crafting a compelling historical play: tips and techniques

Writing plays about an historical person/event is less about accuracy than pressure — what history forces people to do when they can’t escape each other.

Firstly, history is the circumstance, not the subject.  A strong historical play isn’t about an era.  It’s about the people trapped inside it.  The past supplies constraints: laws, beliefs, class, danger and the drama comes from characters pushing against those limits.  If the story still works when summarized without dates, you’re on the right track.

Stage history thrives on concentration, not sprawl.  Your play will greatly benefit by compressing its world.  Choose one room, one institution, one relationship.  Likewise, revolutions, wars, movements should be felt, not staged.  Think: What decision can only be made in this moment in history — and nowhere else?

If at all possible, avoid museum language.  Historical dialogue fails when it sounds like reenactment, textbooks or “old-timey” filler.  Instead, write contemporary thought in disciplined language.  And, to a large extent, let rhythm and restraint signal period, not vocabulary.  People in the past did not speak “historically” ... they spoke urgently.

Let anachronism be thematic, not sloppy.  Total authenticity is impossible — and unnecessary.  What matters:

• Moral logic must be period correct

• Emotional logic must be human

• When modern ideas appear, they must cost the character something

A character ahead of their time should be dangerous, not enlightened.

History resists closure.  Use that.  Unlike fiction, history doesn’t always resolve neatly.  Endings can be ironic, partial or foreknown.  Also, the audience often knows what happens next; use inevitability as tension, not spoiler.  The question becomes not what happens, but why they do it.

Research for subtext, not exposition.  Research should inform:

• What cannot be said

• What must be lied about

• What is assumed as normal

If research shows up as exposition, it sits too loudly on the page ... and out of the actors’ mouths.

Make the audience complicit.  Historical plays work best when they implicate the present.  Ask, “What belief from the past still operates now?”  Also, “Where do we see ourselves in the characters’ blind spots?”  A good historical play doesn’t flatter modern audiences – it unsettles them.

Use the advantages of the stage.  Film shows history; the stage argues with it.  Live bodies contradict official narratives.  And remember ... absence speaks louder than spectacle.  And a single human choice can outweigh an empire.

Summing up, history gives you the trap; drama comes from watching someone try to escape it.

For an example of a play with stage directions, see the sample preview of my play Wild Beasts Among You.