Adventures in teaching Boom by Jean Tay (Part I)

Tue, 22 Oct 2013
2 min read
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Why does Tay title her play BOOM? Support your answer with close reference to the text.
Why does Tay title her play Boom? Support your answer with close reference to the text.

So as part of making the “horses” thirsty, I had to teach Boom by Jean Tay for Literature lessons.

It’s a pretty good text in that it’s accessible to the students and rich with literary features that make it good for teaching.

For example, one of the essay questions we worked on in class was “Why does Tay title her play Boom? Support your answer with close reference to the text”.

I doubt this question would ever come out at the O-Level exams, but I thought it was a pretty good way of getting the students to think about motifs, symbolism and themes – and their relationships – in the text.

Regardless, the students – being students – have no qualms about asking teachers questions/interrupting the lesson in the hope that we’ll digress/tell them stories instead.

So while I was writing the question and instructions on the board, this exchange took place:

“Sir.”
“What.”
“Jean Tay your friend ah, sir.”
“No.”
“You’re also a writer, right, sir.”
“So? All writers must be friends is it?”

And midway during the discussion…

“Sir.”
“Whattt…”
“You got watch the play or not?”
“NO. (Beat.) Why?”
“You look like one of the actors lah.”
(Pause.)
“Brendon Fernandez, is it?”
“No lah, the actor in the play.”
“Yar, he was one of the actors in the play, right? That’s his name!”
“Y’all are friends ah, sir?”

Guess it was payback for all the times I annoyed my teachers in class…

Feast: Dramafest 2013

Mon, 23 Sep 2013
4 min read
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Dramafest combined rehearsals at Eusoff Hall

So one of the things I’ve been busy with this year: coaching undergraduate hostelites from the National University of Singapore (NUS) with their short plays.

Some background about Dramafest:

  • The Halls of Residence at NUS are a pretty competitive bunch. I should know; I stayed at Kent Ridge Hall from 2004 to 2008.

  • An idea was mooted back in 2007/2008 to do something a bit more collaborative.

    Since then, the NUS Halls of Residence have been putting up an annual combined theatre production.

    It involves residents across halls working with one another as they write, direct and act in short plays of about 15 to 20 minutes.

  • I was a part of Dramafest 2008! I think I was super onz then so I submitted four plays… I can’t remember because it was so long ago.

    Anyway, the highlight of that year’s Dramafest was when one of my plays got censored.

    (Context: There’s a joke about making art in Singapore, in that you know you’ve made it as an artist when your work gets censored.)

    If you’re curious, Ho Yi Jian has done a pretty impressive job of archiving some stuff from the past over here and over here.

Anyway, I was invited to be a dramaturg for last year’s Dramafest.

I don’t think I mentioned it here because I remember last year being a damn busy period for me as I learnt how to cope with the freelance life.

Thankfully, I did a fairly decent job, so I was again invited to be the dramaturg for this year’s Dramafest.

As Lee Kuan Yew has said before, it’s always easier the second time round, so ladies and gentlemen, presenting to you: Feast – Dramafest 2013 by the NUS Halls of Residence!

Feast: Dramafest 2013 – Presented by the NUS Halls of Residence

Feast: Dramafest 2013 – Presented by the NUS Halls of Residence
Date: Sat, 5 Oct 2013
Time: 7pm – 10pm
Venue: University Cultural Centre, NUS
Admission is FREE

The plays, in order of performance:

The Stake
By Darryl Lim Yu Cong
In an age where pleasure is prized and gratification is instant, what does it mean to stay faithful to the one you love? The Stake explores themes of love, addiction and infidelity as it portrays a Singaporean man’s entry into the intoxicating world of lust and desire, in a sordid side of Singapore not often seen by many.

The Plumber’s Chime
By Minlu Zheng
Being loved is a lovely feeling: it means care, affection, and, perhaps, having someone to share your life and future with. But being loved can also mean that the distance between two naked bodies is a chasm far too wide to be crossed. How much are you willing to pay for love – or the feeling of being loved?

