Shaping the Vase
Reworking a play is always a challenge. But it’s a whole other level, when you are redeveloping a play that you haven’t touched in three years, was the first play you ever wrote, and is a historical epic. That was something I faced when rewriting my debut play ‘Pork and Poll Taxes’.
Going into it, I already had an idea of what changes I wanted to make, based on the 2021 season. These were:
Re-centre the story from the perspective of the wife, Shui Ching - Against a backdrop of male-centric retellings of this part of history, I’m really drawn to the experience of the families back home - especially the women.
Strengthen the motif of the pig - The pig motif embodies the tragic hero’s journey from a symbol of golden prosperity, to society’s penniless scum in New Zealand and China.
Hone in more on the genre of tragedy - To intensify the tragedy at the end, I needed to elevate the family at the start, and flesh out the antagonistic forces of society.
My first big task after re-reading the script was to strip it back and break it down to its ‘mechanisms’. In my experience, this part of the process always requires the most grunt work. But this was made extra challenging by the fact that I hadn’t touched the script in three years. I needed to get back into the mindset of my 22-year-old-first-time-playwright-who-didn’t-really-know-what-she-was-doing self to understand why past-Talia had made certain decisions. Not only that, but I had to acquaint myself with the details of New Zealand poll tax history (the joys of writing historical fiction)
What stuck out the most to me going through my old notes was how differently I approached writing and structure. Past-Talia approached story structure more linearly. This was evident in my graphs of the Three Act Structure, and the spreadsheets mapping each character’s arc to each scene. Present-Talia likes to approach the story more in a circle. I often use Dan Harmon’s Story Circle. So it was a fun brain exercise applying how I approach story structure now to what I had done three years ago. It was cool to see the ways in which the two frameworks intersected.
Past-Talia’s map of the three act structure, November 2020
Another (unexpected) challenge I had was resisting the urge to change everything. Coming from ‘Dani and the Age of Wonder’ which is at the opposite end of the writing process, I was used to making BIG changes. But, PAPT already had 8 Drafts and a development season under its belt. So, I had to constantly remind myself that the story already worked, I was just giving it that extra umph.
To finish up, I will leave you with this great thought that Justin Lewis shared with me the other week: playwriting is like making a vase out of clay. With each draft, you keep shaping the vase. You don’t just suddenly make a pot. And I think Draft 9 is shaping up to be a better vase.
