Writing a Play: Or how to avoid the panic of the blank page.

Today the British Theatre class has been amazingly different. We've had a guest today, a former student of the degree of English Studies who now works at the Sala Beckett (Barcelona) and has translated and directed several plays. He has been interviewed by our teacher and then he made us do a writing exercise.

The premise was the following. He would give us the setting, the characters and two sentences of dialogue, and we would start writing. Five minutes later he would stop us, give us another sentence (which could be stage directions or dialogue), and we would continue, until five minutes later he'd do the same. We did this for half an hour, and the plays that resulted from the exercise were incredible.

I was happy with the result of mine, so I'm going to leave it here for you to read it. The sentences in bold are the ones he told us, the rest is all mine. Any comments are welcome :) (and remember, I didn't know what I was writing so this was flowing as ideas were coming. But that's the nice thing about this kind of exercise).

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Title: Of mice, rats and men

Character A

Character B

B is holding a book, a Pullitzer winning book called “Mouse”

A small room with only one chair. A and B are looking at each other in silence

A:           I like your tie

B:           Thanks

A:           I thought I’d never see you again.

B:           That’s what journalists do all the time, sweetie.

A:           Not all of them do.

A takes two steps and gets closer to B, but B refuses.

A:           What the hell is going on with you?

B:            It’s nothing, forget it.

B sits on the chair with the book still in his hands. He opens it and starts reading. A stares.

A:           So, you’re not going to tell me what happened?

B:            Nothing happened.

A ignores him and gets closer.

A:           Do you have to keep accusing me of things I never did?

B:            We both know you did, sweetie.

A:           What do you know? You weren’t even here; you were interviewing that bloody writer you admire so much.

B:            If you read him you’d understand why I admire him.

A:           As if I cared! Ho on, flee to his arms, I don’t give a shit about your life!

B:            Yes you do, you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t.

A shuts up and takes a few steps back, still looking at B.

A:           You don’t care about what I did or didn’t do. You can’t even be bothered to get angry.

C comes in.

A:           Who the hell are you? How did you come in?

A looks at B, who looks surprised.

B:            C…

A:           Oh great, the happy couple reunited! Go on, go and fuck each other, who cares about you two!

Both B and C stare, ignoring A.

C:            I thought I’d never see you again…

B stands up from the chair, the book still in his hands, and gets closer to C. A then stays in the way.

A:           I will not allow it.

B:            You what? (laughs histerically) Who are you to allow or prohibit anything, kid?

A:           Oh, now I’m a kid? You weren’t complaining about it last week when you were fucking me like hell!

B opens the book and takes a piece of paper out of it.

B:            So what’s this, then?

C takes a few steps closer to see what’s written on the paper, A is frozen.

B:            Only kids draw hearts on little pieces of paper. You only have dreams in your head that are not real, and you’re too childish to even see it.

A is still frozen; then she falls on her knees crying. C laughs.

C:            Let’s go, B, this child won’t do any good to you. I still can’t understand what you saw on her.

B:            Neither do I, believe me. Neither do I.

A realizes the chair is gone seconds before she is hit on the head. A falls flat on the floor and C laughs.

C:            Are you ready to come with me and leave all of this shit behind?

B looks at A, a little of blood staining the floor.

B:            I am.

B breaks the paper into pieces and leaves them scattered around the unconscious body of A, then closes the book and takes C’s hand.

B:            Let’s go somewhere only we know.

A terrible noise is heard, it comes from somewhere outside the room. A voice is calling A, B is suddenly very nervous.

B:            Quickly, through here!

C follows B to a corner of the room where there’s a window.

C:            Let me go through first.

C jumps through the window outside and falls on the ground. B follows just in time to hear the door smashed and a voice shouting.

B:            We did it, we did it!

C:            Just like the mice in my book.

B:            Stop it. Do you really want to know the truth?

C:            What truth? You just left her behind, didn’t you?

