First Draft, Then What?: Writer-in-Residence Sharing (2023)

Joel Tan  00:00

Hi everyone, my name is Joel - I'm a playwright and associate here at Centre 42 working on the programmes in the New Writing Development Programme here, which we've been running for a little over a year and a half now, together with my programme coordinators Yanling and Shridar. Basically, the New Writing Development Programme at Centre 42 runs a bunch of programmes that meet playwrights at their point of need, and we are providing platforms and opportunities for script development for early-career playwrights, but also for mid-career playwrights like Michelle. 

Michelle, in fact, has joined us for the past six months as our inaugural writer-in-residence. We've been delighted to have her. Michelle's role in the past six months has been to be part of the life of the centre, to be part of a number of our script development processes, and also, she's taking the time to develop something of her own, a play that she talked about, and she's been working very closely with our dramaturg Juliet, who has also been really closely involved with a number of our script development processes. 

So it feels very nice and cosy, today's session. I know we were meant to have done this in the Black Box, but then because [unclear] doing it in a more cosy environment would make more sense. I think just to set the tone of today's sharing - let's not feel like it's too formal. Michelle and Juliet say that, if at any point you want to stop to comment or ask questions, feel free to do so [unclear] I guess just to set a little bit more context about what we're doing today - like I mentioned earlier, Michelle's been working on a play for the past six months, which is actually a play she's been working on prior to this residency, so it's actually a really long, ongoing process. I think process is something that we've been thinking a lot about here at Centre 42, because the Singapore theatre environment can be very product-oriented, very objective-oriented, and very show- and production-oriented. So it's really lovely, across all our programs here at Centre 42, to think about process, think about reflecting on process, which is what we're doing today - reflecting on the relationship between the dramaturg, the playwright, reflecting on the playwright's craft and the process of drafting, and just to ask questions and think about what it means to do this weird thing called playwriting and dramaturgy, which I feel like every day I do it, I get less and less of a grasp of it. And hopefully, today, we'll get some enlightenment from our two lovely speakers who [unclear], and again, feel free to jump in.

Michelle Tan  02:57

Thank you so much for joining us here. Thank you for that introduction. Just to reiterate that this is not just a conversation that we want to keep between us. This is a nice number of people in the room to actually have a conversation with, so really, at any point, just jump in, clarify things, comment on things, object to things, whatever. I thought we could start by talking about the genesis of this working relationship, and I think a big part of what we will try and address tonight is how that relationship has also evolved in our respective roles as a dramaturg and a writer, and how that in turn has informed and shifted my own process of writing, and my process of what revising a script looks like. We'll talk a little bit about the arbitrariness of what calling something a draft 1 to draft 2 to a draft 2.6 is, all those kinds of grey shifty things. 

This play that I've been working on started as a regular commission - at that point in time, I was in conversation with Juliet, who was still with SRT, Singapore Repertory Theatre, and they were interested in doing a new work, specifically a new work by a local writer, a Singaporean writer, whatever that means, so that was the beginning of that conversation. At that time, I was also just starting full-time work at SOTA, transitioning from being a freelancer in the arts to holding down a full-time job like a normal person, and not knowing what it would mean for my own writing, so to me that was a nice opportunity as a reminder of like, hey, actually, there's this part of my life that I should attempt to continue if people are interested. So that's how it began, and the official agreement then was up to the point that I had to churn out a first draft. And that happened! I managed to, somehow, in the span of, I think, six months - first I gave her one and a half pages plus a synopsis. That was my very first thing. And then I churned out a first draft, which was some semblance of a complete play in six months, and then sat on it until we had a first closed-door read four months later in April last year to a group of not more than 20 people. And that was very casual - that was the first round of external feedback that I got on that text. And then after that, Juliet didn't hear from me for a very long time, because I just got sucked into the vortex of school. And then at one point you went, “what's going on? Is this still happening?” And then we started talking about what it would mean for Juliet to come on board in a more structured way, as a dramaturg, and what that would entail. 

Juliet Chia  06:44

I think I also want to back up a little bit more - we actually had had a fairly long conversation prior to the commission in which you and I just talked about what you were interested in as a writer, and what you might want to write, and the commission came out of that, which was what you were interested in looking at. Again, for those who don't know the context - that was two years ago, roughly, when I was deputy artistic director at Singapore Repertory Theatre. When this work started, I was in a producorial role, and then after Michelle wrote the first draft, I’d stopped being a producer, and I am now a freelance dramaturg. And so actually, I think what happened was you also came to me in context of your residency here at Centre 42 and said that you were interested in working with me as a dramaturg, and did I want to figure out what that was like?

Michelle Tan  07:55

Yes. Because at that point of time, I had no idea what that actually meant. I just had an instinct that I needed a perspective that was external to my own in some kind of professional capacity. I mean, there are very kindhearted people who would always offer to read your work and everything, but I don't think I've ever worked in this particular capacity before, where I had someone who would have an equally intimate relationship with the text as the writer, and that same amount of investment and close reading of the text, and be able to then ask questions to push it along in its process of development. And I think the other big thing that was a first was also - thank you for reminding me about that - actually that series of conversations that we had, which actually threw me off quite a bit, because I don't think anybody had ever asked me before what I was interested in writing. It always came from a place of  - I mean, it's not that there's anything wrong, it's just for me, it was a change. It usually always comes from a place where there's a season that needs to be filled, there's some kind of slot, there's some kind of theme - but this was wide open. And I remember at that point, you said you had been talking to some other writers also, and you gave me an example of like, “oh, yeah, Tze Chien said at any one point he has always 6 plays in his head”. And I'm like, “no, I have minus 2”. So that was a bit of - I think that was a bit of a challenge for me personally, to actually sit in that space and think "what do I have to say?” I think a lot of my own struggles with writing and actually not writing - it all leads into these, because I constantly feel like I have nothing to say, or what I want to say has already been said/can be said much better and more eloquently by other people. So I guess it forced me to confront this and to really think about, “okay, what am I invested in at this point, and what do I feel like I can bring some value to?” That was the genesis of it.

Joel Tan  10:10

Can you tell us a little bit about what the play is?

