ON MY POETICS: WHY
AND HOW DO I WRITE AND WHAT I WRITE ABOUT
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I really didn’t want to be writer.
I was already hooked in the theatre at that time; shuttling
between acting, designing and directing. Then one day, there’s this damn
irresistible idea which I was salivating to mount onstage. I cajoled someone to
produce the project. He got excited and immediately said yes, except that it had
to be staged in three weeks! And before I knew it, I was already in a bind
after he declared all tickets considered sold by his target audience. Now, I didn’t
have any choice but to put everything on paper.
In other words, my passion in the art and craft of creative
writing came about quite accidentally. But let’s not dwell on this. This is
another story altogether. Let’s just talk about my poetics.
I write because there are things which I could express only
in writing. Besides, to begin with, one may not be able to complete a film or a
play without first having written its blue print – the working script. Even if
other filmmakers or theatre auteur(s) would dare declare that a script is not
necessary as gleaned from various postmodern and contemporary approaches --
still, some kind of a written plan should be there, and that, to me, is the
written word, the text and subtext of the theatrical or cinematographic piece.
I write because there are things I need to express that
needs to be written. I believe that I could express these ideas more credibly
if I had to write them. I write about my views, concerns, obsessions,
advocacies, etc. I write first by observing what interests me profusely. If I
get pricked by that stimulus, I start imagining as to how I’m going to position
the elements, such as characters, plot, conflict, etc. in my own fashion,
depending on how I see myself, man, and the universe at that particular
moment.
From then on, writing to me, has become a necessity. Everything
has to start with the written word. And that, to me, is non-negotiable. One
could be a relentless guerilla filmmaker doing a documentary approach to feature
filmmaking, or one could be an experimental gourmet in theatre by starting off
a play culled from his actors’ naked personas and rawness of motivations as
inspirations and springboards to a theatrical tex t, and yet with all these approaches in
the contemporariness of the film and theatre worlds, a written blue print is still, a very
necessary tool in achieving the fullness of logic and temper of the desired art
form.
And how do I write? I write with a topic or theme, or a
character or some characters, or a basic plot in mind. I could also start
writing with a given premise or thought or insight which probably has intrigued
or inspired me. I often write first with some certain content in mind. Very
seldom do I write first with a specific form before dealing with content. This
may only happen if the form, I feel, is something new to begin with, something
experimental. But I don’t remember having written something that began with or
was inspired by form or an experiment with form. To me, the form is just a
shell as to the body is for the soul. The significant thing that form could
probably best do is to serve as participative complement to the content,
regardless whether such content was culled from a premise, an idea, a character
or a plot point.
How do I revise? I revise according to what I feel is
lacking of the material, particularly the thread that binds the elements
together. I have to make sure that this thread is tight enough to hold its
skeletal structure.
A case in point: there is this character, a wife, for
instance, who is not thoroughly ‘explored’ in the process, but towards the end of
the story leaves the husband. This wife’s motivation and subterfuges must be
explored further much earlier in the course of the narrative so that her eventual
decision to leave the husband would be credible, especially when the writer
even opts to murder the husband, if not pulverize him into bits.
How do we put muscles in the skeletal structure? We could
perhaps create a series of scenes in which the wife seeks advice from a friend,
examines her conscience to a priest, and eventually secure either an annulment
paper if not a licensed revolver before the big bang finally happens.
I rearrange or shuffle scenes if necessary. I experiment on
my chosen structure if I felt that it is not helping in the crystallization and
development of the story.
I am generally influenced by the works of writers who speak
my language and interests – writers who possess a natural élan for great
storytelling and experimental narratives. I dread pretenders when I smell one.
The play or screenplay should be good enough as written while at the same time
good enough when performed or screened. As written, it should reflect the
required realism through the characters’ voices even when just read silently,
more so loudly and when performed either onstage or on camera. If to be
performed, the actual dialogue or monologue must be read by the actor(s) during
the rehearsal’s initial reading. And if anyone sensed something unnatural or
artificial in the manner by which the lines were created, then the writer might
give these lines a second look for possible revision. In short, a writer worth
his salt must responsibly reward himself with a mind open for any changes that
may come its way because any collaborative work of art for that matter is
always a beautiful work-in-progress.
