EL4222
Stylistics and Drama: Week 2
Section
1: Activity
Carter & Simpson (1989) on the growth of stylistics
… a linguist
deaf to the poetic function of language and a literary scholar indifferent to
linguistic problems and unconversant with linguistic methods are equally
flagrant anachronisms. (Jakobson 1960: 377)
1960: attempts to define style (authorial, period or
group) – interdisciplinary perspective (the Indiana Style Conference involved
linguists, literary critics, anthropologist and psychologists). Attempt to
absorb stylistics into New Criticism,
characterised by close verbal analysis of texts.
Nowadays, we can relate the notion of style to the
notion of variation in language. We can relate language varieties
associated with:
·
dialect (eg
regional dialects, class dialects, men’s v. women’s language, adult v. child
language)
·
medium (eg
written v. spoken language v. computer-mediated language v. sign language)
·
tenor (eg
formal v. informal language, accessible v. inaccessible language)
·
domain (eg
the language of advertising, legal language, the language of instruction, the
language of science) [Short 1996: 81]
This notion of style can still be linked to
· Labovian
sociolinguistic styling
· The work on register
and genre (also see 1980s below)
How would you define Cecily’s and Miss Prism’s styles? (A
character’s speech style can form an important part of his/her characterisation.) Oscar Wilde’s style? Would you define style in terms of: word
choice, sentence structure, what people try to do with language, directness/indirectness (‘blunt’ v ‘beating round the bush’),
preoccupations, ‘point of view’/ideology?
Garden at the Manor House. A flight of
grey stone steps leads up to the house. The garden, an old-fashioned one, full
of roses. Time of year, July. Basket chairs, and a table covered with books,
are set under a large yew-tree.
[miss
prism discovered seated at the
table. cecily is at the back, watering flowers.]
1
miss prism [calling]: Cecily, Cecily! Surely such a utilitarian occupation as
the watering of flowers is rather Moulton’s duty than yours? Especially at a
moment when intellectual pleasures await you. Your German grammar is on the
table. Pray open it at page fifteen. We will repeat yesterday’s lesson.
2
cecily [coming over very slowly]: But I don’t like German. It isn’t at all
a becoming language. I know perfectly well that I look quite plain after my
German lesson.
3
miss prism: Child, you know how
anxious your guardian is that you should improve yourself in every way. He laid
particular stress on your German, as he was leaving for town yesterday. Indeed,
he always lays stress on your German when he is leaving for town.
4
cecily: Dear Uncle Jack is so
very serious! Sometimes he is so serious that I think he cannot be quite well.
5
miss prism [drawing herself up]: Your guardian enjoys the best of health, and
his gravity of demeanour is especially to be commended in one so comparatively young as he is. I know no one who has a
higher sense of duty and responsibility.
6
cecily: I suppose that is why he
often looks a little bored when we three are together.
7
miss prism: Cecily! I am
surprised at you. Mr Worthing has many troubles in his life. Idle merriment and
triviality would be out of place in his conversation. You must remember his
constant anxiety about that unfortunate young man his brother.
8
cecily: I wish Uncle Jack would
allow that unfortunate young man, his brother, to come down here sometimes. We
might have a good influence over him, Miss Prism. I am sure you certainly
would. You know German, and geology, and things of that kind influence a man
very much. [cecily begins to write in her diary.]
9
miss prism [shaking her head]: I do not think that even I could produce any
effect on a character that according to his own brother’s admission is
irretrievably weak and vacillating. Indeed I am not sure that I would desire to
reclaim him. I am not in favour of this modern mania for turning bad people
into good people at a moment’s notice. As a man sows so let him reap. You must
put away your diary, Cecily. I really don’t see why you should keep a diary at
all.
10 cecily: I keep a diary in order to
enter the wonderful secrets of my life. If I didn’t write them down, I should
probably forget all about them.
11 miss prism: Memory, my dear Cecily, is
the diary that we all carry about with us.
