Weaving Poetic Dialogue: getting historical plural wives to finish each other's sentences

Today, I just want to offer you a little slice of the play I'm writing on 19th Century Mormon Polygamy. Last June I spent some time reading Michael Wright's book, Playwriting Master Class The Personality of Process and the Art of Rewriting, and came across the work of playwright, Elena Carrillo. In the book Carrillo describes several revisions of a one-act play in which she has three characters at a funeral, each describing the deceased to the audience. Rather than have each character speak one at a time, she allows them to overlap their speech in a way that gives the dialogue a polyphonic musical quality. In this way, she creates "music" with words alone; no singing or musical background is used.

Soon after reading this draft of Carillo's work, I became determined to put more of my poetic self to work on my own play. The result was two scenes of dialogue that highlight the fact that the historical women in my study often used similar phrases to describe their experiences. Here's an excerpt from Act III, Scene 1 of the current draft of my play. Before reading, please note that this is a verbatim drama, meaning that all the words spoken by the actors are quotations from the writings of the historical persons they are portraying. This excerpt is the middle of a scene about the persecution of Mormon polygamists by the federal marshals enforcing the anti-polygamy laws in the 1880s. Each woman in the scene tells the audience a separate story, but the events are woven together to show their similarity. If you're unfamiliar with theatrical punctuation, note that the ellipses ( . . . ) and dashes (--) indicate that the characters are interrupting each other slightly, as if finishing each other's sentences.

image taken from findagrave.com

MARTHA CRAGUN COX

(angry)

Looking back over many years, I wonder now that the officers did not lose their lives at the hands of the Latter-Day Saints when it is understood how they meddled with Mormon affairs, sneaking into homes without license and into women's bedrooms.

(beat)

(calming down)

Mary, my husband's fourth wife, had been hunted by the officials for months, without being found. She came home to her mother to bear her first child.

LAURA THURBER

There had been yarns afloat that the officers being after my husband, Joseph, and he was on the watch.

LORENA LARSEN

One bright moonlight night in the fall of 1887 --

MARTHA CRAGUN COX

. . . It was conference time, and Lizzie's house was full as usual --

LAURA THURBER

. . . one morning the 2nd of November --

ANNIE CLARK TANNER

. . . on September 1, 1886 --

LORENA LARSEN

. . . about 2:00 A.M. --

MARTHA CRAGUN COX

. . . 11:00 P.M. --

ANNIE CLARK TANNER

. . . just at daybreak --

LORENA LARSEN

. . . we discovered that our house was surrounded by deputy U.S. marshals --

MARTHA CRAGUN COX

. . . McGeary and Armstrong --

LORENA LARSEN

. . . McGeary, Mowers, and Hutchins, prowling around our house, peeking in the windows --

LAURA THURBER

. . . there was two more outside, one at my north window, and one at the south windows --

MARTHA CRAGUN COX

. . . walked into the habitation without announcement --

LAURA THURBER

. . . found us all in bed --

MARTHA CRAGUN COX

. . . he turned his flashlight upon those sleeping on the floor, some of whom were underground persons --

LORENA LARSEN

. . . they went and looked in every bed and examined the pillows to try to find out who had slept in the beds --

MARTHA CRAGUN COX

. . . These women all jumped up and taking their sheets around them fled into the corn patch back of the house.

LAURA THURBER

Joseph had gone out the window --

LORENA LARSEN

. . . Aunt Julia was going out of a back door, but was stopped by McGeary --

LAURA THURBER

. . . and Sergeant stopped him --

ANNIE CLARK TANNER

(to the other women)

My father made a dash for the back door and ran through the orchard down the hill to the big creek where he expected to hide in the willows, but was overtaken by an officer and arrested.

LAURA THURBER

Thompson read his paper charging him with living with more than one wife.

LORENA LARSEN

They had a subpoena for me.

MARTHA CRAGUN COX

She and her husband were both put under heavy bonds to appear in the court at Beaver.

LORENA LARSEN

And so the pen was well filled with some of the finest people in the land.

Thanks for reading. When it's produced, the purpose of my play will be to foster a safe environment for people of faith with sincere questions about polygamy. Coming to terms with polygamy for LDS persons is a matter of genuine scholarly research, as well as a journey for the heart. My goal is to create a theatrical space where audience members can see an in-depth discussion about polygamy (with all its controversies) that doesn't disparage The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints or its leaders.