Directorial annotations in the scripts should be dealt with
simply but clearly and most of all specifically, if necessary. This is likewise
not to discount the basic requirement that annotations should work both in
practical and workable terms when either staged or filmed. Though a writer may
formulate his ideal situation as written, the practicality of directorial and
logistical compromises should also be considered. And as case in point in
‘Shooting the Boys’ and ‘Dolores’ however, given the delicate sensitivity of
their subject matter, exercises in directorial moderation were carefully
considered during their performances and filming respectively.
And after probing deeper into the realm of my creative
subconscious, I begin to suspect that my works are generally influenced by my
interest in New Age Philosophy. My incessant obsession for needing to attain
perfection of the soul, whether overtly, or subliminally, has always been
there. Thus, one may find on-and-off references on karma, dharma,
reincarnation, immortality, portals, parallel worlds and dimensions in them.
Yet on the other hand, my works’ overarching emotion seems
to be on ‘guilt’ and on how I should deal with it, if not really overcome it --
specifically though, a kind of guilt which is related to sexuality, largely
homoerotic. And this is probably the suppressed discourse which I feel should
be unearthed for now.
And maybe this is the reason why I use allegories to mask
these suppressed feelings and desires. Now I just realized as to why I
constantly deal with (Christian) morality plays to exhume them from the
perverse depths and hopefully find some answers, even though how nebulous they
may seem, through these guilt-ridden characters ensnared by their own private
world and being. After all, as the late Rolando Tinio would always say – that honest-to-goodness
creative writing has always, is always and will always be autobiographical, whether
partially or fully, of which its fraction thereof doesn’t really matter.
The Plays
Shooting the Boys
‘Shooting the Boys’ was written as my answer to Boy
Noriega’s Batang Pro. After having stage managed Boy’s production of his
psychological drama on street children turned prostitutes, I was then
creatively inspired to come up with my own version, this time, focused on the
warped psyche of the predator, the Caucasian pedophile, instead of the victim(s).
(Through the years of my writing experience, mentors Boy
Noriega, Ricky Lee and Rolando Tinio have constantly reminded me to focus on
character over plot, character over plot, character over plot -- an advice
which I have taken to heart.)
The play is told from the point of view of main character,
John Harvey. He is an American actor who appears in Hollywood B-Movies about
the Vietnam War in the 60s. After overstaying in Pagsanjan, Laguna – one of the
favorite locations of these films, and allegedly instigated by Francis Ford
Coppola through the filming of his mammoth masterpiece, ‘Apocalypse Now,’
Harvey sought refuge in a hidden cottage overlooking the rapids and eventually
developed enough familiarity to house a stable of financially strapped young
boys and girls in the neighborhood, after successfully convincing them that he
is their messiah. Harvey ’s
glib and guile earned for him an allured confidence from the parents of these
children, thus allowing him the opportunity to decide as to whose children he
finally keeps for good.
‘Shooting the Boys’
was adjudged Third Prize in the 2010 Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for
Literature. It had its world premiere performance in May 2006 at the 31st
UNESCO-International Theatre Institute World Congress, Manila
Salvador/Javier
In ‘Salvador/Javier,’ the relationship between the two
priest-childhood friends is in peril as their perspective on how to serve their
vocations clash. Who will the church favor? And who will the church denounce
based on to its dogmas and doctrines? Who will succumb to whom? The play attempts to reexamine the tenets of
the Jesuits’ Theology of Liberation during the Martial Law regime of Philippine
dictator Ferdinand Marcos, a situation similar to what was happening then in El Salvador .
News accounts of priests either getting tortured or ‘salvaged’ would appear
clandestinely in the leftist and left-leaning papers during that time.
‘Salvador/Javier’ won
First Prize in the 1985 Cultural Center of the Philippines
Chiaroscuro
‘Chiaroscuro,’ which in Latin and art parlance means the
contradiction of light and shade, posits a universal worldview that life is
likewise full of human contradictions. It is about the poignant and bittersweet
relationship between art and life.
