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TIPS ON WRITTING A GOOD PLAYLET


The Playlet
In the last unit, I presented an outline for a play but will try to compress it into a playlet. The title is Option A4.
OPTION A4: A Playlet
Dramatis Personae
Igwebuike – An honest politician, who returns to his state with an intention to help his people.
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Uchechi – His wife
Egobuike – Another corrupt politician
Ubanese
Dike
Agagwuncha - other politicians
Mezue
Bogudu - The I.N.E.C. official
Other men and women who appear on the Election Day to cast their votes.
Part I
(In a well-furnished sitting room.)
Igwebuike: We have made our final arrangements. The campaign is progressing as planned. Our major opposition is Chief Egobuike but I don’t regard him as a force to reckon with
Uchechi. Why?
Igwebuike: Considering his antecedents, he is a tout, a semi-illiterate and a scoundrel. Who will vote for such a person to rule a state that has produced enlightened people in all spheres of life. What can he offer the people except to loot the treasury like his predecessors.
Uchechi: You are wrong. Our society is not enlightened. The political awareness is very low.
Igwebuike: Not as low as you think. I have been attending political meetings, rallies and other gatherings. The consensus is that the people have refused to be fooled.
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Uchechi: I have a contrary view. Your political associates are telling tyou what you want to hear. Open your eyes and see that they are suckers… suckers… suckers…
Igwebuike: Why are you so pessimistic?
Uchechi: I am not pessimistic but practical. Can’t you see that I have stopped attending your meetings? Darling, please listen to me. These so called political associates of yours are here to milk you dry. Politics here is not for honest people. It is not yet late. Give up the struggle or you will be consumed by the level of disappointment you will get.
These people are not interested in building the state but in plundering the state. They do not need you because they do not want a builder but a destroyer.
Igwebuike: I don’t share your views. I interact with them. The people are disenchanted and are clamouring for a change.
Uchechi: On the contrary, the people have been impoverished so much that they are interested in their daily bread. They are interested in putting food on their tables today. So what do they do? They rush to anyone who dangles a morsel of food before them.
Igwebuike: Things have changed
Uchechi: Things will never change… at least not in our generation. It is only in this country that people applaud what ordinarily should be taken for granted. They pay tax, yet there are no roads, pipe- borne water
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is history. The rich have boreholes and the meagre resources of the poor are used to buy water from the rich. I say buy…buy water, meanwhile we have streams…good streams that could provide clean water for all. Look around you, whenever there is electricity (light) people jubilate…unbelievable. If one kilometre of road is tarred, people jubilate. The list is endless.
Igwebuike: Darling, this is why I have decided to make a change. All I need is your support and the support of every citizen of the state. I hope to…there is a knock, (Uchechi opens the door for Ubanese and leaves). You’re welcome my friend. Sit down. (Uchechi returns with drinks, places them on the table and leaves).
Ubanese: Chief, we have finalized all the arrangements. We need about One hundred Million Naira for the final grossroot mobilization.
Igwebuike: One hundred million naira? (Uchechi re-enters)
Uchechi: I…I…, please pardon my intrusion, what did you say? Ten Million Naira for grassroots mobilization. Darling, you see …if you have One Hundred Million Naira, choose one hundred families in this state and give each one million and your job is done. Please leave these people.
Ubanese: Madam, politics is money and money is politics. You spend the money, win the election and recoup what you spent one million times. Politics is business. Politics is investment, real investment. Real investment madam
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Uchechi: We are here to change the lives of the people and not to…
Ubanese: Exactly. Change their lives. The money I am demanding is for the people. Give them sufficient money and you get sufficient votes.
Uchechi: You don’t need to buy vote. Canvass for votes. Convince the people by presenting a credible, workable and people-oriented manifesto and programme. You will get their votes.
Ubanese: Not in this place. Chief Egobuike is having an upperhand. He has been distributing money, food, clothes and has given some people motorbikes. The hundred million I am asking for is just for us to start.