B:            Oh yes I did, but that’s not all.

A noise is heard behind C, B is smiling mischievously as a policeman comes running towards C.

Policeman:         I’m arresting you under the attempt of murder and suspicion of homicide of two other people…

C:            WHAT?

B:            That’s the truth, my man. Not all of us are as stupid as the mice in your book.

C is taken away; B looks at this hand, the book is still there. He throws it away, it falls on the ground. B leaves. 

Tomboy: A review.

I’ve just watched the film Tomboy and I think this film demands a review. Of course, expect spoilers ahead, otherwise I couldn’t comment on the movie :P

First of all I need to say that I have watched this film with a purpose. As I’ve said several times already I’m studying English Studies and I’m more interested in literature than in linguistics. And what’s more relevant to this post, one of the topics I’m interested in is gender studies and queer studies. So I was watching the film with some ideas already in my mind.

Briefly, Tomboy tells the story of a girl, Laure, who arrives at a new town with her family; her father, her mother and her little sister. She’s a bit shy but when she starts to meet and play with the boys around, she introduces herself as Mickäel, not as Laure; and as she is ten years old no one can tell the difference because she behaves as a boy. She dresses with shorts and lousy T-shirts, plays football and one of the girls even likes her as a boy. In short, she does all the things one would expect of a boy of her age.

Things start to get complicated when she has a fight with one of the boys and he and his mum come over to Laure’s house, asking for Mickäel, and the mother finds out what she’s been doing. She rejects her behaviour, punishes her and then makes her apologize to the boy she had a fight with and to the girl she likes, Lisa, dressed up as a girl. Lisa’s reaction is of disgust. Then, she and the rest of the boys take her shorts down to check whether she’s a boy or a girl.

Now, overall the film was OK, it shows you how boys and girls mingle and play together; and  how the differences between a male and a female at this stage are not that important. You can really see that Laure, although you know she’s a girl, behaves exactly as a boy would and the rest of the kids don’t even have the slightest suspicion of her gender.

What I didn’t like at all was the ending. Lisa’s reaction could be expected but that doesn’t mean the audience must like it, and I didn’t. However, what struck me more and what made me hate Lisa was when she’s with the rest of the boys. One of them says that if Mickäel is really a boy, she’s kissed him as a boy and now they find out she’s a girl; that would be disgusting. She admits it is disgusting and accepts to put Laure’s trousers down. After seeing she’s indeed a girl they all leave, leaving Laure ashamed in the middle of the woods.

That scene was horrible, particularly because you emphasize with Laure/Mickäel since you’ve seen her development as a character and her relationship both with the kids and with her parents, and you know that her gender doesn’t really matter. What I found worst of all, was the very end. Lisa comes to see Laure/Mickäel, and she only asks one thing. “What’s your name?”

This could be interpreted in several different ways, I see two readings here. The first one would be that Lisa accepts that Laure/Mickäel as a friend and gives her another chance. The way I see it, however, is that Laure/Mickäel is now marked by her gender. It doesn’t matter how hard she tries, she will always be a girl and her name will be Laure. That’s it. 

What this end tells me is two things. The first one, and now I’m following Butler’s theories, that the distinction between a male and a female is performative and cultural, not natural. In other words, we are born with certain genitalia but that doesn’t mark what we are, the way we behave (our “performance”) does. And of course our culture does it as well. To give you an example, a woman that doesn’t wear dresses or skirts would be consider “masculine” in other cultures, it doesn’t happen anymore in ours. Applying that to Laure/Mickäel she would be a boy, regardless of her genitals or her name (I should have used the pronoun “he” instead of “she” then…). Of course I'm putting things very simple here, but you can see in this film that the dichotomy of men/women, divided by this bar that separates one thing from the other, sometimes is not that clear and to Laure/Mickäel's view, it's absolutely absurd.