This Chekhovian play also paints the world of the Malate
visual artists and the challenges they face in their struggle for economic
survival vis-à-vis their unrelenting pursuit to perfect their craft. It also
essays the universal theme on the artist’s option to compromise his art in
exchange for commercial satisfaction, or rather, is the kind of compromise
merely an option or a painful necessity for one to survive?
Four visual artists / painters meet up in their respective
studios and go through the motion of dealing with the wheelers and dealers of
their masterpieces and canvasses. Will there be harmony between their life and
art with such deals?
‘Chiaroscuro’ was
awarded a performance reading by the Writers’ Bloc, Inc. and Tanghalang
Pilipino during its June-July 2010 7th Virgin Labfest at the
Tanghalang Huseng Batute of the Cultural Center of the Philippines.
Terminal
‘Terminal’ is my answer to the HIV/AIDS issue during the
80s. I wrote it at a time when I got succumbed to the crisis itself, being a
self-confessed homosexual myself who, from time to time had been tempted by my
own brand of hedonism, an edgy and wayward, call it ‘bohemian’ lifestyle. I
seemingly didn’t care less if I got infected by the illness or not, whether for
suicidal or mere romanticized reasons.
I must say that artists are generally susceptible to
suicidal behavior, be it theoretical or for real. This is because of their
propensity to either enchant or disenchant themselves emotionally, something
which is akin to their ‘manic-depressive’ (now more known as bipolar) view of
life and of their world.
In fact, when my health started to bog me down sometime in
May, I immediately suspected that I had HIV. I even had myself tested,
something that scared me out of my wits while having to wait for the result
over that weekend. And when I found out that I was free from it, I comfortably
leaned back, smiled and relaxed only to find out much later that it was
Burkitt’s lymphoma that struck me.
As of this writing, I’m currently undergoing four cycles of
high dose chemotherapy every three weeks, a regimen which is supposed to be
completed by December of this year.
‘Terminal’ was
adjudged Third Prize during the 1987 Cultural
Center of the Philippines Philippines
Beyond Silence
Sometimes, there is more meaning in the silences and pauses
of our conversations and of our lives.
Oftentimes, there are other meanings to the words that we
speak and express, even if these words have other meanings as well.
The thoughts and
configurations may be found in between the words, or in the opposite definition
of these same words.
The theme of ‘Beyond Silence’ goes beyond the capacity and
limitation of language to express itself.
Three people: a man, a woman, and another man meet up. Their
intriguing relationship together will eventually be revealed as their
conversation ensues into cries and whispers
The three-character ‘Beyond Silence’ deals more on the
reality of loving two people at the same depth, breath and time, outside and
beyond gender preferences. It is an intriguing story of three people: the
husband, his wife and his male lover who’s also his wife’s lover. The
silence-ridden bedroom scenes between the husband and his wife, the husband and
his male lover, and the wife and his husband’s lover and her lover as well
provided the characters an opportunity to flesh out their innermost feelings,
recriminations and subterfuges. My inspiration from Pinter’s use of pregnant
silences and pauses in between the characters’ dialogue accorded itself the
meaning of what they are really saying but couldn’t be said quite enough with
mere words. The characters’ nuances and inflections interpreting the complexity
of the emotional and relational entanglement which they are in are expressed in
this particular writing structure and technique.
‘Beyond Silence’ was
awarded a performance reading by the Writers’ Bloc, Inc. and Tanghalang Pilipino during its June-July 2010
7th Virgin Labfest at the Tanghalang Huseng Batute of the Cultural
center of the Philippines.
The Screenplays
When I plan to write a screenplay, I always have in mind
first and foremost the objective as to why I’m writing such.
The reasons for one could range from either the desire to
share an experience disguised through fictional characters and situations, or a
propensity to extend oneself into creating and/or recreating an entirely new
experience, in which case, a creative invention of an insight through new
writing structure and forms, or even a reinvention of an already existing
insight but this time, embellished with added and/or subtracted ingredients
that should make such old hat insight a fantastically re-energized one.
