I have a slight distain for Documentary Drama as I find it often lacks the heart I prefer in theatre. While a monologue can be very powerful and beneficial to a character’s development or emotional tie with the audience, there is a distancing and lack of relationship in Docudrama monologues that tends to irritate me. Dialogue is not necessarily integral to good theatre but theatre does need to be about relationships. Whether between characters on stage or the characters and the audience, without a tangible relationship what is the point? C. Rosalind Bell’s The New Orleans Monologues, Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues, and Moises Kaufan and the Tectonic Theatre Project’s The Laramie Project all deal with the problem of relationship through monologues in different ways. Some more effective than others. What works about New Orleans is that it does not constantly stay distanced from the audience. The story of Hurricane Katrina is colossal and a ‘typical’ staged drama could not do the multifaceted problem justice. A series of connected, yet entirely separated, stories is more successful. On a political, or even historical, side- New Orleans does a wonderful job telling the story. But I worry that spending too little time with a character can deplete the audience’s relationship with that character. What Bell did to get around that particular problem both worked in some cases and did not in others. She clearly defined each character through word choice, story, tone, and presence. The stylistic choice of announcing their names at the end of their monologues, of treating the monologue as an interview with a news crew (played, presumably, by the audience members) may work for some but it took me out of the emotion of the characters. However, that device can be useful when the playwright wishes to reach their audience on an intellectual level as well as an emotional one. Not to say that Bell does not create plenty of chances for emotional connection. Mainly through the characters of Elaine’s story and the small moment for Deshon on the roof. She uses very effective imagery and word choice to force the audience’s attention and sympathy. Elaine is the thread that keeps the play together – making her the most developed character – which is good because she combines several difficult writing choices that need a well-developed character to hold up. Writing in dialect, for example, is a risky convention. Without utmost commitment to the dialect the language can become confusing or distracting. Bell sets up the convention well through her subtle use of dialect so thtat the language style and rhythm of speech is apparent without being too blatant or distracting. Perhaps this is due to the lovable quality of Elaine. She is altogether human- which makes her such a wonderful protagonist. She is not a saint. She can be spiteful and suspicious but knows when to admit she’s wrong, owns up to her mistakes, but never changes who she is. Her ability to love, and love completely (despite aggravation and annoyance) also is a redeeming quality that makes her especially likable. I feel a likable character – or at least a relatable one is essential for any story and Bell creates a smorgasbord of personalities with which the audience can identify, which –for this type of story – is absolutely essential. Similarly, The Vagina Monologes also creates an array of personalities for the audience to identify with. But mostly, what works so well with the Vagina Monologues is the sheer humanity of them. With such a controversial subject the humanity, likeability, and reality of the characters is essential for this play to work as well as it has. The relationship between the character and audience also draws power through the script. Ensler has her characters talk to the audience, tell their stories with some humour and some heart in order to share their stories with the audience. It is their humour and the depth to their stories that brings them to the audience and the audience can join the story and be part of it. This device of inclusive monologuing suits my tastes in theatre very well, unlike the inherent distancing of The Laramie Project. As mentioned before, I am not a fan of Documentary drama styled theatre and The Laramie Project exemplifies most of what I find problematic with documentary drama but I am not calloused enough to ignore the merits of the show. One admiral quality of the play is the way the monologues are very dry and distant with the audience yet they are able to provoke such intense emotional responses from the audience. This is most likely due to the real nature of the character. While I am personally biased against shows in which the majority of the writing is a word for word transcript of others’ words and is not – in a traditional sense – writing, the use of transcription lends a reality which a playwright may not necessarily be able to achieve with their own words in order to retain the potency that a transcription can possess. What all three examples of monologues share in common is the reality of their characters whose humanity is what pulls off the lack of dialogue or even opaque audience relationships and keeps the action alive and the audience interested.
