Young Writers Society

Personally, I was thinking of getting rid of the narrator. He seems unnessesarry. Do you agree with me? I really think so, so really pay him no attention.

Act 1 Scene 1
The Curse
(Spotlight comes up on the Narrator, located Stage left, in front of a closed curtain.)
Narrator: Hello, and thank you all for coming to our production of Misunderstood. I know that you are probably very excited to get on with the show, and let me guarantee you; we are excited to show it to you, but first, let me fill you in on a little background information. This is a story of love and hate, joy and peace, despair and ugliness. This play has been created to reflect the terrible things that gays in our society have to go through. This story takes place in the castle Weirner and that is where we start our story today, in the year 1508. A widowed Queen has sent off to war, leaving her son in charge of an Evil Fairy while she is away.
(Curtain opens and the Narrator exits stage left. Lights come up on the Evil Witch, chains attaching her to two columns, center stage. The columns have magical symbols, herbs, etc. to control her magic. The Evil Witch is an icon of male sexual desire, with small amounts of clothes, etc. To the left of the columns, a single guard stands stiff, staring straight ahead, a key attached to his belt. The Prince is sitting on a chair stage right, reading a book.)
Evil Witch: (whining) Can you please untie me? Just for five minutes? I promise I won’t try to pull anything!
Prince: (bored, as if they have already gone over this) No.
Evil Witch: But why not? My wrists hurt! I just want to take these shackles off for a few minutes so that I can give them a little break. Please?
Prince: (getting up and going over to the Evil Witch) Be quiet, you insolent little thing! I will not let you go under any circumstances and that is final! So stop asking!
(Evil Witch starts to whine again. The Prince gets mad and raises his hand to hit her. She flinches but the blow doesn’t come.)
Prince: (mutters) It is women like you that make me glad that I—(he stops, shakes his head, and returns to his chair, going back to reading.)
Evil Witch: (gives the Prince a funny look then turns towards the guard, starting to work her sex magic.) Let me out. Please. I will do whatever it is that you want. When I’m in these chains I can’t caress you or touch you or kiss you. You know you want me, and you know that I want you. Let me out so you can have me, all of me.
(The guard starts to break and reach for the key as the Evil Witch keeps wooing him.)
Prince: (jumping up) ENOUGH! (The spell is broken and the guard drops his hand. The Evil Fairy hisses and falls back. The Prince goes over to the guard and addresses him directly and cruelly.) I see that you cannot handle the task of guarding this witch! You are weak and must leave. (Turning away) I will handle her myself.
(The Evil Witch laughs with delight.)
Guard: But, my lord—
Prince: Leave me!
(Guard leaves stage left)
Evil Witch: (Cackling) What makes you think that you can handle me, that you are better then him, that you can resist me?
Prince: (Sits down and picks up book, muttering) I think I’ll be fine.
Evil Witch: And why is that?
Prince: I have my reasons.
Evil Witch: Why not? (Pause) Why not? (Pause) Why not? (She continues to repeat Why not? Until the Prince gets angry, throws down his book, and jumps up.)
Prince: (Screams) Because I’m gay!
Evil Witch: (screeching) What?! How dare you, you disgusting thing! (Breaks chains and rises in the air. Red smoke billows onto the stage.) If you wish to be a filthy beast like that, then so it shall be!

Oops! It seems that when I was copying this over from Microsoft to here, I forgot a little segment on the very end. It goes like this:

(The Prince screams and falls so that he is unseen due to the fog. When he rises, he has turned into the hideous beast. He roars in despair and the Evil Fairy’s laugh booms around the auditorium. Blackout.)

Sorry about that! Thanks for reading and PLEASE leave a comment!

Hello, I'm Nephthys, and I will be your reviewer today

dragnet wrote:Personally, I was thinking of getting rid of the narrator. He seems unnessesarry. Do you agree with me? I really think so, so really pay him no attention.

I agree that you should get rid of the narrator, I will explain below.

FORMAT:

dragnet wrote:(Curtain opens and the Narrator exits stage left. Lights come up on the Evil Witch, chains attaching her to two columns, center stage. The columns have magical symbols, herbs, etc. to control her magic. The Evil Witch is an icon of male sexual desire, with small amounts of clothes, etc. To the left of the columns, a single guard stands stiff, staring straight ahead, a key attached to his belt. The Prince is sitting on a chair stage right, reading a book.)

I'm assuming from this stage direction that you don't have a lot of experience with script writing? In a stage play, you should do your best to keep stage directions to a minimum. As a director, it really bothers me when the playwright dictates every little detail. If I was looking for a show to direct, I would take one look at this and rule it out, simply because of the crazy amount of stage directions. (If you're going to tell me that Oscar Wilde and Ibsen had a lot of stage directions: they wrote before the era of directors, therefore all of the blocking had to be given through the stage directions.)

I would shorten this stage direction to: (The Narrator exits. The prince sits onstage, reading. Nearby is a guard. The Evil Witch is behind them, tied up).

However, based on the way that the rest of the script is written, I think that it would lose a lot of its meaning if you tried converting it to a stage script. My suggestion would be to make this a screenplay instead. In screenplays, you are allowed to go into much more detail with descriptions of the set and directions for the actors.

DIALOGUE:
I like your dialogue However, I would suggest using a few less directions to the actors. This is too much, even for a screenplay! Only include a parenthetical if you think that there is a chance the audience might misunderstand the meaning of the line if an actor were to say it the "wrong" way.

SUBJECT:
I agree that cutting the narrator is a good idea. He rambles a lot, and narration is an overused tool anyway. However, without the narration at the start, the following section might be taken entirely the wrong way.

dragnet wrote:Prince: (Screams) Because I’m gay!
Evil Witch: (screeching) What?! How dare you, you disgusting thing! (Breaks chains and rises in the air. Red smoke billows onto the stage.) If you wish to be a filthy beast like that, then so it shall be!

The first time I read this, I sort of skimmed the narrator bit and was appalled at the ending, because I thought that you as an author were implying that you think being gay is disgusting. Certainly, acting it out onstage will help to convey the proper tone, but I think that you might need something else here.

All the audience has seen is a poor woman tied up on stage by a couple of men. Without the narration, from their point-of-view, she may be seen as the hero of the play. I think you could make this scene a lot more understandable by having the characters discuss what the witch did to deserve being chained up. (Ex: Witch: So, what? I killed a couple of children! I don't see why that's such a big deal). That way, it is clearer to the audience that she is a villain, and there are no awkward misinterpretations of this script.

OVERALL:
I like the idea behind this script, and I enjoyed the comedic dialogue. However, I simply don't think that this piece works as a stage play the way it is currently written.

- Nephthys