Michelle Tan  10:12

I can. What I landed on was - like I said, at the time, I had just [unclear] freelance work, and specifically in a school, specifically at the School of the Arts, so for me, it was an introduction into - I mean, there was a certain level of bureaucracy that I was thrown into. There's a certain level of corporateness also. It's a strange institution that sits between education and arts and culture - like, literally, we're not actually under MOE, we're under MCCY, but then obviously, as a school, there are all these MOE guidelines. So the kind of ambiguity of its identity, I think, is something over the years that I've come to see that actually, the school itself struggles with a lot. And I think it was just being in that environment that got me interested - it got me invested in these people that I was seeing around me, and I think what particularly intrigued me was the the idea that in this particular world, there are people who truly believe that they are boundary pushers, and they really believe in their good intentions for doing certain things, but the reality, on the ground, they're actually quite - they're just very good bureaucrats. It started out for me with a question of actually, what does it take? Specifically, I guess, in this realm of education, but also beyond that - what does it take to radicalise someone? What does it take to shift us from a place of just status quo contentment to feeling like something needs to be - that some kind of change needs to be driven, and that you can feel like that person? 

Yeah, so it was all these kind of fragmented thoughts that coalesced for me in the form of a character, in the form of a person, and so the play began from that, began with trying to paint a portrait of this particular character who is filled with good intentions, but never quite seeing that gap, or never quite being able to address that gap between what their intention is, and their actual impact on the ground. I don't know if that sounds very abstract - I think it's also borne out of just hearing from students that I've interacted with, their own experience with education, their experience of the ways in which they feel the system has failed them, has failed the people that they care about, and having to, in that way, look up to certain authority figures just because they are in positions of authority, but not actually believing in what they stand for. Yeah, and so I think in particular, those formative years from 12 to 18, you sort of - everything becomes so important and so magnified at that stage. Yeah, so I guess the play was born out of this amalgamation of all these different experiences of the people who are in power, but were not necessarily using that power in ways that were empathetic, in ways that were humane, even. Yeah, and so it began with a kind of character study of those people.

Juliet Chia  13:56

So you had a draft when you started this residency? 

Michelle Tan  14:00

I did. 

Juliet Chia  14:04

What was the process in this residency - how was that different from how you may have previously advanced that draft?

Michelle Tan  14:22

I think the main difference actually might boil down to what we were saying earlier about how a lot of theatre here is very production-driven, and here in this particular process, there's a complete absence of hard and fast deadlines. There wasn't a deadline by which I had to turn in a certain version of the script or make certain edits. There was no, like, “okay, by this date, you need to have this reading”, “by this date we need to have it ready to be cast”, and all that. So it freed up that process of - practically, it worked wonders for me, because I didn't have that same time and space to actually just sit and write or think about the writing, and I always managed to only do it during school holidays, which was very limited. I sort of started to lose, like - there have been changes made, but have there been enough changes? What is the number of changes made before I can call it a second draft? That all went out of the window. 

I think the other big thing that was different for me in this process was, because meeting a deadline was not the objective, then, in place of that, I think the objective was really to just put the text front and centre. I think in our conversations Juliet would be asking a lot of specific questions about the text, and the one new way of working, or the new attempt that we made, was we sat down and we worked out a bootcamp-y session where basically, we just sit down for three hours straight and have the text in front of us, and she would just ask me questions about it, questions about character, about my personal relationship with the reality that was unfolding versus what was going into the text. Yeah, technical questions about what changed in this particular [unclear]. 

So there was this time and space that we could go into very, very small specifics, whereas previously, I never had the luxury of that. When I call it a luxury, it's also very painful to look at things at that level and to examine things at that level, but I felt that it was necessary, and I felt that when I zoom out and look at it, the progress, quantifiably, is so minimal, I feel that I've not done anything for six months. And it's very scary, because the efficiency part of me feels like I'm wasting everybody's time, like, here are these resources at my disposal, but I haven't gone back to C42 and tell them when I want to read, I haven't asked these people for when I want to book the space and everything. So it did send me down some of these spirals. But objectively, also, I'm able to say that it was just space and time to sit with this thing. And I think in particular for this piece, also - Alison Bechdel has this quote about how you can’t live and write at the same time. And that feeling of when something is still unfolding, and I'm trying to catch up to what is happening in real life, I don't have enough of that distance to actually go back and articulate the happening and the feeling and everything that comes along with it.

Joel Tan  18:08

I'm really curious about nothing [unclear] page numbers or draft numbers, but what has shifted for you in having all this time to be interrogated about your play?

Michelle Tan  18:33

I'll talk about what has changed for me. What has shifted for me, actually, is my approach towards revision. I used to have a very reductive view of it - the revising, editing process was very painful, I would approach it with a certain level of dread. Shitting out a first draft is already so hard, now I have to go back and look at it again and make it better, like, why is it not writing itself by this point, you know - the lies they tell you about, like, oh, once you have your character there, your character will tell the story, but no! It's bluff, right?! But having this expansiveness to re-look at it - and Juliet has also shared with me - and that's another thing she's very good at, not just about the writing. She'll be like, “eh, read this, listen to this podcast, eh I came across this quote”. So it's all these kinds of tidbits along the way, that may not necessarily be about the writing process per se, but will sometimes spark off certain thoughts that then feed into the process, or make me feel productive when I'm not writing. At least I'm reading something. 

There was one particular thing that she shared about the revision process quite recently that I had a listen to, and it sort of crystallised for me what had shifted for me, actually - now, instead of seeing revision as something purely editorial and purely technical - oh, I need to do [unclear] the structure, or deepen the characters - it became actually quite a - this particular writer, Peter Ho Davies, he describes the revision process as being quite revelatory. So thinking about the word - a literal re-visioning of what it is, to re-see this thing from a different perspective, to have a distance between when you first churned out its first complete version and to look at it. I suppose I could say that then I found a certain excitement about it, where it's not just about hitting something over and over again and trying to craft it into something that I want it to be, but to be able to be a bit more gentle and curious about it, to see it as a creature in and of its own right, and to see - even if I just work on this one tentacle here, that's okay also, because the other parts of it continue to grow. I felt that was, for me, quite a fundamental shift in my perspective of approaching rewriting. And I think for me, it's learning also, again, for myself, what it actually takes, or how much it actually takes to first identify, and then to try and untangle, and then to reshape parts of the text that need work. I think, again, born out of the efficiency and the unforgivingness of - and the necessity of - deadlines, and adhering to a production schedule. Often, a lot of the times I probably couldn't articulate to you why I made the changes I did. It just sort of was like, need lor, this line is too difficult, change it. So it became - it was either instinctive, or it was demanded of the text from all these external forces. But now I think I'm able to justify a little bit better or to understand why or why not I would change something or shift something, or think that something's not working. 

