But then again I might be completely wrong about this, so feel free to smack me with a herring.
Don't get me wrong here, Tennessee Williams. For the most part, “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” is awesome. Looking at the cultural differences in generations, and social norms being subverted, and all that good stuff.
But why all the detail in the stage directions? I can understand all the exposition in the Act One dialogue, because it'd be in-character for Margaret to do that to get Brick to pay attention, but the indepthness of the bits in brackets boggle the mind.
Keep in mind that this is a drama text, thereby a visual and an auditory medium. I can understand that you might've wanted the actors to do very specific things with your characters, but not every actor will be able to convey everything you've put down for them, either because of lack of skill or because of a subconscious Alternate Character Interpretation, or even because of limitations in staging (how are actors supposed to convey that “the sunset glare has diminished” or that a look is “like a player passing a ball to another player, third down and goal to go”?). On top of that, most of us don't have copies of the script to read while watching the play, so we don't get the full impact of them anyway because they’re not supposed to be spoken.
If you wanted to write a novel, then why didn't you just write a novel?
EDIT: Thanks for smacking me with a herring, commenters - sorry my first rant here was fulla fail ^^;
But why all the detail in the stage directions? I can understand all the exposition in the Act One dialogue, because it'd be in-character for Margaret to do that to get Brick to pay attention, but the indepthness of the bits in brackets boggle the mind.
Keep in mind that this is a drama text, thereby a visual and an auditory medium. I can understand that you might've wanted the actors to do very specific things with your characters, but not every actor will be able to convey everything you've put down for them, either because of lack of skill or because of a subconscious Alternate Character Interpretation, or even because of limitations in staging (how are actors supposed to convey that “the sunset glare has diminished” or that a look is “like a player passing a ball to another player, third down and goal to go”?). On top of that, most of us don't have copies of the script to read while watching the play, so we don't get the full impact of them anyway because they’re not supposed to be spoken.
If you wanted to write a novel, then why didn't you just write a novel?
EDIT: Thanks for smacking me with a herring, commenters - sorry my first rant here was fulla fail ^^;