The development of the homosapiens...

The development of human has always attracted many parties. From Stone Age to the era of Darwin, there have been many theories debated on the human evolution. This is applies to the literature field also. Many writers have actually included the stages of development in human life in their masterpieces. To illustrate, Shakespeare in his play, “As You Like It”, gives a significant metaphor to compare the whole life of man-the stage. He uses the character Jaques in his play to talk about the seven stages in human life in a soliloquy. On the other hand, Sophocles in his play; “Oedipus Rex” created a creature called the Sphinx which tortures the people of Thebes and it can be defeated by solving a riddle. The riddle goes on to talk about the four different stages in human life. Be it as many stages as it can be, personally I think life is a vicious cycle and think the finishing line is always at the place we start of. Thus, rises and falls becomes part and parcel of it.

Start! Camera! Action!

There was this activity in class last week where we are supposed to act out a scene from the play “Bingo” by Edward Bond. Not knowing who the characters were, we were supposed to recreate the scene using our own creativity. Our task was to deduce how many characters were there in the scene and what is the relationship between them. Although we knew that there were at least two characters speaking but we were unable to guess any other relevant information about the scene. When asked to act out the play in groups of two and three, we went “blank”. There were too much room for guessing I say. Thus, it struck our mind that this script is an open one and besides being the actors, we were also the directors of it. My group was the first to be called out, of course due to our nervousness, we actually forgot to act out the drinking part...Later on, two more groups presented and personally, I was impressed with Iskandar’s group, when they were not only being able to act out the scene perfectly but they created a setting that none of us could guess-the kindergarten. Later, when Dr. Edwin told us that the speakers of this play were Shakespeare and Jonson, I got more serious on the ‘expect the unexpected’ element... Well, this surely proves that imagination has lot more to offer when given ample space.

Drama-redefined...

Well, now it seems that I’ve become somewhat expert in the ‘arena’ of drama. The terms that are being used in drama are beginning to make sense for me. All those ‘exclusive jargons’ seem to be at my fingertips-thanks to Dr. Edwin and Miss Siti. I’ve realised that in the quest of mastering something, you should first learn to love it and the process of mastering would take care of itself. I’ve started to perceive the term ‘drama’ in broader perspectives. Drama is not just about stages, actors and scripts; it’s more than that. It’s about giving meaning to the words on the papers and bringing the characters to life. It is more than a medium of entertainment; it provides a platform for the audience to boggle their minds on the issues that are being highlighted by the playwrights. Thus, I think it is time for us to take this term ‘drama’ more seriously as it is an integrated part of us the future English teachers and we cannot deny or resist it...

The secret of prologue....

Well, I was interested to find out that modern plays lack two important elements that were very crucial in the Greek plays- the prologue and the exodus. I would like to talk about the prologue as it serves as a platform for the playwright to not just expose the characters but also provide significant details about the main characters especially the protagonist. Personally, the prologue can be equated to an ‘imaginary stage’ that is predominantly occupied by the protagonist. In a nutshell, it is in this stage that the character of the protagonist is revealed and his/her development becomes obvious to the audience which will facilitate the development of the central conflict in the first scene. Thus, I believe that the importance of the prologue is undeniable and thus, we as readers should focus more on the prologue while reading the Aristotelian plays.

First class of EDU 3217...

First class of drama...Wow! What can I say? Everything went extraordinarily normal!!! I came early for the class, had “hold” of my usual seat and best of all Dr. Edwin; my lecturer was in a good mood. Of course all these things might seem usual but in a drama class-‘expect the unexpected’...The first thing that struck my mind when the word ‘drama’ is mentioned is fear! The worry of how to read the “ancient English” lines in the plays keeps boggling my mind (put aside understanding, I cannot even pronounce it properly). My anxiety level shoots up when I discovered that we are supposed to complete five different of drama ranging four thousand years in between. Even though the class was at 3pm (my official sleeping hours) but to my surprise, drama class was not that bad at all- it was shockingly interesting! Besides the core factor that it’s a Dr. Edwin’s class, personally, I believe that this course has a lot to offer me and my course mates who are going to be future teachers soon. Thus, I hope to complete this course with flying colours...