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Writing from The Heart
Design and execution by Meeko Marasigan
Sunday, September 28, 2014
Friday, September 26, 2014
Dramaturgy for Theatreworks Singapore
Hooray for Ellie, who was the first to send in a revised version of her play!
I am off to Grande Island this morning, however, and will be able to study her manuscript only within the week.
I am off to Grande Island this morning, however, and will be able to study her manuscript only within the week.
Thursday, September 25, 2014
Sunday, September 21, 2014
Dramaturgy for Theatreworks Singapore
Rachel's Play: "Chew the Fat"
Dear Rachel,
Thank you for writing your sensual play. It should actually be produced on an abandoned construction site with characters performing on beams and multiple levels, granted that the site is declared safe and secure.
I felt, however, that I was meandering in a potboiler by Tami Hoag, and that your deliberately non-dramatic play is really "A Day in the Life of Sarranah".
Here are my comments and suggestions:
1. Paginate your work.
2. You have too many characters, most of them walk-ons. The only way the producer might be able to swing this is by teaming up with a company that sells male underwear.
3. Remember that a play is dramatic because of what the protagonist does, not what happens to her. As in, for example, Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House.
4. Go beyond and transcend sensuality and romantic fantasy, because those are the very reasons why Oscar Wilde's Salome failed--and continues to fail, as I saw a production of it some years ago.
5. If, however, this is the kind of play that you want, then ask a group of friends to do a reading. As with the others, your characters tend to talk alike. Adjust the dialogue.
6. As a dramaturg I need to know more about who Sarranah is and why she does what she does--and what will happen to her long after the curtain falls. Go deeper in character. The play is static because it does not have emotions--and it is the emotions that fuel a stage reading or a stage performance.
Please, send me your revised manuscript by e-mail as a Word document attachment.
Dear Rachel,
Thank you for writing your sensual play. It should actually be produced on an abandoned construction site with characters performing on beams and multiple levels, granted that the site is declared safe and secure.
I felt, however, that I was meandering in a potboiler by Tami Hoag, and that your deliberately non-dramatic play is really "A Day in the Life of Sarranah".
Here are my comments and suggestions:
1. Paginate your work.
2. You have too many characters, most of them walk-ons. The only way the producer might be able to swing this is by teaming up with a company that sells male underwear.
3. Remember that a play is dramatic because of what the protagonist does, not what happens to her. As in, for example, Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House.
4. Go beyond and transcend sensuality and romantic fantasy, because those are the very reasons why Oscar Wilde's Salome failed--and continues to fail, as I saw a production of it some years ago.
5. If, however, this is the kind of play that you want, then ask a group of friends to do a reading. As with the others, your characters tend to talk alike. Adjust the dialogue.
6. As a dramaturg I need to know more about who Sarranah is and why she does what she does--and what will happen to her long after the curtain falls. Go deeper in character. The play is static because it does not have emotions--and it is the emotions that fuel a stage reading or a stage performance.
Please, send me your revised manuscript by e-mail as a Word document attachment.
Dramaturgy for Theatreworks Singapore
Zoe's Play: "I Eye The Sky"
Dear Zoe,
Your work confirmed something that impressed me during the brief week that we spent at our workshop: although you are a sweet, quiet girl, your energy is distinctly masculine.
The play you submitted is most unusual because:
--it requires at least three soccer players to act the roles onstage--or three boys who can act like soccer players at any rate
--it is a battery of case studies that showcase Singaporean sociology
--it uses the soccer game as a metaphor for survival.
Your background in theater, particularly as a director, helped a lot in enabling you to visualize the stage and the action.
Know what the producers might think: that it is a wonderful play but a frightfully expensive one to stage, what with all the audiovisuals and lighting effects that you indicate.
Here are my comments and suggestions:
1. Get a group of friends to read the play. Trim the dialogue. Most of it is superfluous.
2. Allow your characters longer passages of reflection.
3. Work on the speech patterns and rhythms of each character. As it is, they all sound alike.
4. Consider re-conceiving the boys as Chinese, Malay, and Indian rather than only Malay.
5. Give each boy a speech idiosyncrasy, not necessarily blatant, that will characterize him and distinguish him from the others.
6. Omit the audience participation and acknowledgement that you suggest as optional. These break the illusion of the play and take it down to the level of community theater, unless that is what you mean it to be.
I hope that this is helpful to you.
Please, send me your revised script by e-mail as a Word document attachment.
Dear Zoe,
Your work confirmed something that impressed me during the brief week that we spent at our workshop: although you are a sweet, quiet girl, your energy is distinctly masculine.
The play you submitted is most unusual because:
--it requires at least three soccer players to act the roles onstage--or three boys who can act like soccer players at any rate
--it is a battery of case studies that showcase Singaporean sociology
--it uses the soccer game as a metaphor for survival.
Your background in theater, particularly as a director, helped a lot in enabling you to visualize the stage and the action.
Know what the producers might think: that it is a wonderful play but a frightfully expensive one to stage, what with all the audiovisuals and lighting effects that you indicate.
Here are my comments and suggestions:
1. Get a group of friends to read the play. Trim the dialogue. Most of it is superfluous.
2. Allow your characters longer passages of reflection.
3. Work on the speech patterns and rhythms of each character. As it is, they all sound alike.
4. Consider re-conceiving the boys as Chinese, Malay, and Indian rather than only Malay.
5. Give each boy a speech idiosyncrasy, not necessarily blatant, that will characterize him and distinguish him from the others.
6. Omit the audience participation and acknowledgement that you suggest as optional. These break the illusion of the play and take it down to the level of community theater, unless that is what you mean it to be.
I hope that this is helpful to you.
Please, send me your revised script by e-mail as a Word document attachment.
Dramaturgy for Theatreworks
De Jun's Play: "5 Minutes"
Dear De Jun,
You submitted a well-written theatrical piece. However, it is not really a work for the professional stage--it serves best as an in-between number for a school program. I realize that you are only 16 years old and that you wanted to give it a good shot. But, I demand more from you because I know that you can produce works with greater depth rather than the feel-good, sentimental "5 Minutes".
