Writing from The Heart: Dramaturgy for TheatreWorks Singapore: Helmi

Writing from The Heart

"Writing from The Heart" is a workshop on creative writing, creative drawing, and creative drama. There are three available versions of this workshop: one for beginners on the secondary, tertiary, and graduate levels, and another for practitioners. A third version of this workshop is designed as an outreach program to disadvantaged and underserved audiences such as the disabled, the poor and the marginalized, victims of human trafficking, battered women and abused children, drug rehabilitation center residents, child combatants, children in conflict with the law, prisoners, and gang leaders. This third version incorporates creativity and problem awareness, conflict resolution, crisis intervention, trauma therapy, and peacemaking.

Friday, January 23, 2015

Dramaturgy for TheatreWorks Singapore: Helmi

"My Father Wears Bras"

Hi Helmi!

I enjoyed reading your play. Comedy is your forte. This would make a wonderful twin-biller along with "My Mother Buys Condoms", in the sequence in which you wrote them: "Mother" first, followed by "Father". The result would be a theatrical diptych that would comprise a pleasant evening for the audience.

I have a few comments:

--The title is written from the point of view of SON, but SON is absent from the stage most of the time. He is one-dimensional and only serves as a foil to provide plot tension.

--"PLU" (in the Philippines anyway) means "People Like Us", not "People Like You".

--The ending is quite unfinished--perhaps because you didn't know exactly how to end the play? There is closure for BA and SU, but no sufficient dramatic change for SON and JAC. They go back to Square One--a no-no in dramatic writing.

I hope you are able to re-work this play. Afterward, send a copy of BOTH "Mother" and "Father" to TheatreWorks.