Dramatists Toolkit, the Craft of the Working Playwright: The Craft of the Working Playwright [Paperback]

Because of this emphasis, this is not going to be the book you should refer to for structure; again, Hatcher is strong there, as is Gordon Farrell's Power of the Playwright's Vision (the only text I've seen to give numerous structural breakdowns). However, Sweet's advice - taken well, and with the usual pinch of salt - is very liberating to the writer who's been struggling against formulaic playwriting texts.

Sweet's book is worth its cover price based solely on its discussions of negotiations, which really are eye-openers as to how subtext really works. His section on exposition, with a discussion on high and low contexts, is likewise strong. The book is great as a reference while doing your actual writing, just to remind you of things you can really make work.

Now, Sweet's a bit brief (but powerful) in this book, but makes up for it in the sequel, Solving Your Script. The latter is a reinforcement of the ideas from The Dramatist's Toolkit, with enlightening, well annotated examples. Together, they make up a powerful combination addressing what is so rarely touched on in playwriting books: how to actually write powerful, subtle scenes. Combine them with a couple of good structural books like Hatcher or Farrell, and you've got a much better basis than most of the formulaic texts.

Fortunately, Sweet elaborates on the doing of playwriting in his fine book "Solving Your Script," so I'd recommend skipping "The Dramatist's Toolkit" and going directly to Sweet's second book.

It speaks loudly about "Solving Your Script" that I would recommend it, because I had serious trouble with the unblinkingly self-important tone of "The Dramatist's Toolkt." In his first chapter, for example, Sweet seems to assert that playwriting should be an actors-only club, because no one else could really understand the stage well enough to write for it. Short of revealing something about Sweet's background or loyalties, this assertion is useless. One buys a book on playwriting to receive the author's insights, not to be told to go home if one lacks those insights at the outset. Besides, Sweet's preference for actors as playwrights is just plain unsupportable. While he lists several great novelists that made lousy playwrights, he doesn't name a single great actor who made a good playwright. There have been some, but they are outnumbered by the great actors who stuck to acting, the art form they knew best. Remarkably, it is without a trace of irony that Sweet later complains that too many modern plays revolve around acting and show business. His proposed solution to this problem is laughably underwhelming: it is that actors should pick up a newspaper now and then so that they'll write better plays.

Sweet is undoubtedly a good playwright, but "The Dramatist Toolkit" provides scant evidence of his skills as a playwriting teacher. Sweet's insight about using physical objects to illustrate themes did seem powerful to me. A few more insights of this caliber might have made this into what I would consider a five star book.