What you gave is fine in and of itself. I believe that Theatreworks will be willing to stage it either as a produced play or a reading inasmuch as it is the work of a 16-year-old Singaporean playwright. Your use of the three-person chorus is commendable. But, at the same time, I want you to write a more ambitious work, and I want you to do it NOW.
I will not recommend that you take risks in your everyday life. In the first place you are a minor. Secondly, I see you as a fragile, sensitive boy who must mature in his own time and who cannot be forced to do so. I know that you trust me as well--indeed, I do not teach students swimming by throwing them in the water.
Here is what you should do next:
1. Ask a group of friends to do a reading of "5 Minutes". Check the structure. Check the flow of dialogue and then edit your play until you feel that it is workable and act-able.
2. Send me the play again.
AT THE SAME TIME:
1. Search for a book titled Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg, an American creative writer and a cancer survivor. The book is comprised of exercises that take readers outside their boxes and their comfort zones. The exercises are about suffering and about taking risks--but the most wonderful thing is that you do them not out there in the real world but in your mind.
2. Identify what matters to you most at this time in your life: Your relationship with your parents? Your siblings? School authorities? Your crush?
What are you afraid of most? What do you desire most? What is your private fantasy?
Write a new play WITH YOURSELF AS THE MAIN CHARACTER--not a rehash of "5 Minutes"--based on the above.
Do not be afraid to make mistakes. Do not feel that I or other people will laugh at or make fun of you.
Just go ahead and do all of the above.
I will wait for you.
Dear De Jun,
You submitted a well-written theatrical piece. However, it is not really a work for the professional stage--it serves best as an in-between number for a school program. I realize that you are only 16 years old and that you wanted to give it a good shot. But, I demand more from you because I know that you can produce works with greater depth rather than the feel-good, sentimental "5 Minutes".
What you gave is fine in and of itself. I believe that Theatreworks will be willing to stage it either as a produced play or a reading inasmuch as it is the work of a 16-year-old Singaporean playwright. Your use of the three-person chorus is commendable. But, at the same time, I want you to write a more ambitious work, and I want you to do it NOW.
I will not recommend that you take risks in your everyday life. In the first place you are a minor. Secondly, I see you as a fragile, sensitive boy who must mature in his own time and who cannot be forced to do so. I know that you trust me as well--indeed, I do not teach students swimming by throwing them in the water.
Here is what you should do next:
1. Ask a group of friends to do a reading of "5 Minutes". Check the structure. Check the flow of dialogue and then edit your play until you feel that it is workable and act-able.
2. Send me the play again.
AT THE SAME TIME:
1. Search for a book titled Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg, an American creative writer and a cancer survivor. The book is comprised of exercises that take readers outside their boxes and their comfort zones. The exercises are about suffering and about taking risks--but the most wonderful thing is that you do them not out there in the real world but in your mind.
2. Identify what matters to you most at this time in your life: Your relationship with your parents? Your siblings? School authorities? Your crush?
What are you afraid of most? What do you desire most? What is your private fantasy?
Write a new play WITH YOURSELF AS THE MAIN CHARACTER--not a rehash of "5 Minutes"--based on the above.
Do not be afraid to make mistakes. Do not feel that I or other people will laugh at or make fun of you.
Just go ahead and do all of the above.
I will wait for you.
Dramaturgy for Theatreworks Singapore
Serene's Play "Hello. Goodbye."
Dear Serene,
Your subject matter is promising as a macabre comedy exploring the wedding culture in Singapore. Having said this, you need to do a lot of work, particularly in re-conceiving your play.
Here are my comments:
1. A series of conversations does not constitute a play.
2. Your play as it is seems to have been patterned after a joke that relies on a punch line, i.e. your ending scene. After the audience watches the play, do you think there will be any of them who will eagerly watch it all over again?
3. Never write a play about a "tabloid" issue such as a Hello Kitty fad. It will become outdated sooner than you think.
I especially enjoyed the scenes in which parents expect their children to have boyfriends/girlfriends/husbands/wives. I think, you should focus on that and related issues, and do away with all other trendy trappings.
Please, send me your revised work by e-mail as a Word document attachment.
Dear Serene,
Your subject matter is promising as a macabre comedy exploring the wedding culture in Singapore. Having said this, you need to do a lot of work, particularly in re-conceiving your play.
Here are my comments:
1. A series of conversations does not constitute a play.
2. Your play as it is seems to have been patterned after a joke that relies on a punch line, i.e. your ending scene. After the audience watches the play, do you think there will be any of them who will eagerly watch it all over again?
3. Never write a play about a "tabloid" issue such as a Hello Kitty fad. It will become outdated sooner than you think.
I especially enjoyed the scenes in which parents expect their children to have boyfriends/girlfriends/husbands/wives. I think, you should focus on that and related issues, and do away with all other trendy trappings.
Please, send me your revised work by e-mail as a Word document attachment.
Dramaturgy for Theatreworks Singapore
Samantha's Play: "Untitled"
Dear Samantha,
You sent me two manuscripts, both untitled. I read both of them.
The works are dark sketches (not to be confused with skits) rather than plays, the first about courtship and death, the second about marriage and suicide.
1. First Untitled Sketch (sent earlier):
This version is the more promising of the two. It is derivative, however, of Tennessee Williams's "The Glass Menagerie" a.k.a. "The Gentleman Caller"--you even subconsciously named one of your characters AMANDA, which happens to be the name of one of the characters in the Williams play, not the daughter but the mother.
The ending is uncalled-for and unexpected, and will come across to the audience as a betrayal.
2. Second Untitled Sketch (sent later):
This is really the scenario for a video rather than for a stage play. Unlike Mayura's play, it is un-theatrical and cannot stand up as a stage play.
Never employ flashbacks if the dramatic content can be done via exposition--as in a monologue or in dialogue.
Jumps in time, especially using very short scenes, are difficult to manage.
Here, then, is my advice to you:
You have not yet identified the subject matter that you wish to seriously develop into a play. This is fine; you have your own pace and I will wait for you to be able to do that.
