Devising Journal #10

*Note: In order to protect privacy and to ensure that the relevant parties' names do not appear in search results (which may hinder future employment and opportunities), I have conscientiously omitted all names from my posts except where there is no controversy involved.

When I arrived in the theatre today a little after 10AM, the mood was visibly tense. It was clear at this point that the main character for Xu Mengjiao, who was last seen in person during our last seminar in Week 8, would be absent all the way until Week 11 for a personal recreational . It was clear to most of us that something had to be done about the situation, and the options appeared rather unsavory to me. I was rather uncomfortable with the idea of making any unilateral decisions, so I said (the most politically correct thing I could think of, which is) that we ought to host a meeting over Zoom and come to a consensus together with the affected parties before making any decisions.

We rehearsed a few scenes with one of our ensemble members as a replacement. We also did the laundry scene and I stood in for one of the ensemble members. In my heart, I thought that the understudy actor was a capable and expressive actor with extensive range and a great understanding of Xu Mengjiao, despite the fact that she had only just started standing in for Mengjiao on the day itself. I was rather conflicted, for both she and the other actor were stellar choices for such a prominent lead role. That said, I reserved my comments until the end of the class.

During the seminar today, we staged the first four scenes continuously so that we could figure out how the transitions could go, and it was apparent that a lot of work needed to be done to ensure that all the props, costume pieces, blockings and transitions were in the right places. As I am dabbling in the technical theatre side as well, I suggested a couple of my Untamed soundtracks for the show the previous week. However, I was told today that the soundtracks likely would not work for I Found You Reprise. I was secretly sad because I invited many Untamed fans, but well I could work with it! After going home I made sure to listen to every single track so that I knew the precise moments in which I should react, should the lighting fail to cue me.

We also went through Reidentification and Split Up, two new representational scenes in our show that complete the narrative of what happened to Lady White Snake after her "happily ever after" with Xu Xian. I understood that we still needed to work on the chemistry of each scene and to clear up the blocking so that it worked for the show. By now, I sensed that everyone was stressed because the actor for Xu Mengjiao plays a vital role in both scenes. We agreed that something had to be done about this, and that there would be a Zoom session after class.

It started off well enough, with everyone trying to give each other space to react to this problem and consider our possible solutions. However, the second someone tried to propose that the role ought to be given to someone who is here - who had made it for the hours of live rehearsal which we have been working through, and who could be here for the next 12 hours of rehearsal that we would be going for over the next 7 days, emotions began running high. We ended the Zoom call then, to let the news sink in. The actor who was overseas then sent a long message noting that removing the role from her was "shitty" especially when she had been doing so much work.

The class then put her on a call and began reasoning why this was not about the amount of work she had already put in but about the fact that we simply cannot waste any more time waiting for her to return to Singapore, with less than two weeks before our show and limited time to rehearse. The scenes that we needed to work on happens to be the ones with intense blocking and chemistry considerations, and without having her here in Singapore to physically experiment and work out the scene, there was no way we could possibly get it done on time for a full run the following Wednesday. Unfortunately, this was conveyed to her in an extremely unkind way in my opinion - the person who spoke on the phone was sarcastic, unempathetic and just wanted to end the conversation as quickly as possible, and it ended very badly with someone on our end just ending the phone call without letting the other actor finish.

To me, I understood my classmates and their frustrations, but I also felt horrible for the actor who was overseas. She may have been unable to be in the leading role, but I don't think she deserved that treatment. Those who agreed with me too felt that the loudest people in that phone call went way overboard. After that, I did not want to leave it at that rather disgusting phone call, so I sent the overseas actor a long message explaining that I empathized with her, and while I agreed with the rationale for the recast, I definitely could not agree with how it was handled.

As I understood later, the actor overseas had a panic attack after our call. I really felt a lot worse when I heard about that. There was no excuse for us being this unprofessional especially when we were already in university, and to me I just could not understand anything about why people just mouthed off without thinking which landed us in this mess.

Rehearsals on Thursday went relatively well and I managed to clean up a few scenes with whoever was present. On Sunday, however, we tried to abide by what was said on Friday during the emergency meeting in which we should have included every single member in every meeting unless the member agreed to sit out of it. As a result, we decided that we should set up a Zoom call with the actor who was overseas.

We agreed to remain respectful and calm. We had a roundtable to express our feelings. I said I agreed with the idea of recasting because it is the most logical thing for our performance, and so close to the performance, I did not feel comfortable with rewriting the entire show just to accommodate one member who would have to film their parts on Zoom, and that would also spill over into tech and multimedia. For many of us who had to juggle four or five roles in this module on top of our other university commitments, there was simply no way we could afford to make such drastic changes. As a result, I voted that we should recast. However, I reminded my classmates time and again that we needed to be respectful and to solve this together.

It all fell apart the moment the Zoom call started.

People on both sides demanded apologies from each other. No one wanted to hear the other speak. I really, really tried to get them to stop and discuss the direction of the show instead of arguing over petty egotistical issues, and at one point I was grasping someone's hand and desperately, silently begging them to stop so that I could intervene. At one point I finally managed to cut in and pause the argument - call me naïve, but I really thought that apologizing on behalf of everyone and trying to defuse the tension would solve anything. I got yelled at and fell silent, and then they continued to argue and direct thinly veiled barbs at each other. I was horrified and speechless when the Zoom call ended with our side of the call ending it mid-sentence and slamming the laptop screen shut.

It was at that moment, I really thought, somebody should really work on their anger issues. I was rattled, but before I could even check my phone, they were already trading sarcastic barbs on Telegram. One of them was already typing another one. I told them to stop. I told them that the professor will absolutely hear about everything that happened today, so please, just stop and don't get ourselves into more trouble than we already are in. I really tried to fix this, but I simply could not.

I later approached one of my mild-mannered friends who had withdrawn into a corner. He was shaken by everything and so was I. Later, someone told me I should not have apologized. I smiled and said nothing. I am okay with throwing away everything for the bigger picture, but they would not understand. I do not regret anything I did. I simply regret the fact that despite my best efforts, the argument still happened and ended badly. More than anything, this week was a lesson in (mis)communication and the importance of professionalism. As the second youngest person in the class, I did not think that it should have fallen on me to be the voice of reason for people who ought to have been way more mature.

I continued refining the ideas for the costume design, while working with the light, sound and multimedia team to ensure that the colors are appropriate for the stage. After returning home on that day, I was completely drained. I had another project meeting over Zoom in the evening and an essay to work on late into the early morning of Deepavali, so I just cast this module out of my mind for now until our next rehearsal on Wednesday morning.