Ang Lalaking Nangarap
Maging Anghel
This film is a story of a man who
is torn between his pursuit towards personal fulfillment and anything that is
pleasurable and pleasing to the five senses versus his struggle to make a
difference by pursuing the road much less traveled, that which is tortured,
spine ridden, yet ennobling and redemptive in the end.
It is an afterthought of someone
who continues to battle with his personal demons. But this tortuous journey
could only be valid when one can identify the demons he chooses to grapple
with. Otherwise, the whole issue will just be an exercise in futility, thus
merely masturbatory.
The character and his alter ego liken
himself to be that of Icarus and Daedelus, the two mythical angels whose melted
wings caused their fall due to their daring proximity to the sun’s blinding
radiance.
And in the words of Hermann Hesse
from his novel, Narcissus and Goldmund, “it was strange and divinely beautiful
that there was also this kind of love, this selfish, completely spiritualized
kind; how different it was from today’s love in the sunny field, the reckless,
intoxicated play of the senses, and yet both were love-”, the characters in
this screenplay are likened to these wanton personas.
And yet what shall prevail in the
end, we wonder?
The screenplay has the main character’s indulgence in
pleasures of the flesh getting in the way of his spiritual redemption. These
conflicts between the mundane and the sublime are perhaps, upon looking back,
influenced by Herman Hesse’s ‘Siddhartha’ and ‘Narcissus and Goldmund.’ Hesse continuously shows me the complex battle between
worldly pleasures and spiritual bliss.
‘Ang Lalaking Nangarap
Maging Anghel’ was adjudged Second Prize in the 1994 Carlos Palanca Memorial
Awards for Literature.
Nokturnal
The writing structure of ‘Nokturnal’ is inspired by Arthur
Schnitzler’s controversial play, ‘Reigen,’ more popularly known as ‘La Ronde,’
a theatre piece composed of 10 thematic scenes or sketches.
‘Nokturnal’s writing structure, like ‘La Ronde,’ is designed
in a way where one of the characters introduced in the opening scene would
spring up again in the closing scene, with all the other characters meeting up
in-between somehow connected and ‘separated only by 6 degrees,’ thus, its
narrative arch eventually coming in full circle.
Similar to ‘La Ronde,’ ‘Nokturnal’ is likewise thematically
connected. If the thematic thread of ‘La Ronde’ is its brilliant meditation on
men and women, sex and social class, actors and the theatre, ‘Nokturnal’ is
about the interconnectivity of people whose desires are of the need to love and
be loved. The characters in ‘Nokturnal’ would painstakingly long to make their
relationships work because they feel that life which is bereft of needing
someone to love and be loved is an unfulfilled and meaningless life, if not
life at all.
If ‘La Ronde’ is a circular tale on love and betrayal,
‘Nokturnal’ is about nocturnal desires and the eternal quest for love and its
eventual falling out, and yet, amid hope that someday, this elusive word would
come back again, this time, in full circle.
‘Nokturnal’ was
adjudged Third Prize in the 1998 Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature.
Dolores
The story is told from the point of view of the soul of
Dolores.
At 14, she is gifted with an innocence that enamored her
household. She is well loved and yet is betrayed by what she should have known
all along – that there is oftentimes a confusingly thin line between love and
lust.
Dolores, torn between the familial love of her folks and her
innocence eventually falls into a realization that domestic betrayal is at
hand. Ripped apart by the love and lust of her brother, father, uncle and
grandfather, the film is based on a true account which I read from an article
in a newspaper daily, days before I decided to write my fictional version of
the story.
It is set in a remote town devoid of harvest, where she and
her two brothers were not encouraged to go to school -- an environment bereft of
a normal though humdrum community life. And while her mother leaves her for a
better job opportunity abroad, she may no longer trust the men in her life
There is a seeming nuance of her being shared by the very
people she cared, until one day, the enigma breaks. She now realizes her
brokenness and the only way for her to deal with the despair is to set herself
free.