As I suggested during the workshop, read The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri. Read the whole book from cover to cover, not just parts of it. Be patient with the archaic English. In creative writing, you cannot deconstruct if you have not yet mastered the Aristotelian unities--as in art, you cannot go abstract until you have mastered human and animal anatomy. Only after you have mastered these can you break the rules.
Determine which subject matter is important to you as a person NOW. That is always a good starting point.
What motivates your writing? Anger? Revenge? The desire for success? Power? Boredom?
Do not look to TV shows, movies, novels, and other plays for inspiration. Those have already been written, and do not need to be written all over again.
One is driven to write. One writes because one will just die if one doesn't write. One writes because it is as necessary as breathing and drinking and eating.
Look within your heart, because everything is already there.
Dear Samantha,
You sent me two manuscripts, both untitled. I read both of them.
The works are dark sketches (not to be confused with skits) rather than plays, the first about courtship and death, the second about marriage and suicide.
1. First Untitled Sketch (sent earlier):
This version is the more promising of the two. It is derivative, however, of Tennessee Williams's "The Glass Menagerie" a.k.a. "The Gentleman Caller"--you even subconsciously named one of your characters AMANDA, which happens to be the name of one of the characters in the Williams play, not the daughter but the mother.
The ending is uncalled-for and unexpected, and will come across to the audience as a betrayal.
2. Second Untitled Sketch (sent later):
This is really the scenario for a video rather than for a stage play. Unlike Mayura's play, it is un-theatrical and cannot stand up as a stage play.
Never employ flashbacks if the dramatic content can be done via exposition--as in a monologue or in dialogue.
Jumps in time, especially using very short scenes, are difficult to manage.
Here, then, is my advice to you:
You have not yet identified the subject matter that you wish to seriously develop into a play. This is fine; you have your own pace and I will wait for you to be able to do that.
As I suggested during the workshop, read The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri. Read the whole book from cover to cover, not just parts of it. Be patient with the archaic English. In creative writing, you cannot deconstruct if you have not yet mastered the Aristotelian unities--as in art, you cannot go abstract until you have mastered human and animal anatomy. Only after you have mastered these can you break the rules.
Determine which subject matter is important to you as a person NOW. That is always a good starting point.
What motivates your writing? Anger? Revenge? The desire for success? Power? Boredom?
Do not look to TV shows, movies, novels, and other plays for inspiration. Those have already been written, and do not need to be written all over again.
One is driven to write. One writes because one will just die if one doesn't write. One writes because it is as necessary as breathing and drinking and eating.
Look within your heart, because everything is already there.
Dramaturgy for Theatreworks Singapore
Helmi's Play: "My Mother Buys Condoms"
Dear Helmi,
It was a joy to read your refreshing comedy, which addressed normally-sensitive issues such as sex, gender, religion, class differences, family relationships, community relationships, and the use of foul language. If not for certain, iffy passages, I could envision this on television and in a dinner-theatre.
Here are my suggestions:
1. Some scenes are too short, others too long. Seek balance and symmetry. Go architectonic with your work.
2. The surreal dream scene in which WILFRED chops fish and then accidentally chops off his fingers is a little off and does not belong with the rest of the play. It can be taken out completely.
3. The store scene is also off--you located it in a separate space and it demanded that the audience visualize an invisible set and invisible characters. All the information in that scene can actually be incorporated within the next scene.
4. Toward the end of the play there is a lot of moralizing and rationalizing, both verging on the didactic, that can probably be toned down. Author--do not editorialize.
5. Trim. Go for a tighter play.
Please, send my your revised script by e-mail as a Word document attachment.
Dear Helmi,
It was a joy to read your refreshing comedy, which addressed normally-sensitive issues such as sex, gender, religion, class differences, family relationships, community relationships, and the use of foul language. If not for certain, iffy passages, I could envision this on television and in a dinner-theatre.
Here are my suggestions:
1. Some scenes are too short, others too long. Seek balance and symmetry. Go architectonic with your work.
2. The surreal dream scene in which WILFRED chops fish and then accidentally chops off his fingers is a little off and does not belong with the rest of the play. It can be taken out completely.
3. The store scene is also off--you located it in a separate space and it demanded that the audience visualize an invisible set and invisible characters. All the information in that scene can actually be incorporated within the next scene.
4. Toward the end of the play there is a lot of moralizing and rationalizing, both verging on the didactic, that can probably be toned down. Author--do not editorialize.
5. Trim. Go for a tighter play.
Please, send my your revised script by e-mail as a Word document attachment.
Dramaturgy for Theatreworks Singapore
Gabriel's Play: "Batam Marathon"
Dear Gabriel,
First of all, I want you to know that I have very high hopes for and expectations from you and De Jun, who were the youngest participants in my workshop.
Second, as with Li Shan, I want to know if you wrote this play before my workshop or after it.
Third, you need to do a lot of work, and I want you to do it.
If this was your first play, it is a very good first play. It was written with truth, from the point of view of someone your age, and from your firsthand experience. One of the best things I can say about it is that it flowed smoothly, was not awkward, and had nothing embarrassing in it--nothing that would make your hairs stand on end ten years from now, for example.
On the surface your work seems to be about a gender issue. Looking deeper, I find that it is really about a man's Anima and his Shadow. I have observed that young writers will always author a Faustian work of their own, which is not a bad thing except that it demands exceptional maturity.
Here are my comments:
1. Please paginate your work.
2. Your point of attack: The real play begins on Page 8, when the crisis begins.
3. If magical appearances and disappearances occur in your play anyway, what is the point of having long, phone conversations between characters? I encountered this in three other plays, by the way--while I realize that this is the cell phone age, phone conversations are frequently used as an ineffective, onstage device to introduce a non-present, non-interactive, character in the scene.
In the same vein, why is it necessary for the characters to travel all the way to Batam when all of the action could take place inside the bedroom?
