Dramaturgy for TheatreWorks: "The Promise" by Ivan

Hello Ivan!

Thank you for completing your play. When I read it this time around, it came across as poignant and lyrical.

Here are my comments:

1) Scene 1, Page 1: Second to the Last Line: Change "It is dramatic!" to "It is melodramatic!' (Or tacky, or kitschy, or artificial, not dramatic).

2) Proofread your dialogue well. Some examples: You wrote "worst than" rather than "worse than", "loose" rather than "lose", and "Flashback to today" rather than "Flashforward to today".

3) In any script, don't write "What the f**?" Spell the word out. Otherwise the performer will pronounce the line as "What the F-Asterisk-Asterisk?"

4) In an early scene Andy says he is straight rather than gay. He was lying, then?

5) Scene 14 employs a flashback technique that does not go with the rest of the play. I suggest that you convert this scene to a video.

Additional comments:

1) You need highly credible performers for this play, but I am sure that your director will find them, because Singapore has many, talented actors and actresses.

2) The production is best held inside a cafe, with the audience seated round cafe tables and actually eating dinner. And with real waters going round between scenes.

3) This might be classified as an "Adults Only" play.

4) Your prospective producers could be groups like Pink Dot. HOWEVER, go over your play and decide what it is actually saying about gay culture.

If you are satisfied with the state that your play is in (I know that you mulled over it and reworked it several times), clean it up and submit it to TheatreWorks for a staged reading. While its audience is restricted, I found it very enjoyable, and I liked the interactions between the male characters and the one female character in your cast.

Dramaturgy for TheatreWorks Singapore: _Final Call_ by Timothy

Hello Tim! (Still unable to call you Yam because the name reminds me of purple yams, which I like for dessert.)

Congratulations on completing a brillant and insightful play! TheatreWorks wll certainly give it a staged reading, but if they won't give it a full production and if you have theatre friends in San Francisco, New York, or Melbourne, I urge you to test the waters in those places. Travel by air--and all kinds of human movement involving bureaucracy, for that matter--has become a worldwide nightmare. Your play pushes it over the edge and converts it to a devastating night terror.

I agree that the play takes on different dimensions depending on whether the AIRLINE REP is a man or a woman. The REP, to me anyway, is best played by a man in order to function as a counterfoil to JONES, who is a man. Having said that, the entire play is a director's delight: it can be played by clowns in costume, it can be played by marionettes, and the set could be anything from nothing to black-and-white to a high-tech affair.

Consider "I'm coming home soon" instead of "I'm coming home now" as the penultimate line of the play. It is more intriguing and suggests further unpredictability.

Do a final clean-up before submitting your play to TheatreWorks. Trim it as best you can. Like Nanda's and Danial's plays, your play is LONG, and the sad reality about theatre in the 21st century is that audiences (and producers) are less and less willing to sit through protracted productions. Indeed, gone are the days of the hao-kah, which played from sunset through sunrise.

Dramaturgy for TheatreWorks Singapore: _Two Halves Make A Hole_ by Danial

Hello Danial!

First of all, congratulations for providing the well-thought-out and well-located additions to your play.

I suggest that you rephrase passages that have question-and-answer dialogue. Characters speak because of a NEED to speak, not because someone asked them a question and they have to provide an answer.

Do a final trim before submitting this play to TheatreWorks. After they assign your play to a director, he or she will most certainly make cuts due to the constraint of running time. As I advised Nanda regarding his play, you might as well do the initial cuts yourself rather than disagree with what the director decides to cut later.

Other than those, good work!

I hope that I will be in Singapore to watch the staged reading of your play.

Dramaturgy for TheatreWorks Singapore: _Satamilla_ by Aswani

Hello Aswani!

You've done a substantial amount of work on your play. The scenes are more stageable, the characters are more real, and you have the gift of writing compelling dialogue.

Just a few more comments on this draft:

1) Scene 3 seems underwritten. Make an effort to have all your scenes balanced--in content and in length. You also need to justify YOUNGER SUSEELA's presence. The audience won't know what's going on.

2) The presence of YOUNGER SUSEELA in succeeding scenes is also perplexing and apparently unjustified.

3) Each of your scenes is dynamic, but always be careful not to push the dramatic to the melodramatic.

4) Scene 7 is disjointed because you wrote this in chunks rather than allow the scene to write itself. Never think in terms of fragments--you will only end up with Procrustean, stilted results.

Same comment for Scene 12.

Whenever you are unable to follow a scene through, ask yourself whether the scene is evoking emotional truth within you. Go with the emotion; don't fight it off or block it. Remember our lesson on the defense mechanisms. You need to drop your defenses and allow yourself to be vulnerable in order to be an effective playwright.

5) Go through your stage directions again for clarity and economy. For instance, instead of writing "He returns back", just write "He returns". 

6) Scene 9 is static. You could bring it to life by giving cause for SANJEEVAN to have a breakdown. Externalize his internal conflict.

7) In Scene 10, well into the play, the presence of YOUNG SUSEELA is still unclear and apparently useless.

8) In Scene 12, for the first time the character YOUNG SANJEEVAN appears. Work him into the earlier scenes. Develop a dramatic, albeit metaphysical, relationship between YOUNG SUSEELA and YOUNG SANJEEVAN if possible. If you can swing this, your play will be truly masterful.

9) In the entire script, always identify YOUNG SANJEEVAN as YOUNG SANJEEVAN and not as SANJEEVAN.

10) Scene 13. I love your death meditation!

11) Scene 14 (B) is also underwritten. The symbolism of the peacock feather is lost unless a significant reference to it is made in a previous scene.

12) Scene 17. The ending of your play is too abrupt--almost as though you were afraid to touch it. Provide catharsis for your audience. You owe it to them. An elegy in which all of the characters (including SUSEELA) rise to address the audience is one solution. It is also the best time and opportunity for the voices of YOUNG SUSEELA and YOUNG SANJEEVAN to be heard. An alternative is to give the entire elegy to SANJEEVAN.

Be persistent, be tenacious, and always keep in mind that producing a work of literary art, like a huge tapestry, needs time and patience. Every color and every thread must fall in place.

I look forward to receiving the next draft of your play.