12 cecily: Yes, but it usually chronicles
the things that have never happened, and couldn’t possibly have happened. I
believe that Memory is responsible for nearly all the three-volume novels that Mudie sends us.
What are Tan’s, Bill’s and Mark’s ‘style’? or Moh Hon Meng’s
style?
1 mark: It’s bad enough to have to hear
it at home and in the media, but when you have to hear it even at work, that really takes the cake. Yesterday, I was in my
colleagues’ office, when one of the sales executive [sic] came in …
2 lim: Hi Boss, I need some advice. My
girlfriend and I are thinking of getting married, but I’m afraid it will hinder
my career.
3 bill: Why? It has done wonders for mine.
(Sincere) Family life is fulfilling
and rewarding. It adds meaning to life. It’s great to have someone to go home
to. I remembered when me and my wife first got
married, we did everything together. We shopped for household items together,
we ate together, we bathed together, we made babies
together. Sometimes we combined bathing and making babies. And when the babies
come, you’ll discover the excitement, adventure and satisfaction of being a
father. I still remembered the first day my little Joey called me ‘Baba’ I
called everyone I knew and told them about it.
4 mark: He called me. Three times.
5 bill: Back to your question; will it
hinder your career? No, all it takes is a little organisation. In fact, I think
you’ll work even harder because you’ll have a family to think of. Get married
Lim, it’ll do you a world of good.
6 lim: (Thankful tears in his eyes) I … I … I want to … thank you Mr Chua.
You’ve helped me make a very difficult decision. Thank you. (Leaves)
7 mark: (Mimics) I … I … I want to …
8 bill: Thank me also?
9 mark: No, PUKE … Come on Bill, how can you give him such a lop-sided view on marriage. It’s
like you stepped right out of an SDU commercial.
10 bill: You may not think so, but I
happen to really believe that a man’s not complete without a family. You should
find yourself a good girl and settle down too, Mark. When I was a bachelor, I
was really afraid of the big ‘C’ word: commitment. The idea of settling down
with one woman, having kids and in-laws, and responsibility scared the hell out
of me. Even up to my wedding day I was scared. The night before I was so
nervous I wanted to run away. But now, when my little Joey grips my finger with
her tiny hand, and she smiles, I get tears in my eyes, Mark. And it’s great to
have someone to go home to, someone who understands me, and is able to share in
my troubles; to hold, cherish and love. I know you’re afraid of the kind of
commitment also but …
11 mark: (affected) You know, you know, look, I’m
not afraid, all right? I’m just different from you. I … I have different needs
and … and views towards life. I’ve … er got to finish
up a report before lunch. See you around.
1970: ascendancy of
Chomsky’s transformational grammar (‘deep structure’ v ‘surface structure’). ‘A writer’s style was thus described in
terms of the particular transformational options selected by the writer from
the underlying base.’ Formalist
approach – text immanent, rather than interdisciplinary.
1980s: rise of functionalism (Halliday’s
systemic-functional linguistics) – language forms are tied up to their
functions. ‘Functionalists argue that their models of language are better
suited to the description of literature since literary styles are an integral
part of what are essentially naturally occurring texts’. Movement towards discourse stylistics.
Example: verbs represent processes, and these can be classified as material (‘doing’ processes – go, give, climb), relational (relating person/thing and the attribute/possession –
be, have, belong), verbal (‘saying’ processes), mental (‘perception’ processes), existential (something exists), behavioural (‘behavioural’ – usually
involuntary – processes), etc. Would
it be significant to analyse texts in terms of their processes?
- MATERIAL: I watered the garden.
- RELATIONAL: I am rather hot.
- VERBAL: I told Danny not to bother me.
- MENTAL: He felt insulted by my remarks.
- EXISTENTIAL:
There was tension everywhere.
- BEHAVIOURAL: I winced when I remembered my
remarks.
cecily [coming
over very slowly]: But I don’t like
[MENTAL] German. It isn’t
[RELATIONAL] at all a becoming language. I know [MENTAL] perfectly well that I look [MENTAL? RELATIONAL?] quite plain
after my German lesson.
