Character Sketch review, and Reflection of "Damaged"

I really enjoyed writing in the play format because it seemed like I could take a story that would be best portrayed through body language and dialogue, and write it in a way that let the audience catch the inferences thrown out there. In my play I noted that the boy had a foster mother who doesn’t pay any attention to him and that he stays out of her way, illustrating that he is emotionally damaged, in addition to this aspect, I added that he was immature for his age, and doesn’t have any friends due to this. With that in mind, we can infer that the best thing for him would be to find a role model, and a friend. With Shed I noted that he is a depressed widower, who drinks too much and his apartment is in shambles, with no friends, and no purpose in life without his wife. With that in mind, we can infer that the best thing for him is a reason to keep going, and someone to talk to, someone that he can fix, in order to pull his life back together.

            I knew that I had a good start when it came to their backgrounds. They both had psychological issues, and needed help in some way. They had a common link to the same comic book store. I then only needed to develop an instance where they could help each other. I thought it was difficult to keep the play confined to one setting, so I imagined a larger set, where you could see the park (fake) and a (real) bench in the background, and then in the foreground would be the inside of the comic book store with an interior door to an adjacent apartment. The reason I had to think of how the set may be built is because I had multiple settings in my play. I didn’t think that I could capture the weight of the story in one dialogue session, so I had to build the story by putting Raymond in the park crying, and Shed coming to the rescue, otherwise it wouldn’t feel realistic for them to have a strong enough bond to exchange gifts. The gift exchange was the climax of the play, because it indicated a mutual benefit to both characters, and in the end this was reinforced when Shed went to bed and thanked his deceased wife, as if she gave him purpose again.