct proper script analysis. Ball constructed his book in a way that makes it accessible to individuals at both the beginning and advanced levels. It can function as a starting point for those new to script analysis, while building upon and enhancing other well-known analysis techniques for his more experienced readers. Actors, directors, playwrights, and designers can use this book, especially if they are analyzing a play that they are going to produce. Its condensed scale makes it not quite as beneficial for a beginning playwright as they work on one of their first scripts.
Evaluation of the book’s strengths and weaknesses From both a theatre student and practitioner’s viewpoint, I found David Ball’s Backwards and Forwards to be very insightful and eye opening. Although I know the basic parts of a script and how to study them in script analysis, Ball’s book highlighted the importance of understanding how they are linked together in a play. He gets right to the point in each chapter, not wasting your time with extra information on the subjects he discusses. While you would need to further study some of the elements mentioned in this book, it serves as an excellent starting point for new theatre artists, and a “refresher’s course” for the more experienced.