| Pair of students recognized for outstanding dramatic script (5/08) | | Print | |
| Written by Amy Seaman | |
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The curtain rises. Lights reveal large wooden cubes disguised as dark, shadowy furniture. Three figures clothed merely in black dresses stand still and alert. On May 15, 17 and 18, audience members watched the stage slowly come to life during the third annual San Francisco Young Playwrights Festival at City College’s Diego Riviera Theater, which featured four plays by students from School of the Arts and Lowell. The final selection committee chose the winning plays from 45 pieces submitted last December. Among the winners were Lowell seniors Kalson Chan and Benson Ma, who co-wrote Within the Wall of Sand, a slightly chilling and tragic story of a couple who lose themselves, led by their desire for wealth. “The play is about two hobos on their way to a job at an apple orchard, when they’re forced to stop at a deserted motel in the middle of a sandstorm,” Chan said. “The motel grants them anything they wish for.” “I guess you could call the play an artistic study of temptation and greed,” Chan said, adding that the play evolved to take on a modern “Hotel California” feel, as described in the Eagles’ musical hit. As part of the festival’s prize, Chan and Ma’s play was performed by professional actors Alex Curtis and Pamela Davis after undergoing a strenuous editing process, overseen by actress and Not Quite Opera Productions artistic director Anne Doherty and directed by Jessica Holt, a founder of The Threshold Project. However, due to time conflicts, neither Chan nor Ma were able to help with the production. “Although we did not take part in the casting, we did specify that age should not be a problem,” Ma said. “We decided that age, time reference and setting in general should be irrelevant.” With only lighting as a backdrop, the occasional sound effect and nondescript black “furniture” cubes, the play could have been set anywhere. The otherworldly and universal feel was further emphasized by the use of ensembles — silent but animate characters that assisted with prop movement. “When Kalson (Chan) and I wrote the play, we didn’t know how to translate it to stage since we didn’t know the budget,” Ma said. “But then we had Jessica (Holt) and she suggested using ensembles. In the script, it just says ‘plate appears on stage.’” The ensembles added to the play’s surrealism, as they moved throughout the minimalist set, using their hands as record players and granting protagonist Milton’s every wish — and these wishes were plentiful. After wishing for food, music and a warm bath, Milton eventually voiced commands for a “taxidermic raccoon impaled by a spear through the rectum with the spear point jutting out of its mouth” and a member of the ensemble appeared, creating a charade of it. “We were talking about taxidermy one day I think, and it just made its way into the script,” Ma explained. However, the play was not meant to be a comedy, even with Milton’s outrageous wishes that grew increasingly more selfish. “There were some comedic elements, but the core of the play, deep down, was a drama,” Chan said. Beginning as a light-hearted tale of a man deprived of his desires one too many times, the 20-minute play quickly became sad as Milton began to rely on the spirits — “Why do it when someone else can do it for you?”— becoming consumed by the hotel, eventually wishing his wife away permanently. “There was a general theme of internal struggles to meet one’s goal,” Ma said. “We figured we’d try surrealism, since we haven’t lived long enough to have all of reality’s experiences.” Ma believed the play translated well to the stage. “The synchrocity of the background music, acting gestures and lines could not have been better in bringing life out of our manuscript,” Ma said. Chan credited the actors for the play’s success. “The actors were wonderful, almost exactly like how I envisioned them to be and the use of the ensembles and minimalist setting really added to the atmosphere of the play,” he said. What started out as a “loose patchwork of endless brainstorming” became a tale speaking to human nature and the ideas of temptation and greed. “I didn’t really have a message,” Chan said. “I just wanted to tell a good story.” Ironically, even after winning an award, neither student plans to pursue playwriting — at least, not full-time. “I might (write) as an aside, because life is not totally dominated by science,” he said. “The arts balance out between pathos and logos.” Chan added that if he does write, it will not be “professionally or anything like that.” He encouraged others to submit plays for next year. “If you’re interested, the contest is a good chance to try to get your ideas out,” he said. Ma advised fellow playwrights not to “imitate reality if you’re not familiar with it and to try to find some other pathos to rely on besides humor.” |
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