I would like to believe from hindsight, that hopefully
through this material, Strindberg’s deterministic relationship between heredity
and environment paved the way to the inevitable end which ‘Dolores’ did
succumb.
The film version of ‘Dolores’
was in the official selection and finalist to the 11th CineManila
International Film Festival, November 2009. It was also included in the
official selection to the 2010 Culture Unplugged Online International Film
Festival.
IN SEARCH OF
CONNECTIONS
If there were any tradition in Philippine Literature or
Drama which I represent, or if I were in a way starting anything new, I should
perhaps consider the following movements which at some point have somehow
experienced treading through my influences with and inspirations by the
following masters: Strindberg’s naturalism, Ibsen’s social realism, Genet and
Albee’s theatre of the absurd, Becket and Camus’ existentialist theatre,
Cocteau’s poetic realism, protest literature, and even religious literature
since my works refer a lot to these – the indefatigable search for divinity, or
at the very least, a search for a sense of meaning and order in one’s moral
consciousness.
SOURCES AND
INFLUENCES
And again, as we further venture inside my creative navel,
Boy Noriega’s play ‘Batang Pro’ was definitely a major thematic influence in my
writing of the play ‘Shooting the Boys.’ Why ‘Batang Pro,’ maybe because
amongst the many plays forever glowing in the author’s repertoire, Noriega
still considers this play as his favorite. And that intrigued me since I didn’t
have the knack for it the first time. I just thought that for a play seriously
dealing with an important social issue at that time, Batang Pro somehow lacked
the social dimension that I was expecting, and that the whole aesthetic
experience, for me, was stringently psychological. Yet little did I realize
that this Noriega play will eventually serve as one of the dramaturgical
backbones in my writing life.
My other screenplay, ‘Dolores’ is a thematic follow-up of
‘Shooting the Boys.’ Since then, I got hooked into this particular advocacy
after the countless times I have experienced researching on the plight and
trauma of the sexually abused child.
The issue on ‘incest’ in ‘Dolores’ is, more or less, a
personal fixation and advocacy on child abuse. It is loosely based on a
regional section’s article from a major broadsheet published years ago.
Personal fixations on imaginary offspring/children, or
either the wish or lack of it, dominated my plays, ‘Beyond Silence,’
‘Existentially Yours,’ and ‘A Journey into the Landscape of the Heart.’ They
are seeming echoes of, I guess, George and Martha’s cries in Edward Albee’s
‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’
My penchant for my oftentimes Pinterish short one-liners,
frequent pauses, silences and beats are evident in ‘Beyond Silence’ and randomly
a few times in ‘Existentially Yours’ and ‘A Journey into the Landscape of the
Heart.’ My love-hate relationship with Pinter cajoled me into this pointillist
rhythm and cadence of life through his worldview as being both tragically and
humorously cold, dry, and wry. His oblique view and feel of the world complement his writing style, such as
his more oft between-the-line recriminations and subterfuges, pregnant pauses
and thoroughly absorbed silences, which in fact, say more than the very mere
lines surrounding them. This dramatic writing fetish, I should say, could be
more comfortable in the English language than in Filipino, which I’d like to
think. We, Filipinos, don’t really think and say things the way they seemingly
seem, but rather actually seem, thus, my very reason for writing these plays in
English.
A UP ICW LECTURE
EXCERPT
The following essay is an excerpt from a 1991 lecture which
I delivered for the University of the Philippines ’
Institute of Creative Writing
Theatre as a
Refraction of Life
I say now that the artist is a prism, this prism refracts
life, and the result which is art is therefore a refraction, and not just a
reflection, of life. Life is like the light entering the prism – we call this
incident light; while the same light refracted through the prism is art, which
we call refracted light. Art, therefore, is light refracted; it is not life
merely reflected, because the artist is not merely a one-dimensional mirror but
a prism, a multi-sided crystal capable of transforming or splitting life so
that it breaks into a wealth of color spectrums and tones.
