Unloading Chekhov's gun
Editorial
While watching Alan Berks & Company’s* production of Six Characters in Search of an Author at Gremlin Theater a few weeks back, I settled into one of the games I usually play with myself while watching drama: picking out seemingly minor plot points that will become hugely important by the story’s end. I’ve gotten pretty good at this game. As a writer, I’m always on the lookout for ways other writers are trying to trick or cajole me. Ten minutes into the play, I felt I had a pretty good list compiled. One character mentioned a Harvard-bound sister. Another dropped a brief hint of long-buried sexual abuse. A third seemed to take pride in a pair of unspeakably filthy boxer shorts. I made mental notes to wait for the inevitable re-emergence of each detail later on.
Even as the play evolved into an abstract meditation on the meanings of reality and artistic authorship, I fully expected these details to tie in to the play’s eventual resolution. Without giving too much away, I’ll say that my expectations were not met, at least not entirely. And that delighted me.
It’s one of those theatrical truisms that’s been drummed into the head of anyone who’s ever assayed to write a linear narrative:
