So, This is the End

I have been blogging for 4 years and when Dr Edwin said that we have to blog as an assignment, I did not have any worries. I thought that it would be easy for me to blog about the issues of the plays learnt during lecture hours. But I was wrong. Now that I’ve completed the course, I take back my words.

Blogging for personal and educational purposes are two different things. I thought that I could just rant about what I learnt but Dr Edwin wanted more. He instructed us to reflect on the issues, not merely state what they are. I only realize this after having done 4 posts. During one lecture, he called up names whose blog entries are not reflective. Mine was not called but eventually I discovered that out of 4 posts, 3 were not reflective. I had to edit them. Bummer. Because I was adventurous, I picked a new layout for my blog to make it pretty and significant. I spent a lot of time browsing though the free layouts and finally I found one that suits my personality. For weeks my blog had that skin. My friends liked it but they stopped liking it when they noticed that they cannot post comments. So I had to create a new blog all over again and also to copy and paste my blog entries. I did it twice because of the same problem. I was really pissed. In the end, I succumbed to the boring templates by Blogger.

Reflecting what I learnt from lecture and tutorial hours helps me understand the plays more. There are numerous issues revolving the plays that I learnt. When I reflect, I think about how I feel and also my stand in the issues I blog about, for instance; the issues that were brought up by Kee Thuan Chye during our talk with him. He made me think about our freedom to write. He amazed me with his shocking plays. I salute his gut. His recent play, “The Swordfish, Then The Concubine” teaches me that I should not be ignorant towards current issues. I should play my part for a better Malaysia, like what Mr. Kee did. While blogging about “Oedipus Rex” and “King Lear”, I learnt about Fate and the Natural Order. No matter how hard we try to avoid Fate, it will surely come back to face us. Like Oedipus, he left home to avoid the tragedy but to his horror, his departure led to the tragedy. King Lear moved away from his rightful position, and his action resulted in his own madness. I think that everything in the universe should be in place and once disruption occurs, troubles will arise.

Blogging for EDU3217 had been an educational experience for me. There were times when I procrastinate and leave it till the last minute. There were also times when I had this sudden need to blog that I did 2 or 3 posts in a row. That night, I even forgot to sleep. Blogging can be exciting and also a nuisance. I do not like datelines. I prefer to write when I feel like writing. I also like to blog about what I couldn’t say in class either because I was too shy to speak up or fear that what I say may be ridiculed. Frankly speaking, I am not sure if I meet Dr. Edwin’s expectations for this assignment. I am not sure if the number of entries is sufficient. I fear that I wrote too little or too much. I wished that there was a written guideline on how many posts we should do and of what topics we should concentrate on. Well, this is just a suggestion, hopefully it will be useful.

I end this last entry with a special thanks to Dr. Edwin for his guidance. It has been a pleasure. Keep the passion burning.

What I Think About Simulated Teaching

The simulated teaching session is the only time when we get to pretend to be a ‘real’ teacher. It’s really an imitation because I have to pretend that my peers are my students. This is the only time that we are exposed to the teaching environment. Unfortunately, the ‘students’ are my peers and obviously, their levels are way higher than secondary school students. They cooperate well with me when I presented and rarely gave me problems. However, in reality, such a happening is rare or perhaps close to zero. But I begin to think that these sessions are useful to me as a pre service teacher. Slowly, I am exposed to my future workplace. Simulated teaching is like a practice for me before heading to the real world. Like what they said, practice makes perfect.

Besides presenting our lesson, we are required to evaluate our peers mainly on their performances, activities and language use. I admit that evaluating my peers is a very tedious job. Sometimes, I get frustrated when my peers did not distribute their worksheets to the evaluators. How am I supposed to evaluate if I didn’t get the chance to even see the worksheet? Anyways, I learn more about myself through the comments made by my peers. They point out my strengths and weaknesses. Most of them praised my language use, that I do not have problems with it. As for my weaknesses, one mentioned that I did not smile enough. Perhaps I wasn’t that friendly towards the students. Another stated that I looked fierce. He said that it could be a good thing because the students will be more obedient towards fierce teachers. I know I can look really fierce but I definitely do not want my students to be so afraid of me that they don’t even want to approach me.

The sessions had taught me a thing or two about teaching. I was extremely nervous before my turn and it affected my speech a little bit. I stumbled on words at the beginning but gradually I picked up the rhythm and go with the flow. I encounter this problem every time I present and I should really do something about it. Like I said earlier, practice makes perfect. Through these sessions, I learnt how to prepare for a lesson. I learnt that I need to be fully prepared before I teach. When I see my friends who did not present wholeheartedly, the attitude affects the students. Hence, I believe that teachers should have the energy and passion to teach. I also discovered that students love having creative teachers around. I applaud my peers who spent a lot of time preparing for the lesson. The result is satisfying especially when I watch my peer students actually having a good time answering the tasks!

It was just OK!

After the Set Induction stage has ended, Mr. Harold decided to ask us to present both pre and while reading stages one after another because time is running out. I faced difficulties while designing the activities for both stages. It took me over a week to complete them because I was never satisfied with what I did.

When I was in school, I don’t exactly remember answering tasks for pre reading stage. Once in a while during secondary school, yes, but not that often. Usually, when the teacher came in he/she would ask us to open up our textbooks to a certain page and attempt the questions quietly. The tasks that I did were always for the while reading stage. I’m beginning to think that lesson plans that they design are merely a façade for the system. I mean, the teachers in school even skip the set induction and pre reading stages and straight away to the while reading stage! Worst still, they rarely gave us work for post reading and they don’t always conclude the lesson! The routine was always answering the questions individually and the teacher would ask the students one by one to give the answers. After that, they would assign us plenty of homework. Was school a good experience? No, not the educational part of school.

For the pre reading activity I designed