This kind of view, I believe, has influenced my writing over
the years, as well, perhaps as my taste for the theatre pieces that I have
watched or attempted to produce or direct for my theatre group, Dramatis
Personae. I have aimed at the spectrum,
so to speak, in my writings, such that on occasions I could in fact have been
blinded by so much refracted life in the process. I have aimed at many slices
of light and life, rather than at one immediately coherent image, so that some
of my plays may have been difficult to appreciate quickly.
The Many Purposes of
Writing and Art
Art and writing have many purposes – it must probe, educate,
edify, entertain and so on, but above all, it must disturb the current order of
things. It must at all times question the status quo (even if it cannot present
the right answers or solutions right away) until things reach a new
equilibrium, which must then be tested or disturbed again – a cycle that goes
on and on. The artist must raise the questions that are not raised, he must
alienate or from a vantage point isolate us from our learned values and from
the inevitable familiarity of things and the false security that such
familiarity can engender.
This constant testing or re-examination of life and the
human condition is what enables the writer to develop his view of life until he
himself reaches a certain equilibrium or maturity, which also remains open to
constant challenges or scrutiny. This is what allows the writer to grow, and
also to remain fresh in his work.
The serious act of ‘disturbing’ is almost a natural function
of writers. This is the gift of irony, the ability to see the equal probability
and reasonableness of the other side of things, the ‘what if?’ thinking process
whenever confronted by events or life in general.
Text and Subtext and
other (Theatrical) Permutations
The subtext, which reveals to us the motivations of
characters, is often more important than the text. Actors anchor themselves on
it, so every writer, after having completed his text, must also review his
subtext. This can minimize conflicts in interpretation later on whether from
the actor, the director or even the writer himself. In other words, if your
text is clear, your subtext must be clearer. It may not be clear enough to be
known instantly or instantaneously but it certainly must be clear enough to be
discovered.
Directing is interpretation, not illustration but care
should be exercised so as not to violate the text. In other words, the director
works on the subtext but within the text given him. He and the writer may
disagree on the subtext, but if the disagreement moves over to the text or goes
beyond the point of the text, it is the writer who must prevail.
Motivation must be shown through action, rather than
delivered verbally. Every moment onstage is a conscious moment for the actor.
Every movement must be motivated, and the writer in his directorial
instructions should help furnish the motivation or at least provide
opportunities for this. But the greatest movement in the play, which can happen
even if the actors are immobile throughout their performance (as in Becket’s
Happy Days for instance, in fact, a very memorable Dramatis Personae theatre
production that was physically immobile but both philosophically and
emotionally sweeping and devastating), is the movement of the plot and the development or growth of the
character. This movement is the principal responsibility of the writer, and no
amount of stage business can accomplish that for the director or the
actor.
The Writer and his
keen Sense of Danger
Aside from developing a sense of irony, a writer must also
imbue a certain sense of danger, or unpredictability in his writing, whether in
structure, semiotics or syntax, most especially in his worldview, premise and
insight.
He mustn’t lose grasp of this important dramatic function
because it is through this mindset that the writer conjures a world which is
entirely his own, without any hesitation nor trepidation. His unconscious
effort of ‘pushing the envelope’ should be his priority at all times. I am
reminded of the ending of ‘The Piano Player,’ when the character of Isabelle
Huppert seemingly without thinking stabs herself with a letter opener amid a
crowd of concert habitués in the lobby of a theatre. The dagger goes straight
to her chest and ends her fixation on the man she is obsessed with. Then she
quietly leaves the theatre with no one realizing that such a ruthless act is
fulfilled.
FROM SCRIPT TO STAGE
AND SCREEN
Let me share with you two experiences in ‘Dolores’ and
‘Shooting the Boys’ -- two sensitively themed scripts which were translated
onscreen and onstage through my filming and theatrical direction.
When these two particular scripts were written, I didn’t
have any reservation in carefully choosing and mincing my thoughts and words
for fear that the texts may displease the moral sensibilities of some readers.
