How to Create Main Character in Plays

Video Transcript

"STEVE CAVERNO: I'm Steve Caverno on behalf of Expert Village, here today to talk to you about building a character. Now we're going to talk about the protagonist. The protagonist is the main character of the play. Pictured here is Lawrence Olivier as Hamlet, one of Shakespeare's greatest plays. Hamlet is the character who's the dramatic question is about. What will happen to Hamlet? Every one else feeds Hamlet's objective. Every one is either an obstacle to Hamlet's objective or they're helping Hamlet accomplish his objective. And Hamlet's objective is the main question of the play. Will this character accomplish what they want to accomplish by the end of the play? The protagonist is the most defined character of the play. They are the one who everything is directed towards. So, Hamlet has long speeches in the play. Hamlet is talked about by their characters. The characters don't spend a lot of time talking about the minor characters, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. You're not going to have an entire section of the play devoted to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern without some mention of Hamlet because Hamlet is the one who is driving the plot. And the plot always has to move forward. You don't want to stop a play right in the middle. You want to keep driving it forward. And this is a way to help do that with focusing on the protagonist. We'll talk later about how to build a protagonist, what are the things that go in to making a strong protagonist in a play."