Second bananas and comic relief

I have been occupied with my life in the theatre lately, editing the galley proof of Becoming Calvin, and shepherding A Very Present Presence through its second professional stage reading (with a cast of fabulous actors, pictured above). So I have been laser-focused on the details of language, immersed in what it reveals about character. The degree to which someone speaks in an organized fashion, for example, conveys much about their mental state. One way to show that a character is a bit addled is to depict him as engaging the mouth before engaging the brain. Or speaking in sentence fragments, or in a repetitive rhythm that alights on certain words like a mantra or verbal talisman. As a writer, I use these characters sparingly, because they never actually say anything; they think just making noise is enough. They don't further the plot, or generally underscore the theme. Their function is to provide comic relief, and they are usually put onstage to interact with the protagonist, to reveal something about her character--something she, in turn, can act upon.

That is one reason I find listening to our current President so unsettling. I am not used to seeing the comic supporting characters take center stage! And there is good reason for that: they are not the ones who have anything of consequence to say or do. Putting these second bananas in the spotlight subverts the whole structure. Which can be the point, I suppose. If you are a brilliant playwright like Tom Stoppard, you can turn two minor characters into leads in Rozencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and use that device as a springboard to meditate on truth, art, and reality.

Maybe that is what people love about Donald Trump. That subverting of existing structure. That vision of someone "just like me" up on a pedestal: "he's no leading man but he is our leader!" Regardless of how they feel about his policy, anyone who cares about professional standards agrees he does not sound like a leader. Even in last Tuesday's scripted speech, read off of a teleprompter, he could not let go of his need to extemporaneously improve the prepared text. As the odious reference to the length of the standing ovation for Carryn Owens proved, he cannot discipline his discourse.

I find fault with this, but wonder if that is part of his attraction--his lack of coherent communication. That much praised "telling it like it is" won over 28% of the nation's eligible voters in November. Even though he is now The Winner, he still speaks like someone put onstage for laughs. We doubt his intent, because his muddled communication style ensures we never really know what he is saying. Which allows him considerable leeway. He can say, as he did while campaigning in Iowa, "I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters," and most of the public thinks that is comic exaggeration. But is it? Many of his supporters say he doesn't really mean everything that comes out of his mouth ("you should take him seriously but not literally.") Others believe every word, and are now gleefully celebrating his actions by saying "he's doing just what he said he would!"

Some might see this as a brilliant strategy. If a speaker does not look or sound like a leader, we will never expect thoughtful leadership from him. Playing the second banana gives him latitude to say and do whatever he wants. In a play such a character's actions and words cannot do much to derail the plot. But this is real life. So his mode of communication, far from being the useful smokescreen supporters want it to be, is actually extremely unethical. And highly dangerous. It also seems oddly familiar to me, like I have read this play before. Actually I think I have written this play before...in a very early draft! When a supporting character takes a detour that threatens to lose the entire cast in the wilderness, you see the red flag. That means cut, edit, rewrite. Get that character offstage if you have to, and by all means never give him the lead in a scene.

Time to call in a script doctor?