1990s: socio-historical and socio-cultural
stylistics. How significant is it that the play is a product of the late
Victorian English era? What kinds of assumptions are there about the relationship
between pupils and their tutors? Domination of critical discourse analysis
(CDA).
2000s corpus-based stylistics,
reader-oriented and cognitive stylistics. In the ‘Dialogue and drama’ section
of Contemporary Stylistics (2007),
the chapters are on impoliteness, cognitive approaches and computer-assisted
stylistics.
What kinds
of developments in the investigation of literary discourse can we look forward
to? I shall only highlight two areas which are not brand new, but which have
attracted recent attention. (Extract from Tan (2011).)
The
first is the investigation of literary discourse involving the corpus – corpus
stylistics. The developments in corpus linguistics including software that can
retrieve more and more complex information from the corpus have meant that it
is increasingly possible to get more nuanced information from a corpus of
literary texts. The Lancaster Speech, Writing and Thought Presentation
(SW&TP2) Spoken Corpus has already been mentioned. In this case though the
analysis had to be done by hand.
The
second is the developments that involve marrying an interest in the close study
of literary texts with ‘a systematic and theoretically informed consideration
of the cognitive structures and processes that underlie the production and
reception of language’ (Semino & Stockwell 2002:
ix). This enterprise is sometimes labelled cognitive poetics (Gavins & Steen 2003; Stockwell 2002) in recognition of
the fact that the emphasis is on explaining
how interpretations are derived (as is the case for the enterprise of poetics)
based on cognitive theories, rather than producing
new interpretations. On other occasions, it is known as cognitive stylistics.
(Some might make a subtle distinction between them; others don’t.) The earlier
work based on reader-response theories (including those by Fish mentioned
above) and the empirical study of literature (eg Miall & Kuiken 1999 mentioned
above) paved the way for this. Prominent focal points include those that apply
the notion of schema or the conceptual metaphor.
Cook
links the notion of schema to readers’ expectations: ‘the essence of schema
theory is that discourse proceeds and achieves coherence by successfully
locating the unexpected within a framework of expectations’ (1994: 130). The
schema can involve expectations about how things typically operate or the
objects typically found and there can be world, text and language schemas.
Walsh (2008) employs schema theory, among other things, to highlight the contrast
in perspective between a narrator with Asperger’s Syndrome and the reader because
the narrator lacks the schemas that we take for granted. (She focuses on The Curious Incident of the Dog in the
Night-time (2003) by Mark Haddon.)
The contrast can also be used for comedic effect. We can consider the beginning
of the third act of Wilde’s The
Importance of Being Earnest. Gwendolen and Cecily have gone back into the
house in a huff because they have discovered their suitors Jack and Algernon have
been lying to them.
GWENDOLEN: The fact that they did not follow
us at once into the house, as anyone else would have done, seems to me to show
that they have some sense of shame left.
CECILY: They have been eating muffins. That
looks like repentance.
There could be a variety of appropriate behaviour accompanying
repentance, so the schema could vary between cultures. We might, for example,
be familiar with the Biblical wearing of sackcloth and the application of ash.
It might be just a matter of adopting a hangdog look. Whatever it is, it would
not involve consuming pleasurable food; the eating of muffins would, instead,
be interpreted as self-indulgent behaviour. The girls’ schema contradicts our
schema and it is the ludicrous contrast that generates humour here.
Another
way of separating the way ‘our’ world works, and the way the text-internal
world works is through the Text World Theory, developed by Gavins
(for example, Gavins 2003). (This is related to the
notion of ‘possible worlds’ discussed above in relation to the Harry Potter
books.) A Text World analysis would distinguish between the discourse world where participants
engage in a language event (in this case the author communicating with the
reader or audience), where general discourse principles, such as co-operation
and face, operate. Participants also need to construct a text world: this is a mental representation constructed to
understand the discourse through the use of textual cues (in the case of our
example, ‘eating muffins’). There could be numerous text worlds created by
participants or characters.