Juliet Chia  22:58

What you said just now about expanding, I think, for me, is one of the key things. What I thought was really lovely about this opportunity - particularly this Writer-in-Residence programme and what you wanted to do within this time, with the luxury of not having producer-driven deadlines - I thought was a great opportunity to expand what you can do with that process. Where I'm lucky is because I had the opportunity to talk to you from such a long time ago, from the very beginning, us just, you know, talking about all kinds of different things, about what you like to watch, what you like to read; we could talk about shows we'd seen and compare notes. And so in a way, I had a lot of background about where you had come from. And to some extent, when I read the first draft, I think one of the things I told you was I felt like it didn't capture everything I felt you had expressed to me about what you were interested in. 

I love this as a space for us to open up all these questions about what exactly you were interested in, how to either articulate that, or how to ask more questions about that. What did that really mean for you, whether in the time that we've spoken about it, and, as you say, you're trying to keep up with life, right - whether your thoughts about any of it had changed as well, even from the time that we said, “okay, here's your first synopsis”, to the point that you had come up with the first draft, to what was essentially almost a year later, before you had even started engaging with the first draft again. Your life had gone by and you had other thoughts about where you started. It was a good space, too. What I think I was trying to do is open up the possibility for things that you could do. I think one of the things we also talked about is... do you need deadlines, or if you had to come up with it yourself and map out what you want to do next, or where you might want to go with it next, what might that be and what might that look like, including a sharing like this - what are the different possibilities for what a sharing might look like? Is it just necessarily a reading of what's in existence or can it take a different shape?

Unknown speaker  26:03

I'm very curious about the idea of mapping because - like, when you finish writing a play, then you look back and say, okay, this was a [unclear] character first, what the themes are, and then the exploration process and then revision and all that. But how can you better figure out what that map is while we're starting out there in the middle of it? Because it could be - you don't know when the script is done unless [unclear] written in one night, or it could go on for nine years [unclear] writing is you're not sure actually what you're doing, you're just figuring out the next steps as you go along. In your experience, how can we find that map a little bit better to help us in that process?

Michelle Tan  27:22

I feel like the construction of the map is very personal. Instinctively I feel it has to be governed by what your personal inclinations and approaches are to writing as a writer, and then of course it would also then in turn be governed by the content of what you're writing. I do feel that there will be an endpoint, and I think you will know when you've arrived at saying what you want to say. But, again, I don't think that can happen in a vacuum. I think so much of the process of writing can feel very solitary and very isolated, and sometimes it's necessary to have that space - I like that space - but I think it's equally necessary to, at some point or at multiple points, let whatever it is see the light and air of another set of eyes. And so I guess my answer is that that map can be constructed, but it has to be in some ways co-constructed. I could have a version of what I want to get to, but I would ultimately also find it helpful to run it by someone else who has an investment in the work and in the process - not just in the work, but in the process of my development as a writer - and to see whether parts of that journey then could be eliminated, or to shed some kind of light over where the gaps are currently, and help me to fill that in. I don't think I can say that - I wouldn't be able to tell you like, oh, this is the next stage, and I see that this is where I'm going to from here. I think it's been different every single time.

Juliet Chia  29:25

I think that's probably true, based on other pieces that I've worked on - I think it is very customised to each playwright, project. But I guess I see it as whether or not the decisions being made about what the map looks like - how conscious you are of it, how many options you've considered. I feel like one of the roles that I've had in our relationship has been to throw you alternate destinations - sometimes I feel like I'm a little bit of a, you know, tour agent or something - I'm like, “Michelle, how about this other place? Would you like to go and explore this scenic route instead?” 

Michelle Tan  30:15

You did ask me at one point, around the end of last year, when we were doing the sessions together - you did say, “sorry, did I just make this much more difficult for you?” And the answer is yes lah.

Juliet Chia  30:31

There is a level of which I do think I am here to make it more difficult for you. But I think when I asked you that it was out of a genuine kind of, is it difficult in a way that is productive for you? Or difficult in a way that is obstructing where you want to go? But I enjoy when we talk about - is it worth exploring this? Or should we - what are the different ways you could look at character, for instance? We talked about a couple of different exercises if you wanted to explore this aspect of character or mapping out a certain storyline for that other character - there were different pathways you could wander and think through that with each path. That was us together trying to create that map of what that might look like, and all the other journeys that you could take with it. And I think that was important to me, that we can enrich that journey for you. One of the questions I always [unclear] asking in the revision process is how much do you not know, and how much are you trying to discover? Or is it you know what this play is, and you're just trying to get from A to B in the most direct way? Or is there, in the making of it - are there questions that you are trying to answer for yourself, and how can you explore different ways of answering those questions?

Michelle Tan  32:37

That feels like a very iffy answer, like - got map or don't have map, we still don't know.

Unknown speaker  32:47

I just want to gostan a little bit, if that's okay, to ask what are your respective journeys - for Michelle, as a playwright who's working on this piece - how was it like starting out, and what are the kinds of works you create? So I know, for example, that you had a stint with Cake? And how is working in a Cake style, for example, different from what you're doing currently -  because as I understand it they're not really into narrative or drama, so the writing is different [unclear] so it seems like it's a bit more drama. Do you feel yourself shifting stylistically as a writer? 

For Juliet - how did you first begin to get interested in dramaturgy? I have this additional question for you, which is, as someone who's done commissioning, producing, as well as dramaturgy, do you find that there are tensions in these roles? And what I mean by that is, let's say, are you advocating on behalf of the, let's say, company sometimes, does that come into conflict with how you're always looking for the best interests of the playwright? Certain things like IP, for example, if the company's like, no, the terms of this commission are such that we have our own [unclear] does that create friction in your relationship with the playwright?

