To be or not to be. Or the importance of stage directions.
- May 21
- 1 min read
Updated: May 25
Whether in a screenplay or a stage play, the stage directions - or screen directions for a movie - serves to clarify intention.
For while that intention is always obvious to the author, it is not necessarily so to the reader, who risks misreading it in its absence. And a misreading inevitably weakens the narrative and its coherence.
(It should be noted, however, that stage directions do not necessarily take the same form in a screenplay as in a stage play, but that is another matter.)
A stage direction allows the subtext to be made explicit when necessary, through indications of tone, gesture, and attitude in particular. Indeed, had Shakespeare not forgotten his stage directions in Hamlet, we would never have found ourselves in this situation ;) :
;-)
Déborah Braun / 90pages
Script doctor