The second thing that the very end tells me is that the gender of the person doesn’t matter. The kids of town have known Laure as Mickäel but in fact, she behaves like a boy so whether they call her Laure or Mickäel doesn’t make any difference at all. And for me, what this film proves is what Judith Butler and other queer theorists have been saying: that the dichotomy man/woman doesn’t work because it simply erases people that do not fall in this binomial and don’t feel they fit in. Perhaps in depicting Laure/Mickäel's life the film was trying to erase this binomial; but if that was the case the very end screws everything up.

However, I would not like to discredit the film, because although the ending is not really convincing (for me at least) it does something than many other films weren’t able to do. On the one hand it takes you to your own childhood, making yourself think about moments where the differences between men and women were not that visible and when it didn’t matter your gender to have fun. On the other hand, it challenges our own division of the society into men and women, showing how absurd it can sound to a girl of 10 years old that doesn't know that much about life but just knows that she doesn't look like herself in a dress and make up, and she'd rather be wearing shorts and playing football. The simplest thing as telling your name has terrible consequences for Laure/Mickäel, who suffers a terrible shame of herself just because she doesn’t feel she fits in a dress and with make up on her face. 

So, to sum up what I’ve been saying, the film overall is really good and although the ending is not convincing for me, it can be convincing for you. Regardless of your interests, this film doesn’t leave you indifferent. 

Seminars: an unbelievably rewarding experience.

Yesterday I went for the first time to a Seminar.

To start off, I have to say that I had never been interested in going to seminars or conferences aside from the compulsory ones and I can't explain why. I think it was the fear of being called snob or teacher's pet if I went, but I'm not sure that's the only reason. What I can tell you is that if you're thinking of a seminar you're interested in YOU SHOULD DEFINITELY GO.

In my case I found this one by chance. My tutor of the TFG (the dissertation we have to write at the end of the degree) had told me to visit a blog named Cos i Textualitat, written by a research group with whom she works with and which is run by one of my other teachers. She told me to visit the blog because their research group is related to the topic of my TFG, and while I was there gossiping I found out about this Seminar. In fact it was a series of seminars and this one was the last one, entitled Sexualitats i representacions culturals II: Internet i cinema (Sexualities and cultural representations). The title was very alluring and within a few minutes, as soon as I could find someone to accompany me, I sent an e-mail confirming my attendance.

The seminar was 4 hours long, divided into two presentations where we could interrupt and debate at any time. The truth is that comparing it to the classes at uni where the lessons are one hour and a half long and sometimes they seem like four,  these four hours could easily be one the most enjoyable 4 hours of my life. The 'lecturers' presented us with another view of sexualities, putting special attention to transsexuality and intersexuality, and how they were represented into films and the internet. They started off by presenting us the theory, quoting big names like Judith Butler, Michel Foucault and others I know because I have either heard of them in class or I have read or quoted them myself in my TFG; to then continue with the more practical part where they talked - and we discussed - about a blog I used to visit quite a lot and which I enjoyed very much to see again (La Tortilleria) or several TV series and films, some of them I had already seen ('Boys don't cry') and some of them I am going to watch these following days ('Black Mirror', 'XXY' or 'Tomboy' are a few examples). Not only weren't the 'lectures' boring but also the debates were very interesting, mostly because everyone had a different perspective of things, some of us didn't know much and some others - like my teacher, who was there - knew a lot of what they were talking about.

But it wasn't the fact that I was learning what got me excited on the first place. It was the fact that for the first time in my life I was excited to attend something related to my degree that was not compulsory, I had the feeling I was doing something useful and rewarding with my time. I now know that classes may be boring but there are other ways to learn, and this is one of them. In fact, me and my friend were the only students, the rest were adults who either worked in this research group - and who organized the event - or who presumably had other jobs and met there to talk about a topic they're interested in. I was there in a room with people that were interested in the same topic I am interested in, and this proved to be thrilling.

In short, I am definitely going to go to more seminars if they are as interesting and exciting as this one, and if you are thinking of going to one, I absolutely recommend it.