Work
on conceptual metaphor, first initiated by Lakoff and
Johnson (1980), continues to garner interest. Arguments are often, for example,
expressed in terms of warfare. These are Lakoff and
Johnson’s (1980: 4) examples.
Your claims are indefensible.
He attacked every
weak point in my argument.
His criticisms were right
on target. (original italics)
Semino (2008: 5) defines
conceptual metaphors as
systematic sets of correspondences, or ‘mappings’, across
conceptual domains, whereby a ‘target’ domain (eg our knowledge about arguments)
is partly structured in terms of a difference ‘source’ domain (eg our knowledge
about war)
Lakoff and Johnson’s
examples therefore generate the conceptual metaphor ARGUMENT IS WAR.
Semino (2002) makes use of
the conceptual metaphors employed by the protagonist of John Fowles’s first novel, The
Collector, as a way into the mind of the character. This character,
Frederick Clegg is a clerk who also collects butterflies. He kidnaps Miranda
Grey, an art student, who eventually dies after two months. Evident in much of
the book is the construction of Miranda as BUTTERFLY. Semino
shows a systematic mapping between the BUTTERFLY source domain and the MIRANDA
target domain, such as the following:
I watched the back of her head and her hair in a long
pigtail. It was very pale, silky, like burnet cocoons. (p. 9)
Seeing her always made me feel like I was catching a
rarity, heart-in-mouth, as they say. A Pale Clouded yellow, for instance. (p.
9)
It is these correspondences that account for much of
Clegg’s behaviour. The persistence of the metaphor in the parts of the novel
told from Clegg’s point of view also establish his peculiar preoccupation and
his mental illness.
The work on cognitive poetics including the schema
theory, Text Worlds Theory and the conceptual metaphor is very likely to
continue to attract attention.
Section
2 (Lecture Section)
1. How does theatre communicate? Theatre is multi-semiotic.
w through the language
used (choice/combination of words, structures)
w through how the
words, sentences, etc. are said (stress pattern, intonation pattern, accent,
voice quality, pace/tempo, intensity) – these are strictly non-linguistic
elements which accompany the
linguistic elements, and are therefore considered to be para-language
w through gesture, movement and expression – the kinesic elements [action]
w through the arrangement of sets and characters – the proxemic elements [mise-en-scène]
w through costume and dress – the vestimentary elements [mise-en-scène]
w through the type of make-up applied – the cosmetic elements
w through the
music used (in interludes, as background, etc.)
– the musical elements
2. In stylistics, we are generally more
concerned with drama (as opposed to theatre) – ie, we study text, rather than performance.
It has traditionally been possible to give a ‘literary’ analysis of a play:
A ‘literary’ analysis will tend to confine
itself to comments on the theme of the play, and perhaps to a statement about
Rebecca’s realisation of the position she has reached in her understanding of
her household. On the stage Ibsen gives us a much larger statement. [J. L. Stylan, Elements of
Drama – here talking of Ibsen’s Rosmersholm]
However,
- teachers and
pupils have been able to ‘criticise’ plays without seeing them performed
- a dramatic
producer is still able to interpret a play that has never been performed
- it makes sense to
come out of the theatre and to say that it was a bad performance of a good
play, or vice versa.
Therefore: studying drama (text) rather than theatre
(performance) is viable.
How
do we deal with such comments?
- … the fullness
of music is only heard in performance, so it is with drama (J L Styan)
- … the reading
of a play is a necessarily incomplete experience (Wells 1970)
- Proper plays
can only be understood when performed (Brecht 1964)
- … it is only on
the stage that drama can be revealed in all its fullness and significance
(Stanislavski 1968)
But others put forward another view.
- [a play is a detailed]
recipe for pretence (Searle 1975)
- [The views
above] which still have currency as introductions to theatre, are written
in seeming ignorance of the relevance of semiotics to theatre studies,
despite the development of this approach since the turn of the century
(Aston and Savona 1991)
- … if you have
reasonable experience of going to the theatre then you can read play-texts
sensitively, and with understanding (Short 1998)
3.