Michelle Tan  34:34

I suppose my official writing - the first person that I actually emailed before I knew anybody or knew anything about anything was actually Chong Tze Chien, because Corrie gave me his contact at the time, as the ex-Life! reporter that she is. So I just said, “I'm interested in writing, will you be my mentor?” And he agreed to take me on, this don't-know-who from don't-know-where. And I had sent him some samples, and so we actually sat down at Starbucks for a couple of sessions. And at the end of the sessions, he basically looked at me and he said, "you know what? As it is right now, you don't have what it takes to write a well-made play." And I was gutted. I was like, oh no, my life is over. Very honest. I mean, to clarify, he's actually a very good mentor, and I appreciated the honesty. It's just that at that point of time, I was a bit shook. I felt the tough, not sure about the love. 

But yeah, I went back and sort of sat on it, and there's a lot of truth in what he said, because I think my experience - so it's interesting you asked about styles, because the thing is, I don't think I ever studied enough or read enough or practised enough to actually have a good grasp of even what my style is. I had just known from very early on, from accessing Cake's work, that there was something about Natalie's writing that resonated with me, and I knew that what I really wanted to do was to work with her at some point. And so when I did, it was in very many ways like a dream - very cliche, but it really was. And I think there was also a very steep learning curve for me, because again, I had no idea what to expect. Her way of working was also - I think she also found that she needed to shift in a lot of ways, because after having years and years of being both the writer and the director, to take on this new person in that space, and to expect this new person to be able to meet her at that level - I could not, and I did not. So from all the earlier work that I did with them, it definitely showed. 

And it was very painful at the time, but years later looking back on it, I'm like, okay, I can see how this has contributed to the learning process. So I think between the time that I left Cake, there was this period of time where I just told myself I was just going to read, like, all the well-made plays I could get my hands on. And I just read them like a nerd, then I'd mark out, okay, this is what structure is doing here, this is Rajiv Joseph is doing with his characters when he makes one enter this way, and then exit the other - trying to study again, and try to address why I felt so supremely out of my depth. 

I think one of the things that I always struggled with was - I know I can, to some degree, make things sound nice, but it does not mean that I can tell a good story. So I think for a lot of the early years of my career, I would mask the weakness of storytelling with good language. Do I still do that now? Yes. But I confess I do it, and I'm trying to minimise those things. So for me, this was a personal challenge to myself as a writer to begin from a character, to say, how can I - which I guess brings us to the Esplanade work that I did in 2018, which was a commission, but then they said it was a season of monologues. So the structure of that was decided for me, and I thought, “okay, then this is a good opportunity to challenge myself to write from character”. So how can I tell a story, but I need to make this character - I can't just mask it behind flowery, lyrical things. This needs to be a real person going through real things. There needs to be a story here that is being told. 

So I think that was my first foray into doing that and testing myself in that way. I think that was a brief sort of arc. I wouldn't say that there was no honesty in the work that I did for Cake. I think that a lot of that was me as well coming out in little parts here and there, but it was a different level of agency that I had within that working environment, and I also was at a very different place in my life. I didn't feel like I had the same kind of negotiating power that I have now. I wasn't just experienced or knowledgeable enough to articulate what I objected to, or what I was concerned with, and what I was worried about. So the writing, while still exciting to me - it became very deadline-driven, or very "this is the piece that we need to do for this particular show in the season, and this is what you're going to churn out for it". After a while it did feel like I was doing homework and handing it in, and then feeling this frustration of "how come my homework is not the right answer?" I was trying to find the right answer each time. After a while, I think I struggled a lot with that.

Unknown speaker  40:31

I just want to clarify that when I say Cake isn't into narratives, that's not a critique, I don't see that as a weakness, I just understand they operate in a different way.

Michelle Tan  40:45

And the thing is, I realised for it to operate that way and to be successful with it, in some ways, you need to have an even stronger grasp of narrative and storytelling, so that you're able to deconstruct it and break it down in a way that still, after a while, forms some kind of coherent whole that you can experience. And I think that was what she was particularly good at. But it was just so galaxy brain level for me at the time. I could never and will never catch up to that.

Juliet Chia  41:26

I think I'll do a short introduction of my very nonlinear career, I suppose. I think calling myself a dramaturg is relatively new, the title. But for me, it describes the way I think about making work, and I've always thought that way. I think partly, it's just my personality - I am interested in structure, and I see the way things work, architecture or building. I think way back I took some personality test, and I came up with ‘engineer’ or something like that. So my career started in lighting design - I was a lighting designer for a good number of years, and then I shifted over to production management, and then via production management, I moved into this producing, commissioning person, and now I call myself a dramaturg. 

l'll address this question about the - yes, I think there is a conflict of interest between being a producer and a dramaturg, and that's partly why I've personally made a choice to step away and put to one side the producing. I see, fundamentally, the difference being who makes choices. As a dramaturg I very clearly try and not make choices. I do the best I can to help people, whether it's writers, or it could be directors, or designers, or whatever it is - I help people think through their options to offer them options that may not have appeared on the horizon, and to look at that process, but I try and stop before the decision needs to be made, and to put that with the artist, the producer, whatever it is, and say, “okay, these are the things you could do. What would you like to do in where you want to go?” 

Whereas as a commissioning producer, that decision-making is my responsibility. At the point where we started the commission, we would have these discussions about timeline, and I would say to her, “well, I'd like to produce it in this month in this year, therefore, in order to make that happen, we will need these steps”. We did map out roughly if this were going to happen what the steps might be, and that was one kind of map. And I had a lot more to say, and a lot more direction in what that map looked like. But what's interesting is - because that dynamic shifted in the last few months, then our conversation, the tone of it shifts and then it becomes, well, what kind of things do you want to do? Where do you want to go to? What would that map look like? Would you want to go this way? How quickly do you want to move? How slowly do you want to move? I'm a bit led by what Michelle wants. But at the same time, I'm also prompting her with all the things that she might want to think about and all the other ways she might want to go. So I think that's how I would characterise it the most. And at this moment, I try to stick on this side of the line, and I try to keep the line a little bit more clear right now than I have before. So I hope that answers the question. Why do I want to be a dramaturg?

