Conducting The Conduct
of Life
A Cory Vincent Column
The Conduct of Life does a lot of focusing on the things left unsaid or the sights left unseen. This is a powerful dramatic choice, as it creates tension based on what the audience thinks is happening or expects to happen. The playwright can never be wrong because it is imagination which shapes the reaction, so the scenes that play out in the imagination are ever varying.
A more potent dramatic choice, however, involves the times in which Fornes doesn’t use dialogue at all. There are entire scenes in the play where the stage direction is the driving force. Fornes tells the character exactly where to go, when to kneel, and when to touch somebody’s face. During this time very little is said, so the direction in this way is necessary to convey certain key points. The effect it has, again, is building upon that tension. When there are no words, you watch every twitch, every half step, every faltering breath for a signal as to what the characters might be thinking.
Which introduces another very powerful point: Fornes almost never tells you what the characters are thinking. Even in monologues she keeps it all a bit vague, again inspiring the audience to come up for themselves what the characters might be thinking. Personally, I think that Fornes titled the show The Conduct of Life because this clipped style of interaction is how we live. We don’t get to see everybody’s inner lives and the way they conduct themselves. We only get to see temporary snippets of what they do. Then we leave their sphere of life and move on. That means we only have these surface judgemnts to go off of. I feel like this play replicates this idea perfectly.
A Cory Vincent Column
The Conduct of Life does a lot of focusing on the things left unsaid or the sights left unseen. This is a powerful dramatic choice, as it creates tension based on what the audience thinks is happening or expects to happen. The playwright can never be wrong because it is imagination which shapes the reaction, so the scenes that play out in the imagination are ever varying.
A more potent dramatic choice, however, involves the times in which Fornes doesn’t use dialogue at all. There are entire scenes in the play where the stage direction is the driving force. Fornes tells the character exactly where to go, when to kneel, and when to touch somebody’s face. During this time very little is said, so the direction in this way is necessary to convey certain key points. The effect it has, again, is building upon that tension. When there are no words, you watch every twitch, every half step, every faltering breath for a signal as to what the characters might be thinking.
Which introduces another very powerful point: Fornes almost never tells you what the characters are thinking. Even in monologues she keeps it all a bit vague, again inspiring the audience to come up for themselves what the characters might be thinking. Personally, I think that Fornes titled the show The Conduct of Life because this clipped style of interaction is how we live. We don’t get to see everybody’s inner lives and the way they conduct themselves. We only get to see temporary snippets of what they do. Then we leave their sphere of life and move on. That means we only have these surface judgemnts to go off of. I feel like this play replicates this idea perfectly.
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