During the recent public reading of a Playwriting I workshop’s final projects, one script, in particular, stood out. Despite meeting the assignment’s minimum length of forty pages, the play somehow managed to feature no dialogue whatsoever. Instead, its surprisingly wide cast of characters traded only in pauses marked by successive ellipses.
The play, written by sleep-deprived senior Noa I. Diaz, enjoyed mixed reactions.
“It was brilliant,” said the MFA playwriting student leading the class, referring to Diaz’s script. “Her deft use of silence transcended the need for language.”
But other undergrads in the class weren’t so sure. “I don’t know. I thought she had fallen asleep hitting the period key on her laptop and just turned it in. But maybe I don’t know enough about plays…” one first-year IAPA concentrator mused, lapsing off into an ellipsis of his own.
Further investigation revealed that Diaz’s literary innovation was, in fact, simply the result of poor time management. “My advisor, my friends, and my parents told me I shouldn’t take five classes AND write a thesis AND run three clubs this semester,” Diaz explained to The Rib’s intrepid reporters, “but I did it anyway!”
Publicly, Noa affirmed her work as the product of much creative effort. But when privately pressed for more info, she admitted, “By the time I had turned in my poster presentation about the Ratty’s declining skunk population and gotten my thesis on the use of subterranean architecture in Coldplay videos approved, the deadline for the final draft of my play for this class was only hours away. I hadn’t written anything!” Luckily, Diaz recalled how the class had learned months earlier about pausing for dramatic effect. “I thought it might be a good way to fill space,” she explained. “So my play is just a series of pauses. Really…really…long…pauses.”
The Rib attempted to learn more about the plot of the play, but all Diaz could offer was “…”
Performances of the script are expected to go up in Alumnae Hall next year. Somehow, the acoustics will still be terrible.