It is impossible to prevent other people from reading any piece of writing.

It is equally impossible to tell a writer what he should write.

A writer without a personal worldview, no matter how much you'd disagree with it, is not worth reading.

Dramaturgy for TheatreWorks Singapore: Gabriel

"We Fell In A Marathon"

Hello Gabriel!

This version of your play is so much better, and so much more effective, than the first.

Your point of attack is perfect. Dramatic action begins and moves on swiftly.

Dialogue: It is Anthony who is the poet. Be wary of how the other characters speak. On Page 2, Fifth Line from Bottom, for instance, Mr. Seow says, "It's either you submitting to me or that." In a normal situation, a man would blurt out spontaneously, "Give me what I want!" or "Give it to me!" (Or something more explicit than that.) There is something primal about your subject matter, represented by Mr. Seow, and he should speak accordingly.

You have cleverly gotten rid of cell phone conversations. Congratulations.

I commend your work because it has become more honest and more emotionally truthful. It is no longer hampered by the masks and disguises that you endowed the first version with.

There is, however, more work to be done:

--You need to develop all three characters, particularly their historicity: Where are they coming from? Where are they going? What do they really want? Otherwise the audience will find it extremely difficult to sympathize with any one of them. This will make your play longer and fuller.

--Your ending is ambiguous. The ending should give closure to all three characters, not just Anthony. The audience will also want to see, comprehend, and understand what is in the letter.

You've stepped from the shore into the water. Now go for the deep end.

Write and paint because you MUST, without thinking of how much money you can immediately or eventually make out of your work.

Writing for money and painting for money change the quality not only of your work, but of your artistic soul.

There is really only one way to improve your writing or your drawing by leaps and bounds, and that is to practice it eight hours a day.

When writing or drawing, the hand of your teacher should never be evident.

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.

Dramaturgy for TheatreWorks Singapore: Mayura

"Paper Thin"

Hello Mayura!

I enjoyed reading this version of your play. It is tighter and clearer, though still heavily dependent on technological aids. It is, however, a nice poem-for-performance and a commentary on gender, reality and stage reality, and unreality.

Go for a reading at this point, and listen to how the dialogue flows.

You may submit this to TheatreWorks after you are satisfied.

Dramaturgy for TheatreWorks Singapore: A Message for All

Hello Playwrights!

Just a short message I'd been meaning to impart but kept neglecting to:

While I dramaturge your work, I do NOT proofread it for spelling, grammar, syntax, and idiomatic sense. All these should be clarified and corrected during the reading, rehearsals, and final production, and only after then should you work on encoding a definitive, publication-ready copy.

Dramaturgy for TheatreWorks Singapore: De Jun

"My Promise to My Animal Tamer"

Hello De Jun!

I enjoyed reading your play. It is very poignant and unusually mature (considering that you are just 16, I mean).

Here are my comments:

--It is difficult to cast a ten-year-old child in a play for various reasons. Be prepared to have the role played by a young man onstage.

--Incorporate more stage directions and scene descriptions. This should make clear to you where action takes place and how characters transit from one scene to the other, especially if they have to change or add items to their costumes. The director and the scene designer may or may not envision the play as you do, but at least you should proffer yours while they are reading it for the first time.

--Your ending is abrupt. It should give closure to all three characters. I suggest that each character be given a monologue that addresses either the audience or themselves.

Please sned me back the play with a fuller ending.

A good disposable pen that can substitute for a fountain pen--because its ink is highly fluid--is Pilot V Ball Extra Fine.

Be careful, though--it has a fragile nib and gets ruined when you drop it on its nib or apply too much pressure.

A writer is also a reader and, as a reader, should be able to peruse another's work and tell, by the writing, whether the author was healthy or ill, sated or hungry, focused or distressed, merely by means of the passage of writing. A reader should also be able to tell which of the myriad of emotions was dominating the writer's heart.

Reading is one of the best exercises in writing.

A writer who paints will prefer to hold his brush like a pen.

When a writer rests, he reads.

As in painting and in cooking, teaching students all of your creative writing secrets and techniques is no assurance that they will write the way you do, for the very reason that they have inherent, individual styles.

Dramaturgy for TheatreWorks Singapore: Beverly (Four-Character Version)

"Untitled"
Version with four characters

Hello again Beverly!

This version seemed more promising because you present not only two kinds of men but two kinds of women. However, the Wife is underdeveloped and simply drops out toward the middle of the play. I realize that it will take a lot of work to flesh her out and carry her over through the end--and making this a long, full-length play--and so let us go with the version that has only three characters. It is tight and complete, and does not have the melodramatic flair that the addition of the Wife gives us.