Michelle Tan  45:40

What's in it for you?

Juliet Chia  45:43

I actually like this revision part. I like this messy-in-the-middle bit. I actually find this the most interesting part of the whole process. I enjoy the discovery, I enjoy not quite knowing where it's going. I enjoy being surprised. And I feel like this part, this middle part, is the place where all of that happens, and that possibility exists.

Michelle Tan  46:23

But at some point - I guess maybe we haven't gotten there yet - but will you - I feel like depending on your threshold for sitting with uncertainty, right - you know, believing in that possibility is one thing, but it's also - I guess there's the conviction that it will become something. I feel like sometimes it's difficult to make the call of “it's not going to go anywhere”, and when you decisively need to steer something - I guess the middle part of discovery also feels like it can't be indefinite and needs some kind of landing point.

Juliet Chia  47:12

I think, yes and no - I think it depends on your time span, and also where you see it sitting in life cycles. I've asked you several times “how would you like this to be produced? Have you thought of - what are you thinking about in terms of what might be the right producer, what type of producer would sit best with this particular work?” I mean, not that we've gotten to the point of wanting or needing to answer that question specifically yet, but presumably, at some point of time, you might get to that stage. And yet at the same time, I'm interested in - I also think there is a learning that comes out of it, whether or not it goes specifically into this piece, or the next piece you will write, or the piece that you will write beyond that. I'm also interested in where the work that you're doing here has ramifications on that larger cycle. 

Unknown speaker  48:33

I do feel, though, that it is possible to have a model of a producer-dramaturg, right? It's just that mainly the producer is working for a company and there are institutional pressures, maybe there are conflicts of interest. But I can also imagine an independent producer who also functions as a dramaturg. And I think it's more a question about how then do we define those roles and work out a model that everyone can work with?

Juliet Chia  49:07

That's a really good point. I just think a lot of the relationship is what you want to make out of it. And it is about the communication about what you want to build that relationship to be. Because some of our conversations have been, “so what would you like me to do? How would you like me to interact with you?” And if we want to steer it with some producorial element, then what would that look like? For me, it's really just about having the conversation and making that transparent.

Michelle Tan  49:54

I think a big part of this is also the fact that there's a lot of - and it's also a part of one of the goals - we've talked about this in the larger meetings about the New Writing Development Programme also - which is, what does it mean to give the writer a certain level of agency in the development of their own work? And I think this is one of the ways that seemed good. For me, I'm interested to hear from, let's say, the writers in the room, or anybody who has some kind of experience in writing - what's your personal experience with the issue of agency? Because, like you say, at some point, we are all in this larger ecosystem, just beholden to certain restrictions or pressures when it comes to rights. I have a lot of questions and ideas about that also. So what are people's own experiences on that question of agency? Is it something you feel has evolved over the years? Have you always felt like you had agency? Do you wish it's something you had more of in the creative process?

Joel Tan  51:01

I [unclear] respond in a more roundabout way - one thing I'm hearing a lot and I'm enjoying about this conversation is how much compassion there is between the dramaturg and the playwright, and actually, what I'm hearing from you, Michelle, is that what you've learned is a kind of compassion for yourself as a writer. You learn to forgive yourself. 

Michelle Tan  51:40

Or have I just gotten lazier, we might never know.

Joel Tan  51:43

But to think about process in a much more organic, amorphous way - it makes me think about how, actually, there is a kind of cruelty to the commissioning process that I have experienced as a playwright here, that there's a rigour to it, but it can also feel a bit [unclear] the kind of breakneck production-oriented speed of it, the lack of development time. So I do sometimes feel like I wish there were more opportunities to develop work outside of that production model. I think what this has evolved into is, basically, we're developing the work in its own little kind of gestative space before thinking about where it is in the production time frame. I think that is healthy, and perhaps that is where the writer can find some agency, because the questions that we ask the writer are not so much when or what, but how or whom or why. I feel those are beautiful questions to ask, to let grow out of [unclear] rather than an idea necessarily.

Juliet Chia  53:04

I think there's something about patience, about when you find or make that space to be patient with it. I think one of the things we talked about was: when is the revisioning about asking the how, why questions, versus just cleaning up, copyediting the piece, and what the difference is between re-visioning and editing. One of the things that we did talk about was also a couple of the other pieces that you were working alongside this one, where the time frame was a bit shorter, and what was healthier for the work or not - what was more interesting for you, and what was expected in terms of the distance between the first draft and what was on stage?

Michelle Tan  54:25

Yes. A couple of other shorter pieces - I was working on something for March On, which Shridar was producing. And that, for me, was quite a tight timeframe, because there was a first draft, and I thought there would be maybe at least one other version before it went up, and shockingly, there wasn't! The final draft ended up becoming very technical things - it was just small things, a few [unclear] here and there. But that again, I think, if I'm not wrong, was mainly governed by the timeline, because I think the draft came in in October, the show was going to go up in March, and Edith as the director needed to get people into the space for rehearsals very, very soon. 

Again, there was definitely an intention to develop the work in a more expansive way - because it was for kids, there was this intention to - could the artist then be involved in workshops with children to get that kind of input? And that didn't quite unfold. I did one workshop as part of the process with some 12 year olds, but by then it was too late to actually revise the script - rehearsals were underway, things were going up already. I get that there's a certain machinery motion to it, like it just needs to roll on, it needs to roll out. 

Which brings me to what you said, actually, because after you saw the show - and I felt like that script that I gave to Edith, Edith as a director, in a way, had to do a lot of work on it, because she became, in some ways, like the second writer, because - things to me, those are directorial decisions in some way, but also writer decisions about allocation of lines, or do you have one narrator or two narrators, that sort of thing, deciding on timelines within the text, for instance - all that, she just single-handedly did it and she kept [unclear]. I often - with that process, let's say, for example, then I would wonder actually if there was more time and space, would that have been thrown back at me to go and do - would I have been given that time to actually sort those things out before they went on stage with it? 