Which elements will be in the text and which won’t? Which elements can be inferred
and which cannot? Look at the opening of Ibsen’s Doll’s House after the table, and try to imagine how, if you were
director staging the play for a modern audience in Singapore, you would decide
on the various elements if they have not been specified by the author. If you
are not familiar with A Doll’s House, it might be useful to know that
Nora there develops from being a naïve and childish woman into a mature one who
will challenge the accepted norms of behaviour and expectations of the time;
the play was first published in 1879. In other words, the opening is deceptive
– deliberately so – in portraying Nora as a stage type who would have been
easily identified by the original audience. This ideal type from romantic drama
would have been admired, and the audience would have ‘expected her to end the
play yet more happily married. The actress who played her, Betty Hennings, was famous for playing such parts’ (Wallis &
Shepherd 1998: 28). How do you think your own staging would differ from the
original one?
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element |
almost never |
seldom |
sometimes |
often |
almost always |
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linguistic |
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para-linguistic |
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kinesic |
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proxemic |
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vestimentary |
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cosmetic |
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musical |
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 |
A comfortable room, furnished inexpensively,
but with taste. In the back wall there are two doors; that to the right leads
out to a hall, the other, to the left, leads to Helmer’s study. Between them
stands a piano. In the middle of the left-hand wall
is a door, with a window on its nearer side. Near the window is a round table
with armchairs and a small sofa. In the wall on the right-hand side,
rather to the back, is a door, and farther forward on this wall there is a
tiled stove with a couple of easy chairs and a rocking-chair in front of it.
Between the door and the stove stands a little table. There are etchings on the walls, and there is a cabinet with china
ornaments and other bric-à-brac,
and a small bookcase with handsomely bound books. There is a carpet on the
floor, and the stove is lit. It is a winter day. [A bell rings in
the hall outside, and a moment later the door is heard to open. nora comes into the room, humming happily. She is in outdoor clothes, and
is carrying an armful of parcels which she puts down on the table to the
right. Through the hall door, which
she has left open, can be seen a porter; he is holding a Christmas tree and a
hamper, and he gives them to the maid
who has opened the front door.] nora: Hide the Christmas tree properly,
Helena. The children mustn’t see it till this evening, when it’s been
decorated. [To the porter, taking out her purse] How much is that? porter: Fifty øre. nora: There’s a krone. No, keep the change. [The
porter thanks her and goes, nora
shuts the door, and takes off her
outdoor clothes, laughing quietly and happily to herself. Taking a bag of
macaroons from her pocket, she eats one or two, then goes cautiously to her
husband’s door and listens.] Yes, he’s in. [She starts humming again and she goes over to the table on the right.] helmer [from
his study]: Is that my little skylark twittering out there? nora [busy opening the parcels]: It is. |
Literary criticism should take the text as
its object of investigation and develop techniques of textual analysis able to
cope with the implied aspects of meaning …. Theatrical criticism on the other
hand has a perfectly valid area of interest in, for example, comparing
different ways of performing the same scene (a) in terms of its theatrical effect and (b) in terms of its faithfulness to the dramatic text. [Short 1989:
141]
4.
Representations of dramatic communication:
w normal, everyday discourse:
w messenger situation – some sort
of ‘embedding’ (the box of bold broken lines)
w a rather more complicated model, following Elam 1980: 39 –
of theatrical (rather than dramatic) communication
w if we have a ‘play within a play’ situation:
5.
Why is it important to make the distinction?
w the traditional ‘fourth wall’
theatre
w postmodernist theatre – shock
value, novelty value?
GEORGE: Yes, I’m something of a logician myself
bones: Really? Sawing ladies in
half, that sort of thing?
george: Logician.
[Stoppard,
Jumpers, p. 44]
(A
good pause. Ros leaps up and bellows at the audience.)
ros: Fire!