Igwebuike: No my friend, the truth is that I don’t have that kind of money. And even if I have, I will prefer to initiate programmes that would empower the people. Anyway, we will discuss further in the evening. We scheduled to meet in the evening, didn’t we? (exit Uchechi).
Ubanese: Yes, yes we did but I thought that I could get some fund for the mobilization of Ward 2 so that in the evening I would present my report.
Igwebuike: It’s alright but there is no fund here, now. We meet in the evening.
Ubanese: (Disappointed) if you say so. But I thought…
Igwebuike: Don’t worry. We will take care of everything in the evening.
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Ubanese: Chief, there is no time. Election is next week. Anyway, you see in the evening. Exit.
Light fades
Part Two
(At the Party House)
Mezue: Chief, as I was saying, your Oyibo ways are too much. The sheep says that if the soldier ants carry a dance to his house, if he does not know how to dance, he will start jumping. You don’t seem to know how to dance the dance of politics in this place but you can at least jump. Chief jump, jump, and jump. The important thing is result. Chief… result. We need result. We need to win this election you must spend money. Bring out a few dollars, we change it and the money will be so much that one’s jaw would break while counting it.
Agagwuncha: Chief he is right. We need victory and we have to work for it. We need money but the way you’re going about it… ah…ah I don’t understand. Bring money, you provide peanuts. Hire thugs, no. Do this, no. do that no. Let me ask you, do we see a baby’s first tooth with empty hands?
Igwebuike: Let me explain…
Agagwunchi: Sorry Chief that I am cutting in. Politics in Obodo Oyibo is different from politics here. You are in our own Rome now, please behave like Romans to ensure victory at the polls.
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Mezue: I am your Campaign Manager and I have nothing to show for it. My name is Mezue. Mezuelum Kanm and Mezuelugi. Meet my demands and I will meet yours by delivering the state to you.
Igwebuike: I thought that we are in it together. It is not my victory but our victory. Alone, I cannot do anything but together we will triumph.
Ubanese: A person’s name looks for him. Igwebuike – unity is strength. You are right. But you are the flag bearer. It is our victory but it is you that the electorate knows and when you win, you only admit the people you like to the State House. You lead and we follow. Provide the funds and we deliver the state to you.
Igwebuike: Gentlemen, you talk as if I have not provided funds for the campaigns. No doubt, you need money…for logistics and not for sharing. You will recall that I allocated sufficient funds for the youth wing, the women’s wings and foot the bills for the campaigns transportation, and other expenditures you presented. I don’t understand this money-sharing aspect. Do we call people together and start.
Ubanese: Leave that to us. We know how to do it. We did not join politics today. Provide the fund and we deliver the state to you.
Mezue: Gbam.
Agagwuncha: Chief, you can see that we are not paupers. We are not begging for money to share among ourselves. Gboo, Ibe anyi (they nod their
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heads in support). We need this money to give to voters. To strategize, if others are carrying five ballot boxes we will carry twenty. If they are employing one hundred agents we employ one thousand. If others are…(an explosion is heard outside, some youths storm the centre. There is commotion outside the place).
Light fades
Part Three
(At home)
Chief Igwebuike has bandages on his head and shoulder. He walks with the aid of a working stick)
Uchechi: Darling, please leave these people and lets go back to U.S.
Igwebuike: He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day. We need people to sanitize the system. If we all run away who will be here to improve the lives of these people, to liberate the oppressed, to speak for the voiceless, to…
Uchechi: Enough of these slogans. We point to the ruins of what used to be the valiant’s house from the house of a coward. Your life and our lives are more important to us. You car has been destroyed and if not for God’s grace, this house have been burnt down. They may come back to complete their assignment
Igwebuike: These are the prices we have to pay for the well being of the people
Uchechi: Which people
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Igwebuike: Our people. The suffering, the oppressed and the impoverished people of this state.
Uchechi: The people you are fighting for are not interested in you. You have refused to share money like your opponents.
