Atdtda23: [45.2] The other one, 647

[David Morris]

On Dec 4, 2007 3:32 PM, Monte Davis <monte.davis at verizon.net> wrote:
>
> Mark Kohut sez:
>
> > much of the dialogue in AtD  ... So often post, riposte or  variation of......like much drama  (or should that be melodrama?)
>
> Yes, I think so: it's hard to find any dialogue that's *just* naturalistic chat, *just* a slice of life, because his thematic work is so dense and constant.
>
> Most two-hour plays have the word count of only a medium-length story; maybe -- to the extent our expectations are shaped by more expansive novels -- part of what we mean by "dramatic" is that more tends to be going on per moment of dialogue on stage than on the page?
>
> (I can feel this overlapping with that big old "are P's characters realistic and three-dimensional?" can of worms)

I don't think that play conversations are less "realistic" than novel
conversations generally, not when seen on the stage.  Novels usually
fill out the underlying "drama" by of all kinds of narrative
techniques.  Plays rely on all kinds of visual, tonal, and many other
stage-related techniques to fill out the motives behind the
conversations.  If Pynchon's conversations seem abbreviated, I don't
think it has much to do with the playwright's techniques.  But I won't
go into the 2D/3D conversation again...

David Morris