Day 1

2nd July, 2019

Activities: 

1. We began the second term with reflections on how each of our projects have progressed; we took turns to talk about the last month, what worked for us and what didn’t, and what had changed with each of our plays. 
2. Then, we began discussing the composition of plays, which is the larger theme of our second term; we spoke about composition from the perspective of the audience and how a playwright can aid the audience’s reception of a play. We noted that, often, an audience’s understanding of the play is facilitated by certain signs and symbols—conventions that the audience can grasp without much difficulty—that offer easy entry into the play-world. We read a selection from Anne Bogart’s book “What’s The Story?” where she discusses differences between impulse and intuition, compression and expression, and balance and imbalance. 
3. Bogart notes that work that is informed by intuition often allows a practitioner to tap into a common understanding across individuals, since intuition is something universal in all of us that comes from within. On compression vs. expression, she writes that the build-up of emotion—rage, love, sorrow—over time results in strong and clear expression; she advises theatre-makers to sit with their ideas and feelings and see what comes of it. On balance and imbalance, she says that it is, in fact, an off-balance world that forms the basis of a play—a world where something is wrong, where there is a deviation from the norm and thus, requires a resolution to return to its conventional state; simply put, it is the discomfort of  imbalance or instability that drives the play forward. 
4. Then, we watched the opening scene of Veenapani Chawla’s play “The Hare and the Tortoise,” and discussed the signs, symbols, and conventions that initiate audience members into the complex world of this play. We noted that the opening lines of the piece—“Are there answers outside of knowledge?”—clearly set up the expectation that this play will explore theories of knowledge. Chanakya said that, often, the more abstract a play is, the more important it is to create a simple opening that allows audience members to find their footing in the play’s world; similarly, in a conventional, linear play, a theatre-maker is at liberty to complicate the audiences’ initiation into the play. 
5. We read an interview with Veenapani, conducted by Anmol Vellani, in which she discusses the various possible interpretations of “The Hare and the Tortoise.” She speaks about how she composed the piece and played with the order of different scenes and theatrical moments to make the play the best version of itself; she even noted a vast range of academic references that informed her composition, from Zeno’s paradox to Homi Bhabha’s theories on art. 
6. Then, we split into two groups; one group read the opening scene of Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” and the other read the opening scene of Caryl Churchill’s “Top Girls.” In our groups, we noted the different actions and character decisions that spurred the play forward, and the big changes that set up the audience’s expectations for what the play will be about, and what kind of play it is. Then, we had a discussion on how each play introduces the audience to its world and the central conflict that it will grapple with; we observed that, from the opening scene, it is clear the Beckett’s play is a tragicomedy of sorts, and Churchill’s play is a dinner-table drama. 
7. After that, still in our groups, we were each assigned styles of plays—gossip and a feminist speech—and asked to produce two minute retellings of the story of the hare and the tortoise, and in our productions to make clear the genre of play assigned to us. After our performances, we discussed how each piece attempted to introduce the style of the play through character decisions and dialogue.
   

Questions considered: 

1. What does an audience want from a play? How does a theatre-maker communicate their intentions to an audience? How does an audience receive a play? 
2. What drives a play forward? What does imbalance have to do with rendering conflict on the stage? 
3. How does a play’s composition affect the strength of its central conflict? How does a play’s composition affect the clarity with which its conflict and characters are understood? 
4. What are the ways in which opening scenes can communicate the play’s style/genre to an audience? What are the signs and symbols that can help draw an audience into a play’s world?