Playing Games
By Terence Lo
Human beings play games for many reasons: to cope; to entertain themselves; to pass the time. Games are also played because they’re designed in a specific way – to ensure that human beings keep playing the game. But what happens when we break the rules of a game? Playing Games portrays the “sweet sorrow” that the game of love between two people can sometimes bring.

Our Lady Biscotti
By Joelynn Wong
Two nosey baristas. A struggling coffee joint. A flamboyant food critic. A recipe for disaster? Join Gwendolyn and Cecily as they learn the importance of using Ernest – their earnest friend – in their bid to impress a tough food critic and help save Our Lady Biscotti.

Jia(k)
By Gwen Lee
It’s 7pm in an HDB apartment and 愛 (Love) – a popular Taiwanese television drama – has just begun screening. As the opening refrain of the show’s theme song streams forth from the TV, an estranged daughter, a layabout son and an ageing mother have dinner together for the first time in ages. Unlike Taiwanese dramas, however, these characters don’t take weeks to say their lines…

Join the Facebook event here, but more importantly, please join me in watching the students’ work next Saturday!

Theatre Talkback: I hope it works.

Sat, 27 Oct 2012
3 min read
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Theatre Talkback!

I just heard about this project called Theatre Talkback, so I thought I’d do my bit and help spread the word.

However, I thought I’d also do my bit and say something about it as well (as usual… LOL).

***

As someone who supports artistic development in Singapore, I’m quite supportive of efforts like these.

But as someone trained in both education and writing, I’m also worried this effort may not be as efficacious as it could be because of the following:

  1. A seeming lack of sustainability: Time is required for incubation and revision during the process of art creation.

    Hence, will the process be sustained after this session? If no, why have it in the first place? And why not spend the money/time/effort on something more sustainable?

  2. The lack of a filtering mechanism: Feedback will be provided by “the general public and…an acclaimed line up of panelist (sic) (consisting of a playwright, a director and an educator…)” to a target audience of “budding artists”.

    How will budding artists filter out information that is crucial and relevant to them from noise/irrelevant feedback?

  3. The probability of ineffective feedback: I have, on many occasions, asked myself – via an interior monologue – this question upon receiving feedback from a countless number of individuals, both useful and useless: “How is what you’re saying going to help my life or help me become a better teacher/writer?”

    Reason: a lot of the feedback tended to focus on one thing – what I was doing wrong.

    But any hmstrfckr can tell you what you’re doing wrong. It’s a great teacher, however, who can tell you what to do instead and how to do it, in order to be more effective.

***

To practice what I preach, I’m now going to work some of my LareMagic and suggest that:

  • The organisers should please, please adopt this feedback mechanism for the project:
    1. Tell the playwright what s/he is doing wrong;
    2. Tell the playwright what to do instead;
    3. Show the playwright what to do through an example.

      For example:

      • You’re narrating what’s going on to the audience. This reduces dramatic tension.
      • Show, don’t tell.
      • Instead of getting your character to say “I’m so angry with what you’ve just said!”, is it possible to ‘show’ it via the use of this stage direction e.g. CHARACTER slams his cup down on the table. Silence.
  • The organisers should please, please make it mandatory for every hmstrfckr who wants to provide feedback to adopt this feedback mechanism, otherwise her/his feedback will be ignored.

These two measures will solve problems (2) and (3) which I outlined above.

I can’t solve (1) but I hope some sort of workshopping will eventually take place over a prolonged period, much like TheatreWorks’s Writers’ Lab.

***

I expect some criticism about what I’ve just raised. That’s fair.

But let me work my LareMindReading LareMagic and pre-empt the criticism:

  1. This is too pedantic/structured.
    No – this is friggin’ education. You have to be pedantic and provide an order and a structure before creativity can flourish.

    But I say again – it must be a good order and structure that is derived soundly from theory and not something stated on a whim.

  2. But this is art! Art is supposed to be felt! How can you –
    Bye.