Theatrical dialogue is governed by a number of principles that apply to dialogue in general (novels, film, etc), in addition to some specific principles. Let us begin with the general and progress to the specific.

WHAT MAKES A GOOD SPEECH?

• Perhaps it consists of one or more well written sentences, logically organised.
• It is relevant to the plot.
• It is true to the spoken word, i.e. it sounds like real speech rather than written text being read aloud.
• Perhaps it is short, maintaining audience interest and keeping the piece moving along.
• If it consists of more than a few sentences it is calculated to achieve a specific purpose. Examples of "good reasons" for longer speeches include:
  — scene-setting,
  — making and reinforcing a crucial point in the plot,
  — marking a key stage in the revelation/development of a character,
  — having a calculated effect on the audience (e.g. rousing, hypnotising, evoking empathy),
  — providing a summary of past or planned events and
  — acting as a bridge to mark the passage of time.
• Perhaps it facilitates concentration and memory by exploring or reiterating complex words, ideas or aspects of the plot.
• Perhaps it makes provision for effective use of silence.
• Perhaps it refers to a previous speech or scene, giving a conflicting account which reflects the speaker’s particular point of view.
• Perhaps it contains inconsistencies that reflect the character of the speaker.

WHAT MAKES GOOD DIALOGUE?

• Each character’s speech prompts questions/issues in the other’s mind, directly triggering a response, or perhaps causing the next speaker to change tack.
• Each speech connects with the previous one, unless of course the speaker deliberately deviates from the established line of argument.
• Perhaps a speech challenges or contradicts a previous speech.
• Perhaps the characters’ contributions to the dialogue reveal conflicting motives or objectives.
• It reveals some new aspect of at least one of the characters involved, and ideally all of them.
• Perhaps it marks a significant development in the plot.
• Perhaps it resolves an outstanding issue and/or gives rise to a further issue to be resolved.
• It involves well timed interaction between the characters.
• It exposes aspects of character that might not be apparent from descriptive text.

WHAT'S SPECIAL ABOUT THEATRICAL DIALOGUE?

The specifics of theatrical dialogue are governed by the essential features of the theatrical environment. These are perhaps best explored by considering other media in which dialgue plays a part, such as film, literature and radio:

• Film is probably the most realistic of all creative media insofar as it engulfs viewers' minds with sights and sounds. Dialogue is not necessarily important, since film's power to communicate lies largely in the richness of its visual imagery and non-verbal soundscapes.
• Nor is dialogue necessarily important in literature. Novelists and storytellers can easily get their message across through reported speech, or even exclusively through descriptive text. Where dialogue occurs, it usually depends heavily on the context of descriptive text, so that the reader may understand who is speaking and may know enough about the character to be able to create a reasonably satisfying mental picture of the situation.
• Dialogue is crucial in radio, however. The absence of the visual dimension may be partly compensated by imaginative, suggestive use of sound and, to a lesser extent, a narrator. Only the dialogue can provide any further information needed to complete the visual picture in listeners' minds. Accordingly, radio dialogue must be cleverly designed to impart information that fills the gap of the missing visual dimension.

Of these examples, only radio dialogue comes close to theatrical dialogue in terms of its nature and importance.

Theatre audiences obviously have the benefit of the visual dimension that radio listeners lack, so that theatre playwrights do not need to put the same visual slant on their writing as do radio playwrights.

Having said that, the visual power of theatre is not nearly as intense as that of film. Whereas the film director can fill the screen with a meaningful flicker of an eyelid, the theatre director must rely to a far greater extent on the writer and the actors to ensure that subtle imagery communicates itself all the way to the back of the upper balcony. Dialogue that might readily be cut from a screenplay, where the camera says it all, may come into its own in the theatre, where words are a crucial factor in the process of communication.

In short, whereas most writers in fields other than theatre can "get by" with lacklustre dialogue-writing skills, writers for theatre (and radio) simply cannot.

We shall consider the specifics of writing theatrical dialogue at various points in this course. For now, it is enough to say that theatrical dialogue must flow as naturally and as effortlessly as normal discourse.

The physical presence and proximity of the actors and the fact that the action is live give theatrical dialogue a heightened sense of realism that cannot be matched in any other medium: the excitement of theatre lies largely in the fact that that no one, not even the actors, knows for certain what it going to happen next.