Honors Writing #5

The Complications of Conflict

Internal or External?

By : Cristina Michel

As our class discussed the idea of witting a play about a musical, the questions "What is the conflict?" and "What if there is not enough conflict through the story?" kept being asked to the playwrights. Our class was worried that we wouldn't be able to make a complete story with the thoughts and ideas we had so far. This made the playwrights think about it and change a few things around in our play. In, Musically Inclined, the playwrights incorporated conflict into our play in two ways, internal and external while using examples from the plays Hamlet and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead as well as others.

In Musically Inclined, the major conflict is that Tyler is stuck in a musical but doesn't know it and that's why he's not fitting in with his new town and school. This is similar to how in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead Rosencrantz and Guildenstern didn't know they were in a play, but throughout the play were trying to figure that out. In both plays, the characters kept getting hints of where they were but they didn't quite pay attention to them. In Musically Inclined, there was a musical within the musical as well as in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead there was a play within the play. These layers help the audience realize that the actors in the play and musical within the stories are not real. They are just actors playing what they were told and what was written in the script and once they realize this they realize that everything is not real, it is just a fictional story. This makes the audience think more about the playwrights that created the entire story and put the characters through all of that action, because after all the charcater is not real. The audience knows “that the world of Elsinore is not real--it comes from another play, and although Shakespeare's poetry is butchered in Stoppard's dialogue, nevertheless the words and actions are close enough to Shakespeare's original to remind those who know Hamlet that this world may be presented to us as the real world in Stoppard's work, but it is simply one more fiction,” as Ian Johnson stated in his lecture.

In Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, the audience is confused about the story and what is going on in the beginning. They start to ask themselves questions like where are they? what are they doing? what is going on? and others. Similarly in Musically Inclined, we are confused on what is going on and why everyone is dancing and singing and rhyming. There are many similarities that can be found between Musically Inclined and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead as well as in Hamlet. Tyler feels like there is no one that listens to him and feels lonely. This is kind of similar to Hamlet and how he felt because no one else seemed to be sad about his father‘s death. Hamlet is seen as crazy or “mad” in Hamlet and in Musically Inclined Tyler is also called “crazy” in Act 1 Scene VI because he doesn‘t dance, sing, or rhyme like everyone else.

In Musically Inclined, it is seen as the characters have problems they have to deal with. In Act 1 Scene VII, Tyler is feeling sad because he had a horrible day at school and felt like his parents didn't listen to him. He says, "Nobody listens to me, understands me, or even cares about a thing I have to say..." This shows how Tyler is not fitting in and he blames it on everyone around him instead of being positive and trying to fit in or talking to his new classmates. Tyler’s attitude makes him have problems with the other characters in the story causing external conflict in the play. This is why in Act 2 Scene II Marissa tells Tyler, “This is only your second day and no one can stand you...You know, we all have our share of problems. Maybe if you actually got to know some of us, you would realize that you’re not that different after all.” Throughout the play, Tyler tries to stay away from everyone because he thinks they are all “freaks” that only sing and dance because they are happy but never tries to fit in or actually get to know them better until the very end of the play.

Throughout the process of creating this play, the playwrights went through and used different examples of plays to add into our own play. Some of this plays included Hamlet and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. In Musically Inclined, Tyler’s character can be connected to either Rosencrantz and Guildenstern or Hamlet. Tyler is both as confused and out of place and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and as depressed and down as Hamlet. Tyler’s feelings and attitide affect the entire people and the characters around him causing the different conflicts that happen as the story continues.