Searching for that second actor? ... a scene from The Tell-Tale Heart at the Royal Lyceum Theatre. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod
More than half the shows I saw this week were one-person plays or monologue collections. Big deal, you might say: at a festival where larger companies can lose 10 grand or more a month, a solo show makes more financial sense. Transport, food, accommodation, even wages: everything is multiplied by your cast list. Little wonder that so many writers, actors and directors practice the monologue method, with its controllable costs and supreme adaptability to Edinburgh's unforgiving venues. After all, why should stand-ups be the only ones to have it easy?
And yet I can't help feeling that it's a lack of imagination, as much as cash constraints, that provokes this annual glut of theatrical onanism. You could not, for instance, blame budget for the staging of The Six Wives Of Timothy Leary at the Pleasance, where a sextet of clearly talented actors barely address or acknowledge each other for 85 numbing minutes.
With one or two exceptions - Spalding Gray springs to mind - the theatrical monologue show is intrinsically dull. At best, it spoonfeeds an audience that wants to be flattered with subtleties; at worst it simply harangues them. Who hasn't walked into a venue to feel their heart sink, just a little, at the sight of yet another single chair, yet another single spotlight, yet another cast of one? Solo plays can showcase fine, delicate acting, as Bully does at the Gilded Balloon, and inventive staging (try Borderline at the Underbelly for that), but these shows succeed in spite of the form not because of it, and they're not half as much fun to watch as an actual, honest-to-goodness play.
For writers, especially developing or first-time playwrights, the one-person show is understandably less threatening than a full-scale drama. There's little need for the tricky cut-and-thrust of conversation and plenty of space to explain your hero's hopes and fears. But are you sure you wouldn't rather write a novel?
The conventions of traditional stage drama are restrictive, yes, but then they're supposed to be. What's the first thing that every student director learns? Show, don't tell. All drama is about conflict, about argument, whether it's Richard III seducing Anne or Josh crossing swords with Toby. Good stage writing offers multiple points of view engaged in an almighty barney for supremacy, and an argument requires more than one person.
So here's a request for any playwrights who are hard at work plotting next year's smash hit show. Please, ban yourself from the monologue. Go on, give it a go. Scrape together enough cash to hire two actors. Even if the second performer does nothing but listen to the first one, you've created a dynamic that is more interesting than one actor spilling their guts to the audience. Resurrect the fourth wall and build it high - lock your characters inside until they're forced to talk to each other. Spare us the confessionals, no matter how searching. Spare us the lectures, no matter how eloquent. Just write a goddamned play.
