Workshopping Dean Bevan's script, "If Gold Rust," probably benefitted me more than it did Dean! Bevan's script was produced in 2004 (but is a timely piece during this election season!), and offered me a view into a script that had already gone through a rigorous review and production.
Bevan's stage direction and character descriptions were the most developed I've seen in our bank of scripts (he says that his dissertation on Bernard Shaw has something to do with this). But, more importantly than that, a comment made by a TMPW-regular, Christian Vincent, added to my arsenal of workshopping questions. Here's how it went:
(para-phrasing... the real lines are in the audio recording)
Dean: The director of the play pointed out to me that having Shabby Man kick his wine bottle would divert the attention of the audience so much that they would stop watching the plot unfold and, instead, watch where the bottle was going to land. He encouraged me to change the kick to a nudge.
Christian: Yes, it kept the focus on the play, not on the bottle rolling off the stage.
The discussion went on to how keeping the focus on the plot and the story themes is so important, and so easily undone by extraneous motion.
Christian: But, Shabby Man's direction to act and pantomime as if watching a tennis match was brilliant.
Keeping the focus on the essential elements. Isn't this what workshopping really encourages us to do? So, a new question: did anything break your focus? Did any character break the rhythm in a way that wasn't wanted (by the author or the audience)?
Workshopping a script that had seen the stage allowed me to talk with Dean about what changes he made while it went through the initial workshopping and production phases. This allowed me to see the elements of the script in a new-and precise-way.
My thanks to Dean and Christian for an enlightening and fun session. You can listen to the audio recording of the session.