For I now realize that this play is not about any of your past loves.

This play is about your two real lovers: Lucre (Dan) and Literature (Man), and how you are constantly torn between making money and living a comfortable life and following your heart and barely surviving.

Indeed, please prepare a clean copy of the three-character version and submit it to TheatreWorks Singapore.

Dramaturgy for TheatreWorks Singapore: Beverly (Three-Character Version)

"Untitled"
Version with three characters

Hi Beverly!

I will read the version with four characters in a while.

In the meantime here are my comments on this version:

--The play is excellent. It is a thorough and mature articulation of love between adults in relationships and a serious attempt to arrive at a definition of love.

--Page 5, Line 13: The line is not too extreme. It is, actually, your point of attack.

--Page 7, Line 9: Not contrived.

--Page 8, Line 13: The alternate wording is better.

--Page 31, Line 2: It will become evident during the performers' reading, which is when a playwright adjusts his dialogue, but always be alert to theatrical phraseology. Your line "Besides your art" will not project well inside a theater. Rewriting it to "Aside from your art" will. Recite the two and hear the difference.

--Page 56, Lines 1 - 4: Delete.

--Page 62, Lines 9 - 10: Dialogue is better as opposed to mimicry. Mimicry does not go with Dan's character.

--End of play: Beautiful! The first ending is so much better; the second, lame.

You may proceed to make these changes and present a clean copy to TheatreWorks Singapore.

Dramaturgy for TheatreWorks Singapore: Serene

"Together Apart"

Hello Serene!

I enjoyed reading your tragicomedy, a contemporary commentary on the expectations of two generations. Your play works because, despite the veneer of casualness, you sustain a dramatic tension all throughout, and it is a demonstration of the playwright as thinker of society, in this case, Singaporean society.

Your use of screens for presenting news headlines and mobile information is profuse; however, I like the eventual use of the screen as a shadow-play screen as counterpoint, for it underscores the theatrical differences between two generations.

"Together Apart" is ready for turning over to TheatreWorks Singapore for a staged reading.

Having said all of that, you should take care that your future works take the turn of drama rather than melodrama.

Dramaturgy for TheatreWorks Singapore: Samantha

"The Whole Package"

Hello Samantha!

Your work in progress is certainly a far cry from the draft you first submitted. Proceed with it. Ensure that your acts are symmetrical. Ensure that all of your characters are well-rounded; don't relegate Melissa and Stephen to supporting roles.

Be very careful with your dialogue. People don't talk the way writers write. They hardly talk in complete and idiomatic sentences. For example, you have a line that reads, "But I already cut down the amount of sugar by half." In reality, a performer onstage would simply say "I've cut down the sugar."

Do send me your complete play as soon as possible. Your treatment and handling of emotions are refreshing and written straight from the heart.

Dramaturgy for TheatreWorks Singapore: Lishan

"Conversations with My Father"

Hello Lishan!

I have only one suggestion at this point: The flashback on page 4 is quite unnecessary. It pushes the play from realism to poetic realism. It also conveys to the audience that sexuality is the key to understanding the subject matter, which of course is not. The flashback technique is better off in the medium of film, as Alfred Hitchcock demonstrated in Marnie.

Other than that, your play is now ready to be turned over to TheatreWorks Singapore. You have created a sensitive vehicle that every actress in Singapore will covet. As I told you last time, casting is most crucial to its success. For the dramatic reading, encourage your performers to memorize the lines rather than read from scripts; total suspension of disbelief will make this play best appreciated.

I look forward to the success of the dramatic reading of your play.

Never make a big fuss out of language. Despite attempts to globalize or universalize English, for example, different peoples will speak their own variety of English and even develop their own idioms.

Life does not depend on linguistics.

Language should be in the service of people, never the other way around,

Inspect The Feelings That Go With Acts

The warp and woof of your work are in your everyday life.

Inspect the feelings that go with acts.

For example, if you are giving a gift to someone, what are your feelings that go with the act? How are your feelings related to the person you are giving the gift to? to the gift itself, and when and where you purchased it? to the act of giving itself?

Afterward, explore the feeling from different perspectives:

Did you give generously? What if you gave begrudgingly?

Did you give unconditionally? What if you gave with expectations of reciprocation?

Did you give to a friend? What if that friend were of romantic interest to you? Or an enemy? Or a mere business partner?

Inspecting and exploring feelings that go with acts--yours or other persons'--help not only in understanding yourself and other people but in creating and amplifying characterization in the service of creative writing.

