Dramaturgy for TheatreWorks: Helmi

The Globetrotter

Hi Helmi! I enjoyed reading your play. Here are my comments:

Scene "17. Singapore":

--I realize that the play is set some 20 years or more back in time, but, except for indications in the dialogue, it will come across to the audience as a contemporary play.
--The protagonist is underage and cannot be employed in a hotel.
--The dialogue in this scene, as in all succeeding scenes, is comprised of the interview or question-and-answer format, which you use mainly for exposition. As such, nothing dramatic is going on.
--Page 6, Line 23 onward, in contemporary hotels, staff members are trained to not touch guests and to not be touched by guests. They are trained to leave a room immediately after a hotel service has been performed. These staff members undergo rigorous training in human rights and anti-human trafficking. Guests are never right to demand extraneous services from the staff members; the staff members have every right to refuse and report anything unusual to their supervisors.
--Page 8, Lines 18 - 23, it is not acceptable for a hotel guest to phone in sick for a staff member. It is the staff member's duty to do so and report either by phone or in person to his supervisor.
--Page 9, Line 38 is when the play really begins. This is your point of attack. You can cut everything else in the previous pages.

Scene "22. Paris":

--The scene begins with a flow of action that takes the characters from an elevator through a corridor and then to a room. There need not be such a complex setting for a minor scene--unless you were writing this originally for a movie.
--All of the introductory scenes, as a matter of fact, can be compressed into monologues.
--Remember that, in drama, foreplay is history. Your characters walk in as close as possible to the orgasm.

Scene "33. Tokyo":
--Page 20, Lines 11 - 19 are perplexing and unnecessary.

Scene "39. Stockholm":
--Pages 21 - 22, another long, non-dramatic interview episode in the service of mere exposition.
--The post-coital scenes get boring by this time. There is really nothing new, and it is such a waste of energy considering that we are already on Page 23.
--Pages 24 - 25, another, over-used, interview episode.

Scene "45. Hong Kong":
--Pages 26 - 27, as with my previous comment.
--Stop and read the plays of Anton Chekov. He almost never uses question-and-answer passages in his dialogue.
--Scene 3, Pages 29 - 30, revise this scene. This time around, do not use questions or any line with question marks.

Scene "58. New York":
--Scene 1, pp 31 - 35, yet more question-and-answer dialogue! The dramatic action is static, and cannot be justified, because the dramatic change is highly internal and contingent on shallow encounters with supporting characters in walk-on roles.
--This is the one scene in which there should be an evident rise in dramatic action and a phenomenological change in the protagonist's character, yet you only suggest it in the last line of the scene.

Scene "Moscow":
--This is the most effective scene of all, and it is a monologue that engages not the walk-on characters but the audience.
--I suspect that you were really influenced by the "love letters" play format, which you subconsciously wanted to adapt to a "sex letters" format.

Scene "71. Singapore":
--And you are back to Qs and As again!

Scene 74. Singapore":
--This is really a movie postscript that is totally unfair to the actor/protagonist because he is excluded from it altogether.

In summary:

--Your dialogue is hampered by your tendency to use a question-and-answer approach, as though your scenes were television talk shows. Remember that characters talk because they need to say something, not because someone asks them a series of questions.
--Your play is about a boy who was seduced at the age of 17 and develops into an international call boy in different cities round the world. He is a willing victim of human trafficking, a voluntary prostitute, and promiscuous.
--Your play is more suited for a movie than for the stage.
--It is not necessary to go to Paris, New York, Stockholm, et cetera to get to the point.

I hope these have been helpful to you. It was a joy to read your original insights on sex, sexuality, attitudes to sex, and your after-sex reflections. I'm not joking. You should write an entire book, in prose, about them.