How do you write a good educational play about technology?

February 5, 2006 6:31 PM

Anyone written or seen an educational play that deals with technology in a compelling way? Do you have tips for writing such a play?

As part of a team of two writers I am soon going to be writing an educational play about the social/environmental issues surrounding nanotechnology. As you can guess, it'll be a challenge to make it compelling while at the same time conveying enough techie info to inform the audience. Good characters and storyline are obvious musts but there are still practical issues of how to get the technical bits across.

Know any examples of good plays in this genre? Do you have ideas on how to quickly convey techie info to an average audience without boring folks to tears?

For example, if you want to define nanotechnology in the play how would you do it without resorting to something like:

"Jim: Bob, I've heard about nanontechnology but I don't have a clue about it.

Bob: I'm glad you asked that. Nanotechnology is the science of ..."

What devices can i use besides dialogue?

posted by storybored to media & arts (13 comments total)

What grade level is the audience?
posted by squirrel at 6:37 PM on February 5, 2006

Tom Stoppard's "Arcadia" deals with issues in chaos theory, but it's not educational per se. Excellent play, though. As I recall, the words "chaos theory" never arise, but many of its ramifications are touched on. It's worth seeking out, but the approach might be a bit too subtle for what you want.

I recall seeing (being subjected to?) a play called "Star Messengers" about Galileo, I thought it was far too preachy and tried too hard to educate its audience about planetary physics and the life of Galileo and...I dont' even remember what else. Certain sections may have been lifted from the transcript of his trial. I don't even think they were translated. There may have been interpretive dance involved, too.

Then again, you could always go the Jurassic Park route, and have the scientists try to keep the world from becoming grey goo due to some horrible nanotech accident.
posted by Lycaste at 6:50 PM on February 5, 2006

I thought this play about Buckminster Fuller was pretty entertaining while still managing to communicate Fuller's theories in a fairly basic way. Lots of props, a blackboard, and slide projections were used pretty extensively- and Ron Campbell was thoroughly amazing.
posted by oneirodynia at 7:35 PM on February 5, 2006

Not a play, but perhaps useful anyways: The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson was a pretty good primer on the possibilities of nanotechnology without getting bogged down in minute technical details (and one of my favourite novels).

The unfortunate bit is that it's obviously a lot easier to relate various details in the narrative than it is through dialogue and actions alone, but it could give you some ideas on how to approach the subject without dealing with the intricacies of scanning electron microscopes and all that jazz.
posted by chrominance at 7:37 PM on February 5, 2006

Never seen a play on this topic, but my suggestion would be to adapt this book as a play -- Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman.

Feynman is widely credited for inventing the concept of nanotechnology.
posted by frogan at 8:09 PM on February 5, 2006

Builders Association (et al) did a piece that's touring, I think, called Super Vision. It addressed technology, the information age, etc. -- and while it was gorgeous to look at and smart, they struggled (it seems to me) with basic narrative problems. They wanted to talk about technology and how we live with it, but didn't really develop their stories beyond illustrations. (Where they really succeeded in dealing with ideas was in staging, set design, and graphical interplay, check out the pics--that might be of use to you.)

Still, it was a really worthwhile project -- and I bet that Marianne Weems or someone at Builders Association would talk to you about their process with creating a theater piece based on these issues. I know they had a big team, and they did small group readings and pre-performances and the like to solicit input along the way.
posted by RJ Reynolds at 8:13 PM on February 5, 2006

With a name like "storybored" you must know the basics Aristotelian building blocks of drama, but just to review--in its simplest form, dramatic tension occurs when a character is actively trying to achieve a goal, but finds obstacles in his way. A common way of doing this is to have two characters with directly conflicting goals--perhaps both want to be king, say, or one wants to start a war while the other wants to prevent it.

You can use that to your advantage. Whenever possible, make the revelation of information something that hampers your main character, instead of helping them.

The example you give has no tension because Jim's goal is to find out what nanotechnology is, and Bob's goal is to tell him. Their goals don't conflict; ergo, no dramatic tension.

But suppose there is a third party named Susie, the spoiled daughter of an eccentric billionaire. And suppose Jim is a scam artist, trying to sell Susie some multimillion-dollar piece of junk that he claims works on "nanotechnology." His goal depends on her having no understanding of what it really means. Bob, by contrast, will get paid a million dollars by Susie's father if he can help her pass her nanotechnology final exam. Bob's goal depends on Susie understanding nanotechnology perfectly.

Now you have dramatic conflict, and each revelation about nanotechnology becomes a revelation about the plot.
posted by yankeefog at 4:04 AM on February 6, 2006

Michael Frayn's Copenhagen is very well thought of, and deals with a meeting between Heisenberg and Bohr. But it's not really about the science.

More than a few SF stories do it by starting one of the characters off as an innocent. The other characters can explain the setup up to the innocent and the audience at the same time. Amnesia, time travel, crash landing on an alien planet... all popular.

BTW, what kind of nano are we talking about here? The materials stuff that looks at least do-able, like self-cleaning coatings for windows, or full-on, Fantastic Voyage, raise-the-dead robots in your brain?
posted by Leon at 6:33 AM on February 6, 2006

Thanks to all for the answers so far!

Squirrel: it's a general public audience, above average education level.

Lycaste: I'll check out Arcadia. I've heard of it before but never had a chance to read it. thanks.

Oneiro: That Fuller play sounds fascinating, too bad it's not touring. The pics of the set look great. I'll try to find the script.

Chrominance: The Diamond Age! How funny is it that it's sitting on my bookshelf from years ago and i haven't read it? Time to get to it. Thanks.

Frogan: I love the Feynman book. Actually i'm surprised someone hasn't done it as a play yet. It isn't appropriate for us because Feynman is a little too big a character!

RJReynolds: Thanks for the link and the reference, i will check it out.
posted by storybored at 7:13 AM on February 6, 2006

Yankeefog: Thanks a lot for the reminder on Aristotle! That's probably the reason why many techie plays suffer from ailing storylines. (ya got the allusion in my username!). Right now we're playing with a plot that has an ailing patient who could potentially benefit from a nanomedicine, but she is unsure whether to take it...her son is perhaps an environmental activist who is against nanotech almost on principle, but then he finds out about this potential cure....

Leon: I liked Copenhagen a lot. It had great characters and at the same time didn't shy away from the science. Perhaps what made it easier for the author was that the characters were scientists to begin with. What kind of nano are we dealing with: current stuff with maybe a look at the short-term future. No grey goo, sorry!
posted by storybored at 7:19 AM on February 6, 2006

You can use that to your advantage. Whenever possible, make the revelation of information something that hampers your main character, instead of helping them.

Yankeefog that's a nice way to put the essence of good story in a nutshell.
posted by storybored at 7:23 AM on February 6, 2006

Is the play about what nanotechnology really is, or the stuff that's in 'Diamond Age'?

Real nanotechnology is, today, basically chemistry, nanoparticles and a lot of material science stuff. Even as a techno-weenie, I find it pretty dry. You might as well write a play about making plastic bags out of crude oil.

Which is not to say that you shouldn't do it - but I really want to know what you mean by "nanotechnology". It means different things to different people.
posted by GuyZero at 8:25 AM on February 6, 2006

GuyZ, it's mostly the "today" scenario. So we're talking nanoparticles, early steps in nanomedicine and the like.

One interesting example: There are nanoparticles of titanium oxide in most sunscreens. The health issue is that there's not a lot of info about the ability of these particles to penetrate skin. And what the health effects are if they do...

Although the focus is on the real, we're not ruling out mentioning spaced-out future applications even as an aside....
posted by storybored at 10:12 AM on February 6, 2006