I was fully aware of such risk if people branded, or at the very least, be
impressed that they were pornographic, but this was perhaps understandable due
to their very graphic content and directorial annotations. Yet with these
thoughts and fear which initially bothered me, I still went on and stood
steadfast with my brazenness, since any act of cowardice, I feel, may affect
the truth and honesty of the texts’ premise and intentions -- something which I
clearly wanted to protect and guard with my own artistic integrity. Besides, I
said to myself, they were just words, and written words may not hurt as much as
violate their visual translations onstage or onscreen.
And so I was guided by these thoughts. And true enough, when
I started filming ‘Dolores,’ I was very careful in handling all the very
sensitive scenes in the script. I ended up simulating their execution since one
doesn’t really need to actually perform it in front of the camera. There is
always a thousand and one angle and shot with which a scene be performed successfully
without compromising the very cinematographic truth of its execution.
Similarly in ‘Shooting the Boys,’ I was guided by the same
intention. What was clearly important was to truthfully express the stark
realism of the pedophilic scenes as performed onstage without necessarily
compromising my moral responsibility and accountability with my actors. I
didn’t use actual children for the sexually abused children roles. The same
principle guided me as well in choosing my ‘Dolores.’ She was already biologically
18 years old and not the 14 year old nymph that was required of the story. And
yet, very thankfully, they all acted their characters’ ages quite well.
The scenes were all ‘simulatedly’ performed but looked real.
Thanks to the technical magic of light effects and sound design textures. Both
theatre and film experiences were great exercises in prioritizing moral welfare
over artistic hubris.
‘Shooting the Boys’ was likewise produced by Dramatis
Personae and was premiered during the Theatre Olympics of Nations’ section of
the ITI (International Theatre Institute)-UNESCO Theatre Festival in May 2009
at the Bulwagang Huseng Batute of the Cultural
Center of the Philippines .
WISHFUL THINKING
Again, like all playwrights and screenwriters, I’ve always
wished that my other written plays and screenplays be staged/mounted either by
my group, by other groups/producers, or co-produced by my group and
another/other production group/s.
Plays and screenplays, unlike other literary forms such as
the novel, poetry, and creative fiction and non-fiction, should see the light
of either a performance or a public screening. If not, the words written on
those pages will mean nothing, except at the very least, for publication
purposes. Otherwise, the supposed text will merely remain as masturbatory exercises
in bookshelf literature.
TWENTY YEARS FROM NOW
Twenty years from now, I still see myself writing –
ruthlessly, passionately and without cease.
Yes, since the time I started getting hooked on the
experience, seeing my plays and films onstage and onscreen, I see the necessity
of the written word purposely coming to life, otherwise, one doesn’t get to see
its fruition the way it should be – as it was meant to be –
I may probably still see myself writing my so-called
‘morality plays’ in the guise of the real, surreal, or even through allegories
as I do enjoy. And as long as my sense of ‘guilt’ is there, I will always write
about it, confess it, mull over it, and relish it like a madman with such a
sweet fetish for guilt.
I see myself treading further into satires, whether
political or social. I love satires and I want to explore that genre in my
writing. Maybe I’m still too melancholy and square to deal with it right now. I
still need to let myself go, let my hair down some more, push more envelopes, walk
on tighter tightropes, experience laughing at myself and at the world than just
sulk and hit my head against the wall. Why can’t I bang someone else’s head
instead and laugh for a change? Or maybe bang our heads together and laugh and
cry at the same time and really go mad?
I also want to tread further into fantasy -- fantastical
satires, something out-of-this world that could blow someone else’s mind. I
want to explode. I want my writing to explode. I want my readers to explode as
well when they experience my universe exploding. And yet with such explosions,
my stories could end without even an end, or with a whimper, not necessarily a
bang, but just a whimper.
Yes, I want to live for another fifty lofty years so I can
see all these onscreen and onstage and even alternately onstage and onscreen
whether digitally, electronically or mechanically.
I’m not an accidental writer anymore.
Like a madman in search of madness, I have now become
obsessed with its power, its art, and its craft.
Now that I have become a predator of the arts, I must go on
and continue to hunt for some bird of prey to inspire me.
Lito Casaje
22 August 2013
New Manila ,
Quezon City
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