4. Dramatically, nothing is at stake with your protagonists. The issue should be a life-or-death, life-changing, earth-shaking one. BJORN's choice of KLAUS, for instance, seemed random--it appears that the boy is being used a substitute for a no-show. Shouldn't he have consciously and purposefully chosen KLAUS from the very beginning?
A) Gender and sexual preference are two different issues. The latter does not constitute dramatic subject matter. As I mentioned in our workshop, the choice between a hamburger sandwich and a hot dog sandwich is not a dramatic problem.
B) If there was anything untruthful in your work, it was naming your characters KLAUS, BJORN, and VERONIKA. I interpret this as an unwillingness to face the real issue not necessarily in your life but in your work by giving them names from a distant culture.
C) In the ancient Chinese culture, bisexuality was not a big thing. It did not lead to any kind of identity crisis. The last thing you want your audience to ask is, "So what?"
5. Choose your words for dialogue carefully. In one sentence, for example, you use the word "gait"--which is pronounced exactly like "gate" and could be understood to mean exactly that.
6. Develop your characters and make your audience LOVE them. Other than just being a beautiful, intelligent girl, WHY is VERONIKA important to KLAUS and WHY should he not be able to live without her?
Do the same for KLAUS from the point of view of VERONIKA.
And for BJORN from the points of view of both KLAUS and VERONIKA.
7. If BJORN is gay, then make him gay. Do not make him SOMEWHAT gay. Do not, as a matter of fact, make any character only SOMEWHAT anything. your characters should represent what is DEFINITE. Only then can real dramatic action begin.
8. Be able to distinguish between your defense mechanisms as a writer and the defense mechanisms of your characters.
I hope this was helpful to you.
Please, send me your revised work by e-mail as a Word document attachment.
Dear Gabriel,
First of all, I want you to know that I have very high hopes for and expectations from you and De Jun, who were the youngest participants in my workshop.
Second, as with Li Shan, I want to know if you wrote this play before my workshop or after it.
Third, you need to do a lot of work, and I want you to do it.
If this was your first play, it is a very good first play. It was written with truth, from the point of view of someone your age, and from your firsthand experience. One of the best things I can say about it is that it flowed smoothly, was not awkward, and had nothing embarrassing in it--nothing that would make your hairs stand on end ten years from now, for example.
On the surface your work seems to be about a gender issue. Looking deeper, I find that it is really about a man's Anima and his Shadow. I have observed that young writers will always author a Faustian work of their own, which is not a bad thing except that it demands exceptional maturity.
Here are my comments:
1. Please paginate your work.
2. Your point of attack: The real play begins on Page 8, when the crisis begins.
3. If magical appearances and disappearances occur in your play anyway, what is the point of having long, phone conversations between characters? I encountered this in three other plays, by the way--while I realize that this is the cell phone age, phone conversations are frequently used as an ineffective, onstage device to introduce a non-present, non-interactive, character in the scene.
In the same vein, why is it necessary for the characters to travel all the way to Batam when all of the action could take place inside the bedroom?
4. Dramatically, nothing is at stake with your protagonists. The issue should be a life-or-death, life-changing, earth-shaking one. BJORN's choice of KLAUS, for instance, seemed random--it appears that the boy is being used a substitute for a no-show. Shouldn't he have consciously and purposefully chosen KLAUS from the very beginning?
A) Gender and sexual preference are two different issues. The latter does not constitute dramatic subject matter. As I mentioned in our workshop, the choice between a hamburger sandwich and a hot dog sandwich is not a dramatic problem.
B) If there was anything untruthful in your work, it was naming your characters KLAUS, BJORN, and VERONIKA. I interpret this as an unwillingness to face the real issue not necessarily in your life but in your work by giving them names from a distant culture.
C) In the ancient Chinese culture, bisexuality was not a big thing. It did not lead to any kind of identity crisis. The last thing you want your audience to ask is, "So what?"
5. Choose your words for dialogue carefully. In one sentence, for example, you use the word "gait"--which is pronounced exactly like "gate" and could be understood to mean exactly that.
6. Develop your characters and make your audience LOVE them. Other than just being a beautiful, intelligent girl, WHY is VERONIKA important to KLAUS and WHY should he not be able to live without her?
Do the same for KLAUS from the point of view of VERONIKA.
And for BJORN from the points of view of both KLAUS and VERONIKA.
7. If BJORN is gay, then make him gay. Do not make him SOMEWHAT gay. Do not, as a matter of fact, make any character only SOMEWHAT anything. your characters should represent what is DEFINITE. Only then can real dramatic action begin.
8. Be able to distinguish between your defense mechanisms as a writer and the defense mechanisms of your characters.
I hope this was helpful to you.
Please, send me your revised work by e-mail as a Word document attachment.
Dramaturgy for Theatreworks Singapore
Mayura's Play: "Paper Thin"
Dear Mayura,
I sincerely appreciate your play for its interweaving of the creative writing process, real life, and fantasy. Beneath it all is the sensibility of a mature writer who wants to make a difference.
You will.
Others you may allow to read your play might tell you that it is cinematic. It is not; it is theatrical, albeit requiring swift scene changes and mesmerizing pacing.
Like Li Shan, you have chosen to break conventions by writing a post-postmodern play. Taking risks is a prerequisite to achieving breakthroughs.
Here are my comments:
1. Your play requires too many performers and too many production expenses; it even begins with a crowd scene. Is there no way for you to cut down foreseeable costs in mounting your short play?
One way to do this is to incorporate video. Unlike Beverly's play, which is extremely intimate and demands stark realism, the use of video would not be alienating to the audience.
2. Your play is really a series of vignettes rather than one, single play--it is actually comprised of three, interwoven stories. I assume that this is deliberate on your part? If so, strengthen the interweaving. Otherwise the audience will feel that you were unable to make up your mind among three disjointed plays with breakers.
3. Your characters are undeveloped. Give each one a past, a present, and a future--not necessarily in spoken words.
I perceive your play as a dance, The Dance of Shiva. I mention this to make you aware of the archetypal energy that must fuel a work such as yours, in which life is shown both to the author and to the audience as a mirror's reflection of a reflection of a reflection of a reflection...