Igwebuike: And I will never share any money
Uchechi: And you hope to win an election
Igwebuike: Yes. My constituency have seen a little of what I would do. There is now a borehole in every village square in this town. I have provided transformers at strategic places to improve electricity. I have graded virtually all the roads and tarred some in my community. If as an individual I am able to impact on the lives of the people this way…
Uchechi: That is the problem. As long as, as individuals, they don’t get money from you forget it. I move around with the women’s wings. I feel their pulse. They are not happy with you.
Igwebuike: You are wrong. Don’t you see the tumultuous crowd at our rallies?
Uchechi: The same crowd appear at other rallies. Listen to the voice of reason. Listen to your family. Listen to your mother. Remember your friends advice (light moves to another part of the room where Igwebuike and his friend Eziokwu are discussing).
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Eziokwu: You are very obstinate. A hen in a new environment stands on one leg but you are not just on your two legs but you are fluttering all over the place. Your values are different from the values of the people you are dealing with. What matters here is money. Money speaks, money determines, money controls.
Igwebuike: I am surprised…
Eziokwu: (cuts in) When you told me about your intention, I tried to dissuade you but you refused. I have followed the campaigns, the meetings and the so called strategies closely. My verdict is that you are dealing with insensitive and heartless rogues. They kill with the gods and organize funerals with humans. Be careful. They will ruin you. It is not yet late, you can step down or step aside before the system destroys you.
Igwebuike: My friend…please allow me to conclude you are not a politician, the way we know it here. You have a good profession, and business. Go back to the States if you want to or settle here. Establish here. Join politics if you want to but you have to study the environment and decide whether to plunge head long or participate from the periphery. These men you are dealing with are mean. They will squander your money and still vote for the highest bidder and not for the most qualified.
Igwebuike: What of party loyalty.
Eziokwu: (laughs) You exhibit your ignorance. Party loyalty does not manifest on empty pocket. Their hands must be full for them to be loyal. How
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many of them are funding the party…only you. Their interest is their gains and the higher the gains the greater their loyalty.
Igwebuike: Remember that the election will not be through secret ballot but the Option A4.
Eziokwu: That is the problem but will open your eyes to reality. As long as you continue with this stance, your party members will stand behind those they collected money from. Your opponents are not as clean as you are. Before they give anyone any substantial amount of money, they will take the person to a shrine to swear that the person must vote for them, so, where does that leave you?
Igwebuike: No, no… I don’t believe that these people will do…
Eziokwu: Lets wait and see. I am trying to show you the cow but you prefer to look for its footprints. You are my friend and brother. I have done my duty. Here is my resignation letter from the party.
Igwebuike: No I can’t accept it. (Eziokwu tears it and leaves)
Uchechi: He was right. Look at you, battered, shattered and heading to bankruptcy. Check your bank balance, almost in red. I hope that you will not have a heart attack when you see the result of the election.
Light fades.
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Part Four
(At the polling booth. The crowd has gathered and people are discussing in smaller groups. The noise is like what obtains in a market. The INEC officials and other political agents, Bogudu are trying to maintain order).
Bogudu: Please listen. The campaigns ended yesterday. Anybody who campaigns here will be arrested. This is a new electoral process. As you can see, we do not have ballot boxes. You know the candidates and their parties. If any of the candidates are in this constituency, she/he will stand and his supporters, no, those who want to vote for him will stand behind him. Where the candidate is not available, one of his/her supporters will stand in front with his/her poster and those who want to vote for him/her will stand behind the supporter. I hope that this is clear (there is noise, murmuring, some affirmations, some consternations, etc)
Man: After standing behind what happens
Bogudu: Yes, I was coming to that
Another woman: Come quickly, I am on my way to the farm
Bogudu: We will count the number of people in each line. The counting will be loud enough for everybody to hear. We will record the number. Each agent will record the number, and in the end, we will announce the result in this ward. It means that immediately after the election you will know who wins in your ward. It is open. No mago mago, no wuru wuru.