Shridar Mani  57:02

That's a really good point. Because - I mean, obviously, I was [unclear] as a producer of the show, so my responsibility [unclear] deliver the show. But after watching the show 20 times, there was a point at which I was like, “actually, having a dramaturg on board this would have made it very different, or made it much more expansive”. It's expansive, not necessarily in terms of length or in terms of density, but in terms of volume - it would have felt more spacious. In some way I felt like because the timeline of it was so one to another, it did not have any room to really breathe, which I felt was a disservice to the text, the production, everything. I felt like in some way, it was this - it got me thinking about this kind of slightly Catch-22 situation about this, right? Because ultimately, you write, because you want the show to be on stage, you want to see the show, you want to see it happen, but at the same time, that sort of end goal also can be detrimental to the expanse and the possibility of expanse. So actually that piece was a really good case study and the opposite of what we think [unclear] last 45 minutes in terms of having that need that ability to meander without it meaning to necessarily get to the end point by sunset. Yeah.

Michelle Tan  58:57

Yeah. And I think also it's the space to let yourself - I don't know if other people feel this, but sometimes you try out something and you're like, “I really hate it”, and it just needs to go and die for a while before you months later go back to it and say, “okay, there's something here that I could learn to love, or could fashion into something a bit more loveable”. Oftentimes it just feels too immediate - I don't think anybody puts something up as a first draft and is like, “yeah, let's go!” There's always a huge amount of insecurity about it. There's always this huge uncertainty about - you know that there are gaps, but you haven't even quite gotten around to articulating what those gaps are or identifying them.

Juliet Chia  59:45

I think to me it goes back to the question of “what is that first draft?” Is that first draft some kind of answer, or is the first draft a first stab at the question? I guess I'm more inclined to think of it as a first stab at a question, and I'm curious about it as a prompt to go into, outside, whatever that question is. I understand, obviously - I've been on the producing end of the spectrum, and I understand the necessity for timelines, and I understand budgets and stuff like that. But I do ask the question - where does it not serve the work itself and not serve the work in its longer life? 

I think the other thing that I was interested in in this process is what this work is that is not about the first production of it, that is about your vision of it as a work. Here's a question for you, where this may have been the first time you're working with someone in this role of a dramaturg - you worked with many other directors before, for instance, directing new pieces that you've written, and quite often, here, directors function in a dramaturgical role, and what the difference for you has been working with a director in the development of your work versus working with a dramaturg in development of this piece?

Michelle Tan  1:01:39

Yeah, I think the key difference is the starting point, right? Because while some directors are also very good with text, ultimately, their agenda is getting that text to life, I guess. So it's still "this is how I see it, this is how I'm going to put it on stage". Whereas this one - that aspect of things has not even entered this conversation, right? It's really purely about - how is this language functioning right now on a page? We haven't even begun to think about what does it look like when these words are getting lifted off? So I think it's just a different entry point to begin with for a director. I've always been inclined to - I love working with directors who have a certain facility with text, and I think that has always helped in my own process of how to see the work, because when I write something - and I get this question from my students a lot also; they're always asking me, “when you see it staged, was it what you imagined it to be?” And my honest answer is always no, because the thing is my imagination is not that good. Like if you asked me, “oh, actually, how did you see this character being portrayed”, or “how did you see this scene being played out?” And I have absolutely no clue. And that is why I don't put stage directions into my things. So for me, what directors do, why I'm also in awe of what directors can do, is basically this particular visioning process, that you can see something on the page and be like, “I can see that play out, and I can see what it looks like in three-dimensional form”. Whereas I don't feel I can.

Joel Tan  1:03:44

What seems useful to me is that this process of working in a gestative space with the dramaturg helps the work arrive at the rehearsal in the state where you're asking questions [unclear] and mounting the play and not necessarily questioning "why you write this play?" There's a kind of certainty and confidence with which you can approach that process once you've built [unclear]. I find that that's interesting, and I'm wondering how I'm going to get that out of our own processes [unclear].

Michelle Tan  1:04:19

You're doing both things at the same time, it kind of has to go. Few and far between have the opportunity to [unclear] the play to rehearsals [unclear].

Juliet Chia  1:04:31

I think I was trying to also - I've seen Alfian, sometimes you problem-solve [unclear] in a script on the floor for a particular production. Sometimes I wonder if that's the play that the playwright wanted to write, or that's just where we're fixing it for this production. And I think, in particular with this as well, part of our early conversation - I was also curious, then, about what different productions of this play might look like, and I was trying to hold open that space for not just the first director's interpretation of it, but where it can live in the future in multiple directorial interpretations of display.

Alfian Sa'at  1:05:19

Just to sort of build on what Michelle mentioned, I think we have not really had a culture of the dramaturg, but we have had dramaturgical thinking and conversations and all that. I always feel like you're right, I think the director is the one who's always been a kind of default dramaturg, and I think a lot of roles have been collapsed into certain figures, and a lot of these processes have been also telescoped. So for me, often it's the first table read with the actors that then becomes that field for us to do some dramaturgy, because the director is there, and he or she is soliciting feedback from the actors, and I always found that to be not very satisfactory. And I sometimes do wish - what if I had a dramaturg to be a sounding board before it reaches the director and also the actors, right? I remember when we had certain table reads - so I would do table reads for Hotel, and we had 13 actors, and then I remember feeling so enraged. What everyone was doing was like, “let's read the scene, let's go around the table”, and there were, like, 13 different opinions, and they all feel obliged - sometimes you can tell they're still processing, but Ivan is there, and implicitly demanding a response or else you're gonna look stupid if you're quiet. So they [unclear] something that comes out is like... mmm... it felt like a trial, and then you having to defend the play. That kind of [unclear] is obviously not ideal. So I'm just sharing how [unclear] for the playwright. 

I have worked with dramaturg before for the play titled Malaya, and that's with Shawn Chua. He was mostly a research dramaturg, but also a rehearsal dramaturg because he speaks Japanese, so he could translate. And I found that to be really quite a lovely relationship. He didn't so much do script dramaturgy - [unclear] on structure were very much left to me, but a lot of the research insights and all that came from him. I remember during the process, maybe two weeks before the show, suddenly he's like “Alfian, I just discovered this bit of information in this Japanese book, I don't know whether you'll find it interesting”. And obviously I found it so super interesting, and I found a way to incorporate it into the play, but again, it was [unclear] stuff. “Shawn Chua, why did you give this to me NOW?”