Despite the quaintness of the notion you cannot write with blood, human or animal.

You cannot write with black coffee for the same reason.

Both blood and coffee will clot on your ferrule after the first three letters.

Every abandoned project is an act of anti-creation.

Everybody can write, paint, and knit, but not everybody has the time, the patience, and the stamina to bring a project to completion.

You are a successful writer if readers need your mind, even if you do not need theirs.

Many people think that creativity is easy to access, simply because everyone has it. The truth is, in order to fully awaken your creativity, you must be emotionally violent on yourself, as you must be in awakening your psychic abilities.

Creativity and psychism go hand in hand.

Beautiful penmanship is a reflection of a beautiful personality.

Dramaturgy for TheatreWorks Singapore

Your e-mail message:

"Hello Tony
regarding tge script '___________________________' you gave comments on, i did not make the neccessary amendments for the following reasons.
"1. My health turned for the worst in the last one month.
"2. I lost the drive and inspiration in those weeks as i struggled with a new posting at work.
"3. Making amendments to the ethnic and production issues are fine but strangely, i am unable to articulate more reflections of the key characters, because i think i am experiencing numbing loss within myself of the present dimension. I am afraid i did not spare resources for the script.

"I thought of withdrawing from next ___________________'s session with you.
"What do you think?

"___________________________

My answer:

Hello _________________________!

Don't lose hope. I taught you that there is no such thing as writer's block--neither is there such a thing as "inspiration".

There is a reason why our workshop was what it was; drama is other people, and, before you can know other people, you must first know yourself.

I note that you have manic-depressive moods. You must be able to deal with this not only as a playwright but as a human being. I cannot remember whether I told you this in person, but the root of it all is your sense of identity.

In one of our lessons, I taught you the 30 defense mechanisms. You need to use the defense mechanism called compartmentalization. Build a separate and special compartment for your play-writing so that other aspects of your everyday life won't affect it.

Finally, here is a visualization that you can do. (I didn't teach this to your batch but to the one after it): 

1) Make a clean drawing/painting or a model of your ideal writing room. Pay special attention to the furniture, the walls, the window and what it looks onto. Is it a period room or a modern one? What accessories are in it? Is it full of art or is it bare?

2) Before commencing a creative work, visualize yourself entering this room and writing.

3) Re-read your play draft and begin revising it.

I know that this will work.

It is astounding to me that many writers and artists know nothing about psychology.

It is equally astounding to me that writers and artists who do know something about psychology are terrified of parapsychology,

There are two, immediate sources of creative energy: a personal crisis and boredom.

As a general rule pencils should be reserved for drawing and pens, for writing--not because pencils are not versatile enough but because there exists a whole range of smooth pens for writing in the market.

It is your duty as a writer and an artist to be directive and not submissive.

There are bureaucrats in literature and in art. They continuously attempt to make rules and establish standards, offering grants and awards at the same time. Their foremost goal is to control writers and artists and keep them within the perimeters of their own religious beliefs.

Never fall into their traps.

Take the Lead With Adjectives

Writing is a way of teaching people how to talk.

Avoid using trite adjectives such as "wonderful", "great", "awesome", "perfect", "robust", and, of course, "amazing".

If you use fresh, new adjectives frequently enough, people will begin to use them in their everyday conversations too.

It is useful for a creative writer to believe in reincarnation, whether spiritually or psychologically, because his/her works are filtered through only a single lifetime's frames of reference.

A prolific creative writer draws from selves from other lifetimes, and, therefore, from a variety of frames of references.

In the last analysis, it is the content that matters.

Phraseology is an art.

Every workshop is a personal adventure, because it is a journey into the self.

Ivan's Photos of "Writing from The Heart" with Migrant, Bangladeshi Workers at Dibashram, Little India, Singapore (Sunday, December 9, 2014)

Brendan's Photos of Dramaturgy in the Flesh with Lishan and Day1 of "Writing from The Heart" for TheatreWorks Singapore (Monday, December 1, 2014)

"Writing from The Heart" for Low-Wage, Bangladeshi Migrant Workers at Dibashram, Little India, Singapore (Sunday, December 7, 2014) / Part 5

The theater group rehearses a play.

Mohsin is being interviewed for a TV feature.

Mohsin, the editor of the Bengal newsletter

Bangla was recently declared an international language. This is a shrine to Bangladesh and Bangla.

This electrician aims to save up money and take a degree in Visual Media.

The kitchen

"Writing from The Heart" for Low-Wage, Bangladeshi Migrant Workers at Dibashram, Little India, Singapore (Sunday, December 7, 2014) / Part 4