Please, send me your revised manuscript by e-mail as a Word document attachment.
Dear Mayura,
I sincerely appreciate your play for its interweaving of the creative writing process, real life, and fantasy. Beneath it all is the sensibility of a mature writer who wants to make a difference.
You will.
Others you may allow to read your play might tell you that it is cinematic. It is not; it is theatrical, albeit requiring swift scene changes and mesmerizing pacing.
Like Li Shan, you have chosen to break conventions by writing a post-postmodern play. Taking risks is a prerequisite to achieving breakthroughs.
Here are my comments:
1. Your play requires too many performers and too many production expenses; it even begins with a crowd scene. Is there no way for you to cut down foreseeable costs in mounting your short play?
One way to do this is to incorporate video. Unlike Beverly's play, which is extremely intimate and demands stark realism, the use of video would not be alienating to the audience.
2. Your play is really a series of vignettes rather than one, single play--it is actually comprised of three, interwoven stories. I assume that this is deliberate on your part? If so, strengthen the interweaving. Otherwise the audience will feel that you were unable to make up your mind among three disjointed plays with breakers.
3. Your characters are undeveloped. Give each one a past, a present, and a future--not necessarily in spoken words.
I perceive your play as a dance, The Dance of Shiva. I mention this to make you aware of the archetypal energy that must fuel a work such as yours, in which life is shown both to the author and to the audience as a mirror's reflection of a reflection of a reflection of a reflection...
Please, send me your revised manuscript by e-mail as a Word document attachment.
Dramaturgy for Theatreworks Singapore
Hajar's Play: "Shadow & Bright"
Dear Hajar,
I was waiting to encounter this type of play--I knew that this form would crop up from one of the portfolios sooner or later.
Plays classified under Theater of the Absurd, such as those of Eugene Ionesco, are typical in First-World countries that are advanced in science and technology.
Your play is unique in that it is:
--a statement written from the perspective of ethnicity and a need for you to be a voice in the wilderness
--a commentary on technology, the environment, and the world's fate within a galactic context
--an interplay of parts of the human psyche.
The play you have chosen to write is difficult to develop primarily because your characters are not "human beings" but personifications of "ideas". Difficult, but not impossible.
I will not discourage you from writing in verse because I love your poetry and the way it serves as dialogue.
Here are the things you need to work on:
1. The action is not dramatic. You need to define and demonstrate the conflict between characters. In this play you have no choice but to show the conflict happening onstage.
2. It is the characters who should be threatening to one another--not the situation they are in.
3. Avoid subtlety if it only creates ambiguity. Otherwise the audience won't know what is going on and will easily get bored.
4. Do not walk into the trap of writing an absurd play that will come across as a schizoid work. Always be clear, always be assertive.
At this point I need to know how vivid your visualization of your play is. You will enjoy this exercise: Sketch the set and the costumes of your characters, scan them, and send them to me as attachments.
Also, draw a storyboard of your play delineating the major action and blocking of performers.
As for your revised manuscript, please, send it to me by e-mail as a Word document attachment.
This is a fun play with a serious message. Go for it!
Dear Hajar,
I was waiting to encounter this type of play--I knew that this form would crop up from one of the portfolios sooner or later.
Plays classified under Theater of the Absurd, such as those of Eugene Ionesco, are typical in First-World countries that are advanced in science and technology.
Your play is unique in that it is:
--a statement written from the perspective of ethnicity and a need for you to be a voice in the wilderness
--a commentary on technology, the environment, and the world's fate within a galactic context
--an interplay of parts of the human psyche.
The play you have chosen to write is difficult to develop primarily because your characters are not "human beings" but personifications of "ideas". Difficult, but not impossible.
I will not discourage you from writing in verse because I love your poetry and the way it serves as dialogue.
Here are the things you need to work on:
1. The action is not dramatic. You need to define and demonstrate the conflict between characters. In this play you have no choice but to show the conflict happening onstage.
2. It is the characters who should be threatening to one another--not the situation they are in.
3. Avoid subtlety if it only creates ambiguity. Otherwise the audience won't know what is going on and will easily get bored.
4. Do not walk into the trap of writing an absurd play that will come across as a schizoid work. Always be clear, always be assertive.
At this point I need to know how vivid your visualization of your play is. You will enjoy this exercise: Sketch the set and the costumes of your characters, scan them, and send them to me as attachments.
Also, draw a storyboard of your play delineating the major action and blocking of performers.
As for your revised manuscript, please, send it to me by e-mail as a Word document attachment.
This is a fun play with a serious message. Go for it!
Dramaturgy for Theatreworks Singapore
Li Shan's Play: "My Father and Myself: Conversations with My Father"
Dear Li Shan,
You have written a very powerful play. I am curious to know whether you wrote this after I gave you an emotional truth exercise or whether this is something you'd written long before you met me.
I want you to stick to your guns with this play. It is what producers would call a "risk". If staged successfully, however, it will give birth to:
--a new dimension of acting
--a new form of directing
--possible re-definitions of what a play is or is not as a result of your authoring a dramatic conversation as opposed to a "proper" play.
Your play requires superb actors to pull it off because of the violent and vibrant emotional movements beneath an apparently static situation--quite daunting, but I know that Theatreworks can help you there.
Here are the steps you should take from here:
1. Your title "My Father and Myself: Conversations with My Father" has redundancy. Why not go simply with "Conversations with My Father"? It would underscore the simplicity of your title vis-a-vis the complexity of your work.
2. Take a man and a woman, preferably an actor and an actress who are willing to help you, and get together for an informal reading. Do not get a man and a woman who personally know you.
This reading will help you see which passages can be trimmed or done away with. Your play may run too long for the kind of form you have chosen. As you already know emotions can be very stressful and draining.
Your play is a coiled snake. It addresses father-daughter relationships, Chinese customs and traditions, and your deep, philosophical insights on life, death, and suffering.
Let us see what happens when the snake awakens and uncoils.
Please, send me your revised or updated manuscript to my e-mail address as a Word document attachment.