Unknown speaker  1:08:39

I have a question about process. [unclear] I've been working with CNN, and I think I would say for me that was very, very interesting, because masters of craft are people who have refined their processes, and that really stuck to me because it's not about how "good" you are at something, but it's how clear you are about how you do things. There's a reason why there's the Suzuki method - it's not the Suzuki product or effect, but it's the method. I guess the question is, how do you begin to - this is very amorphous to me also; I'm still trying to discover what is my method? How would you discover this and how would you refine structure and develop this method?

Michelle Tan  1:09:49

The method being like the working process, this particular working dynamic?

Unknown speaker  1:09:56

I think this process of creating something, playwriting - part of the process could be to work with a dramaturg, or with [unclear] whatever. How do you discover stuff that is good for your process and refine it and understand it? 

Juliet Chia  1:10:21

Practice. I mean, not to be facetious, but I am interested in the word practice, because there's that implication of the repetition and the iteration. And when we talk about our practices, right, I think that goes to me quite some ways into that, which is, you keep practising it - it's like a rehearsal. You rehearse, and with each time you rehearse a thing, you make some - whether it's advance or back - but you learn something out of it, and it gives you a certain direction to go in next, and you try that, and you take the temperature and you go figure out what the next step after that is, and it is ongoing. I love dancers, because they have practice on a regular basis, everyday, pretty much. I love that.

Michelle Tan  1:11:27

I think it's that, but at the same time, it's also - let's say thinking about practice in the dance way - you're trying to nail down a certain fixed technique - it's repeatability and consistency. And I think there is an element here, but I also think that when it comes to the process of writing, your process can also evolve. I think that's what makes it harder to pin down. I find even at school now, when I am teaching, writing, or attempting to, it's not so much telling the kids "these are the steps you can take", but actually, what I seem to be teaching is the process of helping you discover what your process is - what tools can I give you to make you excited about just beginning something, and what tools can I give you to also shore up your confidence that you do have a voice, and you do have something to say, and you can keep learning ways in which to say those things? Because if you were to ask me "actually what's your process?" After X years, I also cannot answer you - I think in my answer to Alfian's question just now about the journey, the process looks so different in different contexts. Just the process of making theatre is so inevitably collaborative - it exposes itself to so many moving parts all at once that I find it very hard to go in and say "this is how I work, everything forms around it, because I have just discovered this way of working". It's always like something shifts it, and then something butterfly effects on to something else, and then the whole process just looks very different from one piece of writing to the next, or one rehearsal to the next. But that's not to say that we don't find a consistency and repeatability also. It's hard to just find that balance.

Alfian Sa'at  1:13:52

I think if you ask different playwrights, you will get different answers. There's a certain combination of both structure and chaos, and you have to always permit some kind of openness - when I was working with Shawn and he came out with that last minute info, I had to find a way to deal with it. I think if I had quite a fixed structure I would never have been able to admit that new information. So for me personally, I don't write more than three drafts - and I don't mean this with any arrogance, okay, let me be clear about why I only write three drafts - so there's a first draft, and then after that, there will be a table read. After that table read, when I hear it for the first time, then I will think about how I'm going to revise. Then after that there'll be a second draft, and the second draft goes to rehearsals. Somewhere in the midpoint of rehearsals, as the director feedbacks me - okay, some things are working, some things aren't working - and I'll see whether these are things that need to be fixed at the level of the script, or whether it's something you work on on the floor. And then there'll be a third and final draft. But actually, in between there's a lot of tweakings here and there, so actually maybe there's draft 1.1, 1.2 - but I never consider them formally as drafts. I feel like a draft has to be really something where - there has to be quite major changes. I don't see, like, I just change one theme or a few lines, and then that's another draft - I don't see it that way. So I'm quite clear. And that's the way I rein it. And other writers, there'll be like eight, nine drafts. How many drafts do you write usually, Joel?

Joel Tan  1:15:42

One. [unclear] It changes [unclear].

Shridar Mani  1:15:56

We'll have a couple of last questions and then we can wrap up.

Unknown speaker  1:16:20

How do you employ destruction in work [unclear] You got a [unclear] and all that, and then somewhere in the middle, "I think I need to remove one chapter, I need to remove this plot, or I need to completely change the story". How is that useful in the process? I'm not sure where this question is going, but it's something I've been thinking about. Versus something I experimented with a lot recently is every draft is completely new.

Shridar Mani  1:17:10

I have a tag-on question - at what point - in terms of the idea of inquiry of the work - how do you differentiate between "this can go somewhere" and "this is done"?

Juliet Chia  1:17:30

I don't know how to answer that in the general - I think I would need to know a very specific context to be able to answer that question. I'm just going to jump in [unclear] I'm going to rip off something [unclear] said, which is experiment. Going back to this podcast that Michelle and I listened to - it's by a writer named Peter Ho Davies, who wrote a book called The Art of Revision, which I read recently, and a lot of it resonated with me. One of the ideas I took away from it is also this question of looking at each draft, or each entry into the work, as a hypothesis, and a hypothesis to be - you go in, and you say, “well, when I'm working on this, I have this hypothesis about how this might work”, and this next draft is an exploration of whether that hypothesis works or not. And you learn something out of that. Whether it works, or doesn't work, there's still a learning that you take away from it. 

Taking that into the next conversation I had with Michelle was asking, then, well, how do we use that idea in looking at where you might want to go next? And one of the things we talked about was, well - she said, “I want to hear what I've written in a voice now, and in this kind of voice”, and I said, “what questions do you want to ask in hearing that voice? What answers might you hope to come away with?” Framing that exercise with intention and inquiry. How you define each draft - because I think one of the other things that I was intrigued by in the book is - with some word processing, like, you know, in the past you typewriter, right, so when you have a draft, you have literally typed the entire script, and the second draft, you potentially have literally retyped the whole thing. Now, with word processing, you can change little bits. Is that a new draft? I don't know. When do you consider it a new draft? So that's another thing about - how do you need to define the drafts? A draft is a particular exercise, a particular question you want answered, a particular hypothesis you want either proved or not? And that is the way you mark those steps through the process.

