Monolayic theatre

Monolayic Theatre is a play that is a monologue, meaning it is by one character, but what is typically done is that a director will use several characters to portray the emotions and actions of the person telling the monologue. An example of this is Pool, No Water by Mark Ravenhill.

Monolayic script is a piece of text which has no distinctive characters; this means that the director has to separate the text to give the desired effect of the play. Even though the text is all one long speech, like a monologue, characters and characterisation can be chosen from the text, as each of the lines are very different thus giving the actor a character to work with. The script seems to be all spoken by one person, however when the play is performed or the lines are divided, it seems that the person the monologue is for never actually speaks.

The advantages of monolayic theatre are that the director can be very creative and give the play a very personal response, as it was divided up from their own imagination. Also it gives the director the chance to think of the characters they want in within the performance. However the disadvantages of monolayic theatre is that it is very time consuming as it must take a lot of research into characters and a lot of time to divide the lines. Monolayic theatre is often performed with one backdrop, to give a sense of flow and ongoing within the play. In the example above, Pool, No Water is performed with just a white tile background, this is to symbolize the bottom of the swimming pool and the cleanliness of the hospital ward, which is where most of the play is set.

Another aspect of the performance is that the actors rarely, if ever, leave the stage.