News from Manila

I've received a couple of emails from Manila. Paul Dumol, Ph.D. and Professor of Medieval Studies is also the Vice-Rector of the University of Asia & the Pacific. He was here in Rome during the past P&C Convegno: he talk ("Spirituality Onstage: Walking the Tightrope between the Sugary and the Preachy") and show us some videotapes of his recent writing's stage productions. We had a very interesting and enthusiastic conversation on screenwriting projects and now he is telling me that he has started a scriptwriting class at the UA&P. Some excerpts from his emails:

"...We just had the 4th meeting of my scripwriting class. I have 7 students, all from UA&P but one. This is a good number considering (a) the course is not credited for any program and (b) I can really attend to each one. I have a teaching assistant who is himself a beginning scriptwriter. Because the course is not credited in any program, I have only students who are really interested in writing.

The purpose of this first offering is really to help me fix the syllabus. I am gaining much experience. The students are starting from scratch--how to make beginnings, middles, and ends."

He does not forget the P&C past Convegno (the Rafael Jimenez Paper on "Narrative della Redenzione / Narratives of Redemption") and some of the recent topics :

"...I am happy to know that Poetica e Cristianesimo continues to be vibrant. We have to do something similar here. Please tell Rafa Jimenez I have finally seen "Amores Perros" and am sorely tempted to call it a masterpiece --above all the script, the stories. Yes, it was entirely appropriate to cite it in our conference last year. Its "hidden" theme is God, whom we feel all the more present because he is so absent, especially in the first 2 stories.

...Thank you for that beautiful review of "The Passion." (...) What a pleasure! I thought you would quote St. Josemaría and his ideal --that Christ's life should be in our minds "like a film." But the excerpt from "Santo Rosario" is even better."

[Some references on Paul Dumol's dramatic writings and their recent production onstage: "Aguinaldo 1899: Ang Pagpatay Kay Luna", and also on "Aguinaldo" on The Manila Times or in Asia Week.]

Comments

[Paul Dumol]

You ask if the bare bones are enough: to merit being called a work on a historical event, they are enough.

Do they capture the "soul" of the event? No. That's what the writer is expected to put in. Some writers do so, giving their audience the clear signal that the soul they are placing is what they thought vivified the actual historical event, meaning they had taken time out to do research. Others do so, saying that they are giving a personal interpretation of the event, meaning they did not bother to do much research. Still others do so, being deliberately irreverent or playful with history.

The "soul" of the historical event as depicted by a writer would be above all in the motivations of the characters and the explanation of why certain events happened as they did (characterization, minor characters added, incidental events).

[csb]

Thank you for the clear points.

I understand then that you have to include the "persons" involved, the "when" and the "where". But is that enough?

Two weeks ago, A.O. Scott, from The New York Times, made a list of the films about Jesus Christ that have been produced since "King of Kings" (Nicholas Ray 1961) until "The Passion of the Christ" (Mel Gibson, 2004). I've not seen all of them, but as far as I know, some are not so recommendable, because they don't "do justice" to the drama of love that the Life, Passion, Death and Resurrection of the Lord has been.

Do the "bare bones" have something to do with the "soul" of the event? If so, where does it lie? (if the soul "lies" somewhere). In other words, where do I have to look at with attention to discover the sense of the facts and its representation?"

[Paul Dumol]

On the relationship between historical facts and dramatization

People expect a historical drama to be faithful “to a certain extent” to its subject matter. What is that extent? I would say that would be the “bare bones” of the historical events being depicted: the fact that this or that happened. If I were to illustrate this, the bare bones would be the “main events” that made up the subject matter of the historical drama, and this would include the persons involved in the event and when and where the event occurred.

Beyond that, I believe the audience is ready for the writer to “play around” with everything else. They probably expect this especially of the motivations of the protagonists of the events.

If the writer were to deviate from the bare bones, then he would have to explain why. Or use a genre that would justify it (e.g., Forrest Gump intervening in historical events: the genre of comedy allows this).

The audience does not expect a historical drama to be a “documentary,” and so they do not expect the words the characters speak to be those actually spoken when the historical event took place, nor do they expect the actors to look exactly like the photographs of the historical personages.

[csb]

Ricardo Saludo, of Asia Week, says that "Luna", the latest play written by Paul Dumol, is the "Philippine Centennial's most revelatory drama."

I would like to hear commentaries about the relationship between historical facts and dramatization. Everybody knows that when you write a drama you have a kind of "license to create". At the same time, people expect from an historical drama something that has to do with the facts, as they took place.

In what sense (or senses) might the statement of R. Saludo be understood?