(Guil jumps up.)
guil: Where?
ros: It’s all right – I’m demonstrating the
misuse of free speech. To prove that it exists. (He regards the audience, that is the
direction, with contempt and other directions, then front again.) Not a
move. They should burn to death in their shoes.
[Stoppard, Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern are Dead, p. 44]
6.
An aside: layeredness
as a feature of literary texts.
Consider the extracts
in terms of the discourse situation and draw out any difficulties or
ambiguities in them. Also note any changes in the discourse situation along the
way.
Text 1
The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy
of Romeo and Juliet
Prologue Enter
Chorus
CHORUS
Two households, both alike in dignity
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new
mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands
unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two
foes
A pair of star-crossed lovers take
their life,
Whose misadventured
piteous overthrows [= destruction]
Doth with their death bury their
parents’ strife.
The fearful passage of their
death-marked love
And the continuance of their parents’
rage –
Which but their children’s end, naught
could remove –
Is now the two-hours’
traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears
attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall
strive to mend.
Exit
1.1 Enter Samson and Gregory, of the house of
Capulet, with swords and bucklers
samson Gregory, on my word, we’ll not carry
coals.
gregory No, for then we should be colliers
samson I mean an we
be in choler, we’ll draw.
gregory Ay, while you live, draw your neck out
of collar
…
Enter Abraham and another servingman of the Montagues
gregory Draw thy tool. Here comes of the house
of Montagues.
samson My naked weapon is out. Quarrel, I will
back thee.
…
(The Oxford Shakespeare, 1988)
(Consider
Baz Luhrmann’s 1986 version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beV56hp4T3w)
Text 2
(From A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 5.1; the
‘mechanicals’ are presenting the play Pyramus
and Thisbe to Theseus, Demetrius and others.)
Wall In this same interlude it doth befall
That I, one Snout by name, present a
wall;
And such a wall, as I would have you
think,
That had in it a crannied hole or
chink,
Through which the lovers, Pyramus and Thisbe, 5
Did whisper often very secretly.
This loam, this rough-cast and this
stone doth show
That I am that same wall; the truth is
so:
And this the cranny is, right and
sinister,
Through which the fearful lovers are to
whisper. 10
Theseus Would you
desire lime and hair to speak better?
Demetrius It is the
wittiest partition that ever I heard
discourse, my lord.
[Enter Pyramus]
Theseus Pyramus draws near
the wall: silence!
Pyramus O grim-look’d night! O night with hue so black! 15
O night, which ever art when day is
not!
O night, O night! alack,
alack, alack,
I fear my Thisbe’s promise is forgot!
And thou, O wall, O sweet, O lovely
wall,
That stand’st
between her father’s ground and mine! 20
Thou wall, O wall, O sweet and lovely
wall,
Show me thy chink, to blink through
with mine eyne!
[Wall holds up his fingers]
Thanks, courteous wall: Jove shield
thee well for this!
But what see I? No Thisbe do I see.
O wicked wall, through whom I see no
bliss! 25
Cursed be thy stones for thus deceiving
me!
Theseus The wall,
methinks, being sensible, should curse again.
Pyramus No, in
truth, sir, he should not. ‘Deceiving me’
is Thisbe’s cue: she is to enter now, and
I am to
spy her through the wall. You shall see,
it will 30
fall pat as I told you. Yonder she comes.
[Enter Thisbe]
Thisbe O wall, full
often hast thou heard my moans,
For parting my fair Pyramus
and me!
My cherry lips have often kiss’d thy stones,
Thy stones with lime and hair knit up
in thee. 35
Text 3
1 cpl ong Fall in, fall in, fall in!
The soldiers gather around in their
various states of camouflage.
2 cpl ong Recruit
Teo Ah Beng!!! Never listen is it? Officer give lesson you sleep. Okay. Now look
at your wonderful camouflage. Do you know what leaf this is?
3 ah beng No, Corporal Ong.