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A woman: Na so. There must be wuru wuru. Politicians. Tufiakwa.
Bogudu: (calls out each party and their representatives): PPA – stand here. AAP – stand here. PAD – stand there DDP – stand there. Yes they are complete. Face the people and lift your posters. (Addresses the crowd) we will give you five minutes to identity the candidate or party of your choice. (Some people move around. Others are in clusters discussing or chatting). Okay…okay. Now stand behind your candidate (the crowd obeys and at the end of the exercise, only Uchechi stands behind her husband. Igwebuike did not turn back but as the counting begins, Bogudu starts with him). One! Two…record…PPA – two votes. He looks back and gazes for a while and slumps. (There is commotion. People run to carry him).
Light fades.
Part Five
(At home)
Eziokwu: Here are the tickets. I have booked the flight. Your son Uche has made arrangements for the hospital. You will be able to leave by 3pm tomorrow. I hope that you are set. The ambulance that will convey him to the airport is ready.
Uchechi: Thank you very much. But I have my misgivings. I don’t think that he will survive this attack. (Sobs) I warned him…we warned him.
Eziokwu: It’s alright. This is not the time for blame but for action. Let’s see what we can do to save his life.
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Uchechi: But he is still in coma. Will they allow him on board.
Eziokwu: That has been taken care of. You are going with a chartered flight and a Medical Doctor will travel with you
Uchechi: God bless you
Black out
 CONCLUSION
In the written play, we try to create a plot, characters, a conflict that builds up the play to a climax and then a resolution.
 SUMMARY
In this unit, we have tried to write a playlet.
 ASSIGNMENT
Read the playlet carefully:
• who is the protagonist
• identify the conflict
• what is Igwebuike’s tragic flaw
• identify the flashback.
• Then write your own playlet

PRACTIAL STEPS IN WRITING a PLAY(drama,mime etc)What Makes a Play

There are basic elements of playwriting which a playwright must be conversant with before writing a ply. Some of these elements are peculiar to the dramatic genre because it is realized mainly in performance. However, some of them apply to other genres of literature as well. You need to acquaint yourselves with them to ensure that you apply them appropriately as you write your play.
3.1.1 Type.
You will have to decide what type of play you want to write. Is it a tragedy or a comedy. Let us limit ourselves for now, to these two types. Remember that tragedy presents “an aspect of human suffering that often ends with the death the sufferer” (Maxwell-Mahon 23). However, not all tragedies end in death. The basic issue is that the tragic hero pursues an ideal that leads to a growing irrationality in his behaviour (tragic flaw) which leads him to commit an error of judgment that leads to the catastrophe. It is a serious play. Comedy teaches through amusement and has a happy ending.
3.1.2 Length
A stage play is not expected to last more than three hours. Many plays do not last more than two hours. A play that lasts up to three hours must be action-filled like The Trials of Dedan Kimathi by Ngugi Wa Thiong’o. However, here we should aim at writing a playlet that will not last for more than twenty minutes. If a play lasts longer than necessary, the tendency is for the audience to be bored.
3.1.3. Dialogue
There should be a message in your play, the message should be deciphered through the words and actions of your characters as individuals in the play. Remember that your role is to entertain your audience and not to bore them with
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slogans and lectures. Your dialogue must therefore be true to life like everyday speech and sound convincing. Do not use your characters to preach a doctrine or advance propaganda.
Make your dialogue as lively as possible. Remember that in real life conversations, speakers interrupt one another with approval and disapproval comments. Sometimes, a person may not allow the speaker to end what he/she is saying before cutting in with counter-arguments. Strive as much as possible to reproduce the life-like disjointed conversation in your play especially at “moments of emotional crisis” (Maxwell Mahon 36).
3.1.4 Stage Directions
This is very important because you cannot represent every detail in dialogue. You therefore use stage direction to “fill-in the gaps”. It is in stage direction that you can give added information on the appearance, dressing, movement and positioning of the actors and actresses (on stage) as the play progresses. You could also include more information on the setting and the general environment of the play through the stage direction. This means that you must be acquainted with the stage geography and see your characters as actors on stage. This enables you to present only possible and plausible actions on stage.
