Bad psychology makes bad drama
By Eric Grunin
In my experience, people are actually pretty simple. We try to figure what will make life better, we try to figure what will make life worse, we try to calculate the odds.
You figure I can probably beat the traffic, and if I don't it won't be a disaster. You figure I shouldn't do this, because I probably can't afford to get caught. You calculate this person is a little crazy, but I can probably handle it. You calculate the Fascist probably won't win, but I should vote for the Democrat just in case.
And drama is what happens when we miscalculate. You miss the plane, and you discover there isn't another one for two days. You tell the soothsayer to give you the straight dope, you can handle it, and you discover you've married your mother.
And most of us worry about the same things, regardless of gender, age, or relationship status. Here's some empirical evidence that people are more alike than not, courtesy of Google Suggest:
Notice the common thread? Everyone wants to know is my lover going to leave me? Apparently most everyone wants to feel desired and cared for, and most everyone spends a lot of energy coping with the fear that they won't get it.
Let's talk about love
Much of what is said about 'love' is nonsense. Here's a maxim: Love is not something you feel, love is something you do. And as we just saw, everybody wants to receive it, and everybody worries they're not going to get it.
So as storytellers, we need to ask: what is this it that everyone is so focused on?
Most people experience moments of altruism, where they do something solely to enliven another person, even at the cost of some personal sacrifice. This is love. You may do it for a child or an adult, an intimate or a stranger, but it's all love.
Think about a good parent. Raising a child is an enormous amount of work, for which parents get virtually nothing in return except the pleasure of watching the child thrive. This is love. (All known parents fall far short of the ideal, of course, the most common failings being rooted in selfishness, ignorance, or psychosis, otherwise known as "just plain crazy". But it's a tough job, and someone's got to do it.)
Given this definition, the opposite of love, is not hate; the opposite, if you need one, is selfishness. Common phrases like "love can turn to hate" are meaningless: you can work hard for someone's well-being and be deeply angry at them at the same time.
Let's talk about passion
Most people experience moments of infatuation, the "urge to merge" with another person, the desire for some intense intimacy. When it's physical we call it lust, but it's not always physical. This is passion. Passion can be entirely one-sided; the object of passion doesn't even need to be animate. Passion is not something you do, it's something you feel. The desire to lose yourself in another person? Passion. To lose yourself in the plays of Shakespeare, the string quartets of Beethoven, the works of Hieronymous Bosch? Also passion.
Fandom is passion. Acting is passion. Even cosplay is passion.
Passion and love are entirely independent of one another.
Yes, that can suck, but it's totally common to have one without the other. You can help a friend in need without wanting to have sex with them, and you can lust after someone to whom you wouldn't lend twenty bucks.
If infatuation soars while empathy zeroes out, you get a stalker, someone who has no interest in you as a human but only as a collectable.
Excessive empathy, too, can become toxic. I've met people who are so obsessed with saving dogs on "death row" that they are at risk of becoming dog hoarders. (Yes, that is a thing.) They are convinced that they are doing good, even though objectively they've crossed the line from empathy to projection (falsely assuming that what they feel is what others feel).
The opposite of passion is depression. (The everyday kind, not the clinical kind.)
Let's talk about stories
In stories, as in real life, people constantly confuse love and passion, often with humorous or disastrous results, so this is a favorite topic for drama. Add to this that characters sometimes live in a protective armor of delusion (paging Dr. Chekhov), and the possibilities multiply exponentially.
But sometimes the writer is confused too, and then the story flops. I can't tell you the number of times I've heard characters say "I love you, but I'm not in love with you," and it made no sense in the context of the narrative. These things are not random. You don't have to share the character's inner life with the audience, but there has to be one. Even schizophrenics have patterns in their behavior.
Case study: Passion
The Lapine/Sondheim musical Passion has a gorgeous score, but had a lot of trouble in previews: audiences hated the leading character of Fosca so much that they literally wished she would die.
It's the story of a chronically ill woman, Fosca, who falls hard for a soldier, Giorgio. She's ugly, drab, and probably anorexic, the opposite of Giorgio's long-distance girlfriend Clara, who is beautiful, colorful, and curvaceous.
Giorgio befriends Fosca. She is constantly apologizing for imposing on his company, but then turns around and manipulates him to provoke his pity, and never misses a chance to make him feel guilty for being healthy and young. Ultimately she becomes a stalker, even appearing uninvited on the train he is taking to see Clara.
The relationship between pity and love comes up in the very first song, between Clara and Giorgio:
Clara
The sadness in your eyes
That day when we glanced at each other
In the park.
Giorgio
We were both unhappy.
Clara
Unhappiness can be seductive.
Giorgio
You pitied me...
Both
How quickly pity leads to love.
This is done to put these words and thoughts in our head for later, but note that their logic is false: unhappiness is not seductive (it's actually discouraging), and pity does not "lead to love" (though two people can form a bond when one is vulnerable and the other responds with kindness).
Later, though Fosca keeps saying that she loves Giorgio, it should be obvious that this is merely infatuation. She is monstrously selfish, while believing she is anything but. In modern terms, she's a stalker.
The odd part of this is that Giorgio and Fosca argue this exact point. Giorgio sings:
Is this what you call love?
This endless and insatiable
Smothering pursuit of me.
You think that this is love?
Alas for Giorgio, by the end Fosca has worn him down, and eventually he comes around to her point of view:
Not pretty or safe or easy
But more than I ever knew.
Love within reason -
That isn't love.
And I've learned that from you...
There's nothing intrinsically wrong with such a story--it's a Stockholm Syndrome narrative. But do the authors see how vicious and evil Fosca is? It certainly doesn't feel that way. They clearly worked very hard (and made lots of changes during the preview period) to keep us from hating her. By the end it feels like they're starting to agree with her...but she's a villain, she damages people, why on Earth shouldn't we want to flee her presence?
Passion is based on the Italian film Passione d'Amore (of which I have only seen a few clips). That film in turn is based on the novel, Fosca, by Ugo Tarchetti (published 1869). I suspect the problem I've been talking about is present in the original source It's reputed to hold to the 19th Century idea that we find decay fascinating, even compelling. This is a fallacy. The attraction of Decadent literature (most famously Huysman's Against Nature) is that it suggests that what we reflexively consider perverse, depraved and dangerous may actually be no big deal and safely and usefully explored.
I didn't see the original run (only the video, below), but I did see the Classic Stage Company version.
Just for fun, here's Laura Benanti visiting Times Square as Fosca:
Here's the 1994 OBC:
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