Dear Li Shan,
You have written a very powerful play. I am curious to know whether you wrote this after I gave you an emotional truth exercise or whether this is something you'd written long before you met me.
I want you to stick to your guns with this play. It is what producers would call a "risk". If staged successfully, however, it will give birth to:
--a new dimension of acting
--a new form of directing
--possible re-definitions of what a play is or is not as a result of your authoring a dramatic conversation as opposed to a "proper" play.
Your play requires superb actors to pull it off because of the violent and vibrant emotional movements beneath an apparently static situation--quite daunting, but I know that Theatreworks can help you there.
Here are the steps you should take from here:
1. Your title "My Father and Myself: Conversations with My Father" has redundancy. Why not go simply with "Conversations with My Father"? It would underscore the simplicity of your title vis-a-vis the complexity of your work.
2. Take a man and a woman, preferably an actor and an actress who are willing to help you, and get together for an informal reading. Do not get a man and a woman who personally know you.
This reading will help you see which passages can be trimmed or done away with. Your play may run too long for the kind of form you have chosen. As you already know emotions can be very stressful and draining.
Your play is a coiled snake. It addresses father-daughter relationships, Chinese customs and traditions, and your deep, philosophical insights on life, death, and suffering.
Let us see what happens when the snake awakens and uncoils.
Please, send me your revised or updated manuscript to my e-mail address as a Word document attachment.
Dramaturgy for Theatreworks Singapore
Ellie's Play: "Birdrocks"
Hello Ellie,
You have written quite a charming, children's/pre-teens' play that works on two levels: the first a story that a non-adult audience can relate with; the second a symbolic parallel between caged bird and caged woman that an adult audience can comprehend and appreciate. I see further value in the work--at this point in human development, writers need to provide, by means of plays such as these, modern mythologies that will keep our children in touch with values that ancient mythos cannot provide when it is perceived as being already too remote.
Having said these, you need to work on the following:
1. "Birdrock" rather than "Birdrocks" seems to be a more appropriate title.
2. Only KATHRYN is a well-rounded character in this play. NEWTON and KEVIN seem to be mere foils or sounding-boards. As a matter of fact, if I take the play as is, NEWTON, the husband, can be completely eliminated leaving only mother and son onstage. The only reason we see him onstage is merely to show a complete family unit.
It might help if you did away with KATHRYN's tape recorder and make her physically address, instead, her husband.
3. CARL and ALBA manifest only as voices. Theatrically, NEWTON and KATHRYN can play those roles onstage by wearing masks or adding on pieces of clothing such as scarves or hats.
Disembodied voices are absolutely non-dramatic ploys.
4. Your point of attack is good; your dramatic change faulty.
Refer to page 12 of your manuscript. There is an abrupt, unexplained change from the phobic KATHRYN to the mature KATHRYN. Her long passage of reflection is not enough--that is more appropriate for the genre of the essay rather than the stage play. We need to SEE a change occurring in the character.
On the stage, therefore, SOMETHING SHOULD HAPPEN, with something important at stake. The only entry point that is open to you as a playwright is for something to happen to KEVIN, a character whom your protagonist loves, and for KATHRYN to see herself in KEVIN, in order to move toward that change.
Bear in mind that, no matter which theatrical style you choose--a puppet play, a musical, poetic realism, impressionism, expressionism--all of the characters should be AS REAL as the actual people around you.
5. Avoid over-articulating statements; credit your audience with the intelligence to understand everything you have presented them. For instance, do not summarize the ending as you did:
KATHRYN. Ginger has reconnected me with myself. It's been a healing time for me. Ginger has helped me to release Coco. Ginger and Coco. Feather and wings. Yep! Ginger makes for an exciting day.
That passage is unnecessary because you have already demonstrated it onstage.
Your play is very promising, and would come out as a colorful, exciting production. I am sure you have the stamina to revise it accordingly.
I hope that this is helpful to you.
Please, send me your revised or updated manuscript to my e-mail address as a Word document attachment.
Hello Ellie,
You have written quite a charming, children's/pre-teens' play that works on two levels: the first a story that a non-adult audience can relate with; the second a symbolic parallel between caged bird and caged woman that an adult audience can comprehend and appreciate. I see further value in the work--at this point in human development, writers need to provide, by means of plays such as these, modern mythologies that will keep our children in touch with values that ancient mythos cannot provide when it is perceived as being already too remote.
Having said these, you need to work on the following:
1. "Birdrock" rather than "Birdrocks" seems to be a more appropriate title.
2. Only KATHRYN is a well-rounded character in this play. NEWTON and KEVIN seem to be mere foils or sounding-boards. As a matter of fact, if I take the play as is, NEWTON, the husband, can be completely eliminated leaving only mother and son onstage. The only reason we see him onstage is merely to show a complete family unit.
It might help if you did away with KATHRYN's tape recorder and make her physically address, instead, her husband.
3. CARL and ALBA manifest only as voices. Theatrically, NEWTON and KATHRYN can play those roles onstage by wearing masks or adding on pieces of clothing such as scarves or hats.
Disembodied voices are absolutely non-dramatic ploys.
4. Your point of attack is good; your dramatic change faulty.
Refer to page 12 of your manuscript. There is an abrupt, unexplained change from the phobic KATHRYN to the mature KATHRYN. Her long passage of reflection is not enough--that is more appropriate for the genre of the essay rather than the stage play. We need to SEE a change occurring in the character.
On the stage, therefore, SOMETHING SHOULD HAPPEN, with something important at stake. The only entry point that is open to you as a playwright is for something to happen to KEVIN, a character whom your protagonist loves, and for KATHRYN to see herself in KEVIN, in order to move toward that change.
Bear in mind that, no matter which theatrical style you choose--a puppet play, a musical, poetic realism, impressionism, expressionism--all of the characters should be AS REAL as the actual people around you.