3.1.5 Production Effects
You should be conversant with lighting and sound effects in the theatre. There are many types of stage but let us limit ourselves to the picture-frame stage called the proscenium stage. The use of light and sound effects are also included in the stage direction.
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3.1.6 Conflict
You must create an element of opposition, in which forces come against one another.
3.2. Writing the play
We will now write our playlet of about 3-8 pages. Draw an outline of the playlet based on either of the following:
- Turn a historical event into a dramatic script by identifying one historical event. Study the characters involved in this event and their motivations. Learn all you can about the period it took place in and then write a play to explore this event.
OR
- Develop a personal experience into an original play. In it, explore a philosophical idea like why is there evil in the world or why do good people suffer.
You are free to use a serious (tragedy) or humorous (comedy) tone, but the play must come out of your own experience or research.
I have decided to write a tragedy based on an imaginative experience.
1. Outline
- Man returns from a foreign country
- He joins politics and decides to vie for a senatorial seat in an election
- He is honest and desires to make a change
- Pursues his objective
- Refuses to give up despite attack on him/his family
- Betrayed by his party members
- Option A4
- Slumps and has stroke
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2. His opposition: Politics
- Another contestant from another party and who has been a minister before
- Semi-literate dubious man
- Has thugs, kills and maims at will
- Shares money to people and threatens to destroy the town if he is not voted for.
- Voted in, out of fear by the people
- Characters
- Man, his political associates his wife his opponent(s)
Have you completed your own outline? If you have, congratulations but if you have not, do so immediately.
4.0 CONCLUSION
Drama is a unique genre of literature because it is not only realized in performance but also presented in dialogue. As a playwright, you should have a stage in mind before you can write a good play.
This stage geography will help you to present plausible interaction of characters engaged in plausible actions. This means that literally, you should block the play as you write because part of the blocking during the staging of a play is presented in the stage direction. The playwright indicates the entrances, exits and other major actions of the characters in the stage direction.

creative writting: ADAPTATIONS FOR A PLAY
1.0 Main Content
1.1 Adaptations
1.2 Adapting from play
1.3 Adapting from a novel/short story

So far in this course and in Creative Writing I, we have emphasized the creation of a story based on life experiences, an individual, the environment, myth, legend and history. You are expected to select an aspect or central idea and build your story around it. In this unit, we are going to discuss how to create a story based on an original work or story. We call it adaptation. In an adapted play, the incidents, the theme and the subject matter may be the same as in the original work or story, but you are not obliged to follow the same structure. You may decide to re-structure the play to suit your purpose and your environment. This means that you are re-writing the original story.
2.0 OBJECTIVES
By the end of this unit, you should be able to:
• List some adapted play
• Compare one of them with the original story
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• Adapt and write a playlet based on a short story
Adaptations
The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary gives three explanations for the word adapt.
- to change something in order to make it suitable for a new use or situation
- to adapt yourself: to change your behavior in order to deal more successfully with a new situation
- to change a book or a play so that it can be made into a play, film/movie, television …etc
The constant phrase in these definitions is “to change”. Adaptation in drama means a change from an original work or a story to a play. Many classical children’s stories like Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Adventures of Robin Hood and many others have been adapted into play for children presented mainly in form of cartoons. Gulliver’s Travels is another popular work that has been adapted for the screen. In adaptation, you may decide to retain the original title or change the title. Sidney Sheldon’s If Tomorrow Comes retains its original title in the adapted version for movie. Mostly, in films/movies, the original titles are retained but in stage plays, the titles are changed most of the times.
Before you set out to adapt a work, there must be a motivation. It could be that you like the story and feel that you want to recreate it in different setting or that you want to re-represent it from another perspective.