Michelle Tan  1:20:29

So if destruction of something or someone within a draft is an answer to the question that you have, then yes, by all means, do it. I think what has also helped me personally in being less hung up over killing off something or overhauling something necessary is actually - in this day and age, or even in the typewriter era, it's not permanent. I could five versions later decide I want to bring the thing back I have destroyed because now it works again, and maybe this is one of the aforementioned scenic routes. So it might take a while to get there. I don't think the term you use is destruction, if I'm understanding it correctly - I don't think of it as something that is actually that final. In the grander scheme of things, it doesn't feel so explosive, actually, to take something away or to remove something or to kill someone off.

Unknown speaker  1:21:34

Before I asked my question, I wanted to say thank you Alfian for sharing that anecdote about having actors in the play, and they're obliged to say - because I've been in the position of an actor where we're asked "so what are your thoughts" after the first read and I'm like, so stressed because I don't have [unclear]. I don't know why, it's such a relief [unclear] thank goodness it's not just me - all the other actors are saying very profound things and I'm like "where are you getting all this from?” I must say I'm very relieved. So my question is related also to filtering feedback or comments from others - what are some of the things that you do when you feel stuck at a particular place, and when you reach out for comments or feedback, maybe you hear contradicting comments, or comments that you don't quite feel for - or maybe you're doubting yourself; is it because I'm not seeing it, or is there some value in what they're saying, but I just am not able to envision it? What do you do at that point when you're stuck? I guess every playwright probably has their own personal things. I'm very curious to know, because I've been stuck in every single thing I wrote.

Michelle Tan  1:22:59

Sounds normal, you'll be fine. So who do you listen to, how do you discern what's useful? I think for me, again, it comes back to the specific context, right? If, let's say, it was a table read, and I'm hearing from 13 actors who were listening to this play for the very first time, I might look at it as a whole - what I'm trying to say here is reading takes time. Reading beyond a certain level takes time. And I think maybe one of the things that's missing in this entire process of how we produce work here is actually, we just don't spend enough time reading things - and not just reading cursorily, but a close reading that actually requires some kind of excavation and some kind of rereading, even. So that is one layer that I would take into consideration when I'm thinking about where these comments are coming from. 

Again, there is merit in somebody's instinctive response - I think an audience's instinctive response can give you a very clear indication of what might be working - if something that you thought was very clear-cut ends up not landing, then maybe it's me. But if it's something that is a bit more subtle or something that was a bit more complex that was being commented on, then maybe on that kind of point, it would give me pause, and I would maybe go back to people or a community that can help me, or an individual that can help me see that more objectively, in the sense that they are not the writer, but they are also someone who has a close enough relationship to the text and has a close enough investment to it. Which sounds like a very laborious process. I don't know that I have a - I think over the years, maybe one thing I've learned is not to be too reactive to contests and to feedback. I think it's wonderful to have, but it's almost like the feedback needs its own time and distance to process also. Whereas if I find I'm making knee-jerk, reactionary changes based on things that I've heard for the first time, then I would probably try and give pause to that.

Juliet Chia  1:25:48

I think it depends a bit on when the feedback happens. I mean, I do very much sympathise about 13 actors' worth of feedback at the first reading of a rehearsal period, which is probably not very long in the first place. I think that kind of feedback at that stage is - there's not that much time to wait. I think it's also whether you've asked the right question in order to elicit the feedback. There's a saying - to solve a problem, you need to ask the right question in the first place. I would be more interested in, as the process goes, at any point that you're eliciting feedback - what are you asking for? I think all too often it goes "what do you think?", which I find a very vague question. You don't know what to do with the response, because you have no idea what context people are bringing in. But the more specific you can make your question - and again, I go back to this idea of “what are you doing that for?” What hypothesis are you testing, or what thing do you want to get out of it? Then hopefully, what you're getting back is framed within that question, and then you can start to work with it in a constructive way.

Joel Tan  1:27:10

One thing we're trying out here at Centre 42 is script development processes that have facilitation built into it, so it's not just about "hey, what do you think?" but there's a facilitator who works with the playwright to ask, okay, what kinds of questions or curiosity do you have about the work? What do you want people to comment on and there's someone to facilitate that. So it's not 13 actors giving opinions [unclear] solicit more specific [unclear].

Alfian Sa'at  1:27:51

Sometimes you can tell from the phrasing of the feedback also, like, when they say stuff like "why didn't you address something something", or "why isn't" - when it's phrased in the negative, then you realise that they've already thinking of another play that they probably want you to write, and it is not the play that's being discussed right now. So I've learned to not put too much weight to those speculative kinds of questions, which are not really grounded in the play that's been written. [unclear] When do you know when to stop? 

Michelle Tan  1:28:53

When I'm tired lah. You mean, when do you know when a play is finished, or when I'm done with it? I don't. Most of the time, again, it's when the time's up. With March On, I didn't know that that was the stop point. It just happened, and I didn't ever have to go back to it again, so that was an enforced stop. With this one, we'll see. I don't know yet. That remains a big question because I don't think I've ever been in a situation where I could govern the stop time. It's always been dictated for me thus far. I think that I've started and just stopped because I've run out of steam. I just don't know where this is going anymore, and there are all these half-started half-finished things that are just sitting around. But again, it's not a decided "I am done", but a "I'm stuck lor". That also a stop in its own way. When should I stop? Juliet will tell me.

Juliet Chia  1:30:03

I - no. I was actually going to say, I don't have the answer to that. I mean, I have a hypothesis. That is what this relationship is about, it's about trying. If there's a question or a certain - the impulse that you wanted to explore or whatever it is that prompted the writing of this in the first place - my hypothesis is that I'm trying to find an answer to that question that answers it for you is a stopping point. I don't know. We'll find out. That's the experiment at the moment.

Alfian Sa'at  1:30:43

I think the form itself, for me, means that it's only finished when it meets an audience, so there's that whole - the script as being a blueprint for something else, right, for this phenomenon or experience, where actually the audience's involved in this competition.

Joel Tan  1:31:07

Thank you, everybody.