The modern playwright is moving away from the standard straight-through action play, and breaking out into new and different structures. The easiest way to distinguish a feminine play from a masculine play is to look at the time line. Is the play non-linear? Then it's probably a feminine play. Another easy way to distinguish a feminine play is if it has a lot of different scenes with different characters, or vignettes.
Why Use a Vignette?
The biggest reason to use vignettes is if you have an overlying theme that you want to get across. Vignettes allow characters that would normally have no reason to relate to each other to have links and interactions. This gives the playwright a lot of angles to look at one thing, keeping their subject interesting.
Developing a Constant
The most obvious way to avoid any problems is to establish a constant. You can do this several ways, through character, relationships, theme, and through lines. The more of these things you can use to tie your scenes together the better. To simply have a lot of scenes with many different characters that don't relate through the course of the entire play is only going to confuse the audience.
Character Relationships
While the characters don't necessarily have to know/interact with every character in the play, they need to have a link. A great example of this is the play "Our Lady of 121st Street," by Stephen Adly Guirgis. The only link between all of the characters is Sister Rose. There are, of course, other relationships: ex-husbands and wives, brothers, colleges and friends. The key here is that there is a single, blanket connection, and many other smaller links.
The Destination
The one thing that can ruin any collection of vignettes is the final scene. There needs to be a clear progression and destination. There shouldn't be a bunch of unrelated crazy stories that end abruptly. A way to avoid this problem is to find a theme. Themes allow the audience to see how it affects the characters and how those characters change and arrive at an end point. It assists the writer in finding a note to end on, therefore creating one cohesive piece.
Vignettes allow writers to do new, interesting things. But it also forces them to work on character relations and overlying themes. If the writer can do this, he will be able to create a fantastic piece audience will love with a different and interesting structure.
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