5. Avoid over-articulating statements; credit your audience with the intelligence to understand everything you have presented them. For instance, do not summarize the ending as you did:
KATHRYN. Ginger has reconnected me with myself. It's been a healing time for me. Ginger has helped me to release Coco. Ginger and Coco. Feather and wings. Yep! Ginger makes for an exciting day.
That passage is unnecessary because you have already demonstrated it onstage.
Your play is very promising, and would come out as a colorful, exciting production. I am sure you have the stamina to revise it accordingly.
I hope that this is helpful to you.
Please, send me your revised or updated manuscript to my e-mail address as a Word document attachment.
Saturday, September 20, 2014
Dramaturgy for Theatreworks Singapore
Beverly's Play: "Letting Go"
Dear Beverly,
I enjoyed reading the first draft of your play until the last scene, which I found dark, disturbing, depressing, perhaps a trifle perverse. I felt that you may have been bored with your manuscript at that point and wanted to give your play an unusual, off-beat ending. It was, however, out of character for your protagonists. Go through your play in your mind again and allow your characters to author their story for themselves.
Also consider that no one in the audience should ever leave the theater with an unpleasant aftertaste. They will probably say that they shouldn't have paid all that money just to go and watch a play that let them down.
Other than the ending, you have a diamond in the rough that can be cut and polished to perfection. Your dialogue is smooth, lyrical, and witty, and you were able to achieve excellent tension between your characters. There were times when your play flowed like a discussion play by George Bernard Shaw or Oscar Wilde, the difference being that your play is not about social norms but about relationships.
Here are my suggestions, which I believe you should work on:
1. Your title is a paradox. It is really not about letting go.
2. Overall structure: This is really a long, one-act play like August Strindberg's Miss Julie rather than a play in four acts; the main characters go through only one, major, dramatic change, and that is at the end of the play.
Consider having ALL characters onstage ALL OF THE TIME rather than using entrances, exits, and blackouts. The performers can "revolve" around the stage as though on a carousel; whoever is not in the scene remains physically on the scene, in the background, rather than offstage.
3. Your point of attack: Consider cutting Act 1, Scene 1 and begin, instead, with Scene 2.
Scene 2 can also segue directly to Scene 3 rather than having both as separate scenes. This is applicable to many of your scenes, such as Act 2, Scene 1 and Scene 2A; and Act 3, Scenes 1 and 2.
Do NOT break up your scenes with too many changes and too many blackouts--this manages only to ruin the dramatic tension that you've already created.
4. One slap is enough; more than that is abusive.
5. Make three copies of your manuscript and ask two men and a woman to actually read your script aloud. You may record their reading or take notes. You will find that each reader not only will change the rhythm of their dialogue but also certain words, which is a good thing. Although you write excellent dialogue, your characters tend to speak too much alike using the same vocabulary.
6. Cut the video clip, Act 2 Scene 2B. It is an unnecessary, technological intrusion that will alienate your audience and destroy their suspension of disbelief.
7. Why name the husband DAN rather than HUSBAND if you are naming the woman GIRL and the ex-boyfriend MAN?
8. In the scenes where the MAN agonizes due to his illness, are you sure that you have your cancer symptoms right? Cancer of what? The MAN could be having an influenza attack for all the audience knows.
9. Avoid jump-starting a scene with questions such as "How was your day?"
Do not work too many questions into your dialogue--the entire scene will sound too much like an interview.
10. Cut Act 3 Scene 3 in toto. The death scene is best done offstage because it is too melodramatic. The MAN can simply exit from the stage to indicate that he passed away.
11. You have too may quotations from other people's poetry and from The Little Prince. Retain only what you feel is sufficient to establish what you mean to impart.
Similarly, once you have imparted something, do not repeat it elsewhere--your audience then receives superfluous information. Practice economy--cut and cut until every word is "un-cuttable."
12. Check whether your telephone scenes actually work. Telephone scenes are most undramatic--and shut out other characters onstage.
13. Should you wish to develop this play into a full-length play, you have the option of adding the fourth, absent, character--the MAN's WIFE.
14. A rule of thumb to follow: In this kind of play, all of the characters are protagonists. Your audience should sympathize with all of them. No one should suddenly turn unexpectedly "evil" in the end; that might work for a horror short story, but not for your play.
15. Trim, trim, trim. Example, you could cut all of the following opening of Act 4, Scene 1:
DAN (Looks up from reading a magazine). You're back.
GIRL. Yeah. (Leaves trolley bag luggage at door. Stands there awhile looking at DAN. Not sure what to do with herself.)
DAN. You must be tired. Why don't you sit down...
GIRL. (Walks slowly and sits on a chair. Looks lost, doesn't try to make conversation with DAN.)
Instead, why not just begin the scene with your next line:
DAN. (Drinks from a can of beer.) Here, have some, you probably need it.
I hope that these comments are useful to you. Don't act or react immediately. Mull over everything I've said for a few days. And then make an effort to re-read your work through my perspective.
Please, send me your revision to my e-mail address as a Word document attachment on short-size paper format.
Dear Beverly,
I enjoyed reading the first draft of your play until the last scene, which I found dark, disturbing, depressing, perhaps a trifle perverse. I felt that you may have been bored with your manuscript at that point and wanted to give your play an unusual, off-beat ending. It was, however, out of character for your protagonists. Go through your play in your mind again and allow your characters to author their story for themselves.
Also consider that no one in the audience should ever leave the theater with an unpleasant aftertaste. They will probably say that they shouldn't have paid all that money just to go and watch a play that let them down.
Other than the ending, you have a diamond in the rough that can be cut and polished to perfection. Your dialogue is smooth, lyrical, and witty, and you were able to achieve excellent tension between your characters. There were times when your play flowed like a discussion play by George Bernard Shaw or Oscar Wilde, the difference being that your play is not about social norms but about relationships.
Here are my suggestions, which I believe you should work on:
1. Your title is a paradox. It is really not about letting go.
2. Overall structure: This is really a long, one-act play like August Strindberg's Miss Julie rather than a play in four acts; the main characters go through only one, major, dramatic change, and that is at the end of the play.
