EXPERIENCE DESIGN
Storytelling Special
FATHOMING FREYTAG The first to explicate dramatic structure was the 19th-century German perform- ance theorist Gustav Freytag. Theatre students still learn Freytag Diagrams and we can learn from him to this day. From his study of plays, Freytag identi-
fied seven stages of dramatic structure: Exposition: This gives the context of the experience, introducing the world, or situation, where the experience happens, and the characters who inhabit that world. Inciting incident: Here a precipitating event causes the drama to take off. Rising action: The drama increases in intensity and anticipation as the action takes off. Complications ensue as the characters (in many attractions, this includes the guests) determine to resolve the issues caused by the inciting incident. Crisis: While in the previous segment the plot thickens, to use a theatre cliché, here the possibilities steadily fall away as the characters overcome (or not) the obstacles before them. Intensity rises at an accelerated pace, yielding suspense and excitement as the audience awaits and anticipates a resolution to the crisis. Climax: The height of the experience, where of all the things that could happen, only one does – the characters either do or do not achieve the goal they formed at the moment of the inciting incident.
THE FREYTAG DIAGRAM
climax
inciting incident exposition
resolution denouement
The Freytag Diagram is a visual representation of the seven stages of dramatic structure identified by performance theorist Gustav Freytag
Falling action: The consequences of the climax play out for the characters. Dénouement: The plot threads resolve themselves while the dramatic action exhausts itself and the characters – not to mention the guests of the experience – return to normalcy, although it’s meant to be a new and quite different status quo than when the experience started. Now, your attraction is not a play, and
may operate under different constraints and expectations. Nonetheless, you should note how the drama builds through each stage to the climax, and then comes down again. Too many experiences forget the
“Experiences are revealed over a duration of time and, to be truly engaging and memorable, must have dramatic structure. It’s crucial that any reveal get a suitable set-up”
build part – they move too quickly to the climax, don’t set it up properly, or have too flat a structure. Others think that once you’ve had the big reveal, it’s: “OK, show’s over, ride’s done, go home!” No, you need to bring your guests back down again and let that climax play out through your attraction and in their minds. In an example from our own work,
Gilmore and I stage an annual event called thinkAbout – it’s our chance to practice what we preach. The big reveal is the winner of our Experience Stager of the Year (EXPY) award. Past winners include American Girl, the Geek Squad, Joie de Vivre Hospitality, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, Tough Mudder and, in 2014, Santa Park. To bring drama to it, we go through the
top 10 experiences that our participants should take in the following year, with a postcard exercise to apply lessons to each
Visitors to Machu Picchu, Peru, climb for hours before the “big reveal” at the top of the hill
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AM 4 2014 ©Cybertrek 2014
falling action
rising action
PHOTOS: FLICKR – OHOCHEESE / EXFORDY
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