{"id":228,"date":"2008-10-27T16:00:59","date_gmt":"2008-10-27T04:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/?p=228"},"modified":"2016-01-08T16:53:18","modified_gmt":"2016-01-08T03:53:18","slug":"openings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/openings\/","title":{"rendered":"Openings"},"content":{"rendered":"

The play<\/a> I’ve been doodling with is slowly coalescing. So far I have notes aplenty about character, background, theme, motivation – you know, all that stuff that gives me warm fuzzles<\/a> – almost everything<\/i>. Except a story.<\/p>\n

Pshaw!<\/i> I hear you say. Mere details!<\/i> I agree, like, totally.<\/p>\n

So here I am, a few months on, and all I have is the first scene:<\/p>\n

\n

The stage is in DARKNESS. A hint of CITY SOUNDS – cars passing, honking in the distance. A BLAST OF TECHNO MUSIC as –<\/p>\n

BOUNCER<\/p>\n

(unseen)<\/p>\n

I gave you fair warning so – get – OUT!<\/p>\n

TWO BODIES crash onto the stage as the TECHNO MUSIC is muted with the SLAM of a FIRE-DOOR CLOSING. BEAT.<\/p>\n

DAVE<\/p>\n

(unseen)<\/p>\n

Ow. Ow. I think he broke my elbow. Ow.<\/p>\n

BEN<\/p>\n

(unseen)<\/p>\n

Good. I hope it hurts<\/i>.<\/p>\n

LIGHTS ON so we see DAVE and BEN lying on the stage, their heads to the audience.<\/p>\n

BEN FEPULEA’I is a thickset New Zealand-born Samoan in his twenties, his trendy clothes always a little tight to emphasise his musculature.<\/p>\n

DAVE TAN is a slim New Zealand Chinese also in his twenties, conservatively dressed but with little flourishes of ‘personality’.<\/p>\n

BEN<\/p>\n

(sits up)<\/p>\n

This is all your fault.<\/p>\n

DAVE<\/p>\n

My -?!<\/p>\n

(is about to sit up but -)<\/p>\n

Ow! Ow. Ow.<\/p>\n

BEN<\/p>\n

My beer -.<\/p>\n

(scrambles to his feet)<\/p>\n

My beer!<\/p>\n

DAVE<\/p>\n

Ben, don’t make a scene –<\/p>\n

Ben pounds on the nightclub door.<\/p>\n

BEN<\/p>\n

I PAID TEN BUCKS FOR THAT BEER!<\/p>\n

No response from the nightclub.<\/p>\n

BEN<\/p>\n

BASTARDS!<\/p>\n

He goes to his friend who’s still on the ground.<\/p>\n

BEN<\/p>\n

This is all your fault!<\/p>\n

DAVE<\/p>\n

We were just talking!<\/p>\n

BEN<\/p>\n

The next time we’re talking about the differences between cultures, use me as your prop rather than some random guy, okay?<\/p>\n

Dave takes the outstretched hand and is soon beside Ben, brushing himself off.<\/p>\n

DAVE<\/p>\n

Some people have no sense of humour –<\/p>\n

BEN<\/p>\n

You dropped to your knees and unzipped some guy’s pants!<\/p>\n

DAVE<\/p>\n

I was making a cultural point. Anyway, you would’ve made a bad example.<\/p>\n

(off Ben)<\/p>\n

You’re my best friend.<\/p>\n

LIGHTS OUT for a scene change.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

This got an airing<\/a> a month or so ago, largely because a). a gathering of writers needed something to sink their teeth into, and b). I’d left my prep a little last minute.<\/p>\n

After the group reading, an uppity actor<\/a> asked, Of all the different ways you could’ve introduced these two friends, why this way?<\/i><\/p>\n

I confessed that although I’d written a whole lot around<\/i> my idea for the play I hadn’t given much thought to the logistics of theatre. Then I had a what-if?<\/a> moment: what if it started with the actors lying on the stage before the audience? I suppose I worked backwards from that, making up dialogue and movement would answer the burning question of how come they’re lying on the stage, as well as establish their friendship and<\/i> dynamic.<\/p>\n

It’s rough. And clunky. Even though it read okay out loud. And it’s a start.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The play I’ve been doodling with is slowly coalescing. So far I have notes aplenty about character, background, theme, motivation – you know, all that stuff that gives me warm fuzzles – almost everything. Except a story. Pshaw! I hear you say. Mere details! I agree, like, totally. So here I am, a few months … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Openings”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[20,21,22],"class_list":["post-228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scriptwriting","tag-fasitua-amosa","tag-pasifika-playwrights-group","tag-playwriting"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4302,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228\/revisions\/4302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}