4 cpl ong CB leaf, understand?
5 ah beng No, Corporal Ong!!
The recruits look at each other and
raise the eyebrows and wonder what the CB leaf is.
6 cpl ong One day when you grow up, you will
know why this is called a CB leaf. But in the meantime, drop twenty! You! [to Krishna] Step forward.
Krishna steps forward.
7 cpl ong Jump.
Krishna
jumps. The leaves and branches all fall off.
8 cpl ong Recruit. You call that camouflage? You
are a disgrace to your nation! Wind blow only, all your stupid leaves fly away,
you understand? My grandmother can camouflage better than you!
9 JOHARI [to
himself] Ask your grandmother do lah.
10 krishna Sorry corporal.
11 cpl ong Sorry, sorry. Sorry no cure, okay.
Drop twenty, drop twenty, drop twenty!!!
12 krishna Wah, like
that means drop sixty, ah?
13 cpl ong Recruit Johari! Jump!
14 johari Yes, corporal! [Mutters under his
breath, ‘Mati, mati, tentu mati ...’]
The leaves fall off, too. He
automatically drops twenty. Malcolm comes forward. He is completely covered in
leaves. And cannot see where Cpl Ong is. He faces the wrong way.
15 cpl ong Recruit Png! Your camouflage is so
wonderful, I cannot see you, and you cannot see me. You think this is
hide-and-seek is it?
16 malcolm Yes corporal? No corporal! Drop
twenty?
The four recruits are slowly doing
their push-ups when Cpl Ong notices that Kenny is missing.
17 cpl ong Recruit Pereira!!
18 kenny [from the wings] Coming,
coming!
Kenny bounces out from the wings,
all fashionably attired in frangipani. The four recruits stop their push-ups
half-way and stare. Cpl Ong gives Kenny a despairing look, then slaps his head
with his hand.
19 malcolm’s Voice: And we so sat through lesson after
lesson on fieldcraft, learning how to look, move and
behave like soldiers. We soon memorised the basic rules of behaviour … No
littering, no spitting, no smoking, and, where possible, try and have a third child.
Michael Chiang, Amy
Daze: The Play, Act 1 Sc 3
Text 4
Act One
|
1 |
Main stage dark. Spotlight on phone beside large chair. |
|
2 |
emily enters.
Picks up phone and dials. |
|
3 |
Susie ah! Emily here ah. This
afternoon I’m going to town, anything that you’re needing? I’ve got the
chicken you wanted from market; and I saw some good jackfruit, your children
love it, so I bought one big one for you. What else you need? Ah, school
uniform for your two girls; I’ll buy the material. I will take the sizes when
I come to your house and send them to my little tailor down the road …. Ah
Susie! Yesterday I went to Whiteaways to buy shirts
for Richard to take to England, so I bought half-dozen for Freddy also: even
though he’s not going to England he can still wear them around town …. Ya-lah, I’ve got a lot to do, interviewing new servant,
preparing for Richard’s party. I see you, ya. |
|
4 |
…Stage
lights go up slowly to show the set. |
|
5 |
emily raises her eyes and for the first time addresses the audience directly. |
|
6 |
This is Emerald Hill: this old mansion
in a big compound, just off Orchard Road. My husband’s father, Mr Gan Eng Swee, built it in 1902. In 1929 I came to the
house as a bride of just fourteen years old; and since then I’ve lived here
with Kheong (my husband) and our children, and Kheong’s parents, when they were alive. So I keep myself
busy, running the household, looking after all the family. |
|
7 |
…Lights go up on centre stage. emily puts away her work |
|
8 |
I like to entertain at Emerald Hill. Once in a while we
give a big formal dinner, hire cooks and waiters, set out tables on the lawn.
Or quite often we have a smaller party like this, I do the cooking myself. |
See also:
Peter Tan (2012), ‘Literary discourse’, in James Gee, Michael Handford (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Discourse Analysis
(London: Routledge), pp. 628-641. (Uploaded to Files in LumiNUS.)