Dramatic Foundations - Computers as Theatre - page 82

guys just keep getting better—an affl iction shared by many video games.
“. . . the lesson,” moans Ellison, “is the lesson of Sisyphus. You cannot win.
You can only waste your life struggling and struggling, getting as good as
you can be, with no hope of triumph.”
We can look to characteristics of good dramatic structure to inform us
in designing the potential for whole actions in interactive media.
Dramatic Potential: The “Flying Wedge”
Assume for a moment that you have gone to the theatre not knowing what
is playing. You sit in your seat. Anything is possible until the curtain goes
up. When you face a computer screen, anything is possible until you turn on
the device and see what sorts of applications and affordances are present.
The action of a play consists of a series of incidents that are causally re-
lated to one another. Those incidents are specifi ed in the script and enacted
by actors in performance. In the previous chapter, we likened a computer
program to the script of a play, with one important difference; whereas
the action specifi ed in a given script will not change from performance
to performance, 1 a computer application can lead to actions (composed of
incidents) that can vary widely from session to session, depending upon
the choices made and actions performed by human agents. In other words,
programs generally contain more potential for action than plays. To under-
stand the implications of this fact, we need to explore the nature of dra-
matic potential and how it is formulated into action.
Potential is defi ned as something that can develop or become “actual.” 2
Dramatic potential refers to the set of actions that might occur in the course
of a play, as seen from the perspective of any given point in time (that is,
a location along the axis of time, as the action of the play unfolds). At the
beginning of a play, that set is very large; in fact, virtually anything can
happen. From the instant that the fi rst ray of light falls on the set, even
perhaps before an actor has entered the scene or spoken a single word, the
set of potential actions begins to narrow. What could happen begins to be
constrained by what actually does happen; the lights reveal a room in a
1. Of course, the qualities of the performances of the actors may vary, but not the action itself.
There are exceptions, such as the interactive plays mentioned in the previous chapter.
2. For a deliciously different take on this statement, see the topic Make It So by Nathan
Shedroff and Chris Noessel (2012). They demonstrate how many interactive devices, forms,
and affordances have been presaged—or even invented—in the media of science fi ction fi lm
and television.