Consider having ALL characters onstage ALL OF THE TIME rather than using entrances, exits, and blackouts. The performers can "revolve" around the stage as though on a carousel; whoever is not in the scene remains physically on the scene, in the background, rather than offstage.
3. Your point of attack: Consider cutting Act 1, Scene 1 and begin, instead, with Scene 2.
Scene 2 can also segue directly to Scene 3 rather than having both as separate scenes. This is applicable to many of your scenes, such as Act 2, Scene 1 and Scene 2A; and Act 3, Scenes 1 and 2.
Do NOT break up your scenes with too many changes and too many blackouts--this manages only to ruin the dramatic tension that you've already created.
4. One slap is enough; more than that is abusive.
5. Make three copies of your manuscript and ask two men and a woman to actually read your script aloud. You may record their reading or take notes. You will find that each reader not only will change the rhythm of their dialogue but also certain words, which is a good thing. Although you write excellent dialogue, your characters tend to speak too much alike using the same vocabulary.
6. Cut the video clip, Act 2 Scene 2B. It is an unnecessary, technological intrusion that will alienate your audience and destroy their suspension of disbelief.
7. Why name the husband DAN rather than HUSBAND if you are naming the woman GIRL and the ex-boyfriend MAN?
8. In the scenes where the MAN agonizes due to his illness, are you sure that you have your cancer symptoms right? Cancer of what? The MAN could be having an influenza attack for all the audience knows.
9. Avoid jump-starting a scene with questions such as "How was your day?"
Do not work too many questions into your dialogue--the entire scene will sound too much like an interview.
10. Cut Act 3 Scene 3 in toto. The death scene is best done offstage because it is too melodramatic. The MAN can simply exit from the stage to indicate that he passed away.
11. You have too may quotations from other people's poetry and from The Little Prince. Retain only what you feel is sufficient to establish what you mean to impart.
Similarly, once you have imparted something, do not repeat it elsewhere--your audience then receives superfluous information. Practice economy--cut and cut until every word is "un-cuttable."
12. Check whether your telephone scenes actually work. Telephone scenes are most undramatic--and shut out other characters onstage.
13. Should you wish to develop this play into a full-length play, you have the option of adding the fourth, absent, character--the MAN's WIFE.
14. A rule of thumb to follow: In this kind of play, all of the characters are protagonists. Your audience should sympathize with all of them. No one should suddenly turn unexpectedly "evil" in the end; that might work for a horror short story, but not for your play.
15. Trim, trim, trim. Example, you could cut all of the following opening of Act 4, Scene 1:
DAN (Looks up from reading a magazine). You're back.
GIRL. Yeah. (Leaves trolley bag luggage at door. Stands there awhile looking at DAN. Not sure what to do with herself.)
DAN. You must be tired. Why don't you sit down...
GIRL. (Walks slowly and sits on a chair. Looks lost, doesn't try to make conversation with DAN.)
Instead, why not just begin the scene with your next line:
DAN. (Drinks from a can of beer.) Here, have some, you probably need it.
I hope that these comments are useful to you. Don't act or react immediately. Mull over everything I've said for a few days. And then make an effort to re-read your work through my perspective.
Please, send me your revision to my e-mail address as a Word document attachment on short-size paper format.
Friday, September 19, 2014
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
12 Singaporean Playwrights
Dear Beverly, De Jun, Ellie, Gabriel, Hajar, Helmi, Li Shan, Mayura, Rachel, Samantha, Serene, and Zoe:
May you re-read this message many years from now and look back fondly at the road not taken, now taken.
This is not a competition. Everyone is in, and no one will be eliminated. I will work with you through the staging of your plays.
Expect my first posts a week from now.
At all times, remember my handknitting tip grafted onto my playwriting: the secret in producing an exquisite masterpiece is your willingess to unravel and start a work over and over again.
Most of you sent me your manuscripts as pdf attachments. Henceforth, please send your revised manuscripts as Word document attachments, so that I can insert notes and highlight passages as necessary.
Your co-adventurer,
Tony
May you re-read this message many years from now and look back fondly at the road not taken, now taken.
This is not a competition. Everyone is in, and no one will be eliminated. I will work with you through the staging of your plays.
Expect my first posts a week from now.
At all times, remember my handknitting tip grafted onto my playwriting: the secret in producing an exquisite masterpiece is your willingess to unravel and start a work over and over again.
Most of you sent me your manuscripts as pdf attachments. Henceforth, please send your revised manuscripts as Word document attachments, so that I can insert notes and highlight passages as necessary.
Your co-adventurer,
Tony
12 Singaporean Playwrights
I now have 13 drafts of one-act plays from 12 emerging Singaporean playwrights. I have been tasked by their Singaporean theater company to dramaturg these plays "from page to stage." Our working deadline is December 31, 2014.
At the moment, I await approval from six of the 12 playwrights for me to dramaturg their plays on this blog, for everyone to see.
These playwrights were among the participants of my "Writing from The Heart" workshop held in Singapore in the middle of this year.
The objectives of this long-range project are:
--to develop playwrights whom the theater company can introduce to the public as a new wave of Singaporean playwrights.
--to develop works for production.
--to produce the works of the playwrights in trilogies, whether as full productions or as readings.
--to guide the playwrights in developing and polishing their works from the writing phase through actual production.
At the moment, I await approval from six of the 12 playwrights for me to dramaturg their plays on this blog, for everyone to see.
These playwrights were among the participants of my "Writing from The Heart" workshop held in Singapore in the middle of this year.
The objectives of this long-range project are:
--to develop playwrights whom the theater company can introduce to the public as a new wave of Singaporean playwrights.
--to develop works for production.
--to produce the works of the playwrights in trilogies, whether as full productions or as readings.
--to guide the playwrights in developing and polishing their works from the writing phase through actual production.
Monday, September 15, 2014
"Writing from The Heart" Workshop for Elementary and High School News Writers of Marinduque
This workshop was organized by the Department of Education and the Philippine Information Agency in Marinduque. The participants were elementary and high school news writers from the six municipalities of Marinduque. School advisers and parents observed this workshop.
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