Summary
Highlights
The speaker loves dialogue but often cuts it during rehearsals when actors and direction convey meaning without words, believing 'less is more' if action or gesture can replace spoken lines.
Plays, even realistic ones, are not naturalistic; they're heightened and more colorful than everyday speech. Characters are witty and say clever things the playwright wishes they could think of on the spot, thanks to the luxury of time for crafting lines.
It's a mistake to think a playwright's job is to accurately capture everyday language. Dialogue on stage is always heightened because the audience understands they are engaging with a metaphor, not reality. Therefore, language doesn't need to be strictly realistic.
Each character should have a distinct voice. The speaker advises listening to different speech patterns in real life to develop varied voices. Dialogue exists on a spectrum from naturalistic to stylized, and their own work falls somewhere along this range depending on the play.
A way to discover characters is by letting them speak, similar to actor improvisation. The playwright improvises by embodying different characters in their head and writing it down. If stuck, just writing dialogue helps, followed by a process of editing and refinement.
Dialogue should feel spontaneous but be intricately woven into the story's fabric. The more seamlessly this is done, the better the play will be, as it allows the playwright to surprise the audience more effectively.