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3.2. Adapting a play
It is common for dramatists through the ages to use well-known materials for the subjects of their plays. A popular novel or poem could be turned into a play. The important factor is not “…what the writer ostensibly takes from his predecessors or contemporaries, but the particular use he makes of his borrowing” (Ludowyk 258). In adaptation, you are not copying but using your creative ability to mould the material the way you wish. The audience must be able to note important departures from the original in your reworking of it.
In adapting a play from a play you derive the outline of your plot and the characters from the original play. You pay attention to salient events in the original play and within its limits, arrange your material to suit your own purpose.
Many of Shakespearean plays are adaptations of earlier plays. For instance, his Romeo and Juliet was adapted from The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet which was written first in Italian by Bandell and in English by Arthur Brooke. For instance, the plot of his Twelfth Night is popular and has featured in “various Italian, Spanish and French plays (that) developed the subject, derived ultimately from Plautus”, (Ludowyk 260). The plays present the story of twins separated by shipwreck; the female disguises herself as a boy, and takes up employment with a Lord with whom she falls in love. In his Novelle, Bandell tells a story which he took from an Italian comedy Gl’Ingannatic (The Deceived). This was translated by Belleforest in his Histories Tragiques, and retold by Barnabie Rich in his Farewell to Military Profession. Shakespeare adds the subplot of the practical joke played on Malvolio and the characters involved in it. Apart from this, the subject is the same except for few departures from the original text.
In Hope Eghagha’s adaptation of Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman, presents the play from a different perspective. Soyinka presents the
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death of the King’s Horseman, Eleshi Oba who was to die for his son but did not die and his son, Olude dies, as necessary for the well-being of the society. In his own play Death, not a Redeemer, Eghagha revises the tragic sequence of Soyinka’s play into what he refers to as “…something positive, progressive and more affirmative of the dynamics of the life-force in humans” (Preface ii). He does not believe in a decision where a young man commits suicide in place of his father when “youth itself re-affirms the beauty of life”. He decided that it would be “more dynamic to situate progress in the life-force as opposed to Death (Preface iii).
You have seen two forms of adaptations. Many other Nigerian playwrights presents adaptations of other plays. The most popular among them is Ola Rotimi’s The Gods are not to Blame which is an adaptation Sophocle’s Oedipus Rex or Oedipus the King.
Self Assessment Exercise Compare
Ola Rotimi’s The God’s are not to Blame with Sophocles King Oedipus and note points of departure by Ola Rotimi from the original play.
3.3. Adapting from a Novel
You can also, as stated in 3.1 above, adapt a play from a novel. In adaptations from a play, you could re-present the entire action of the original play with minimal modifications. It is difficult to do same in an adaptation from the novel because of the lesser time and space available to the playwright, except for the television, film or movie which do not share the limitations of the stage play. The playwright limits him/herself to an aspect of the novel because it is difficult to compress the incidents that span for several years, presented in about three hundred pages of a novel to an action of about one hour on stage in about sixty pages of a play.
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In Emeka Nwabueze’s When The Arrow Rebounds, an adaptation of Chinua Achebe’s Arrow of God, he highlights the conflict between the Christian religion and the traditional religion and how Ezeulu falls from grace to grass. The subject matter is the same.
The play was premiered as part of the “Eagle on Iroko”; a symposium for Chinua Achebe’s 60th birthday at the University of Nigeria Nsukka 12 – 18th February 1990. It presents Ezeulu, just like Chinua Achebe did, as an arrow in the hands of his god. In fighting for Ulu and seeking revenge against his people, little did he know that the arrow could re-bound and turn the predator into the prey and the pursurer to the pursued (Eni Jones Umukoro, the Blurb).
Remember that in the adaptation you present the story in dialogue from the beginning to the end. You may choose some remarkable dialogue from the original text.
Self Assessment Exercise Read Chinua Achebe’s Arrow of God and Emeka Nwabueze’s When the Arrow Rebounds. List the incidents in the former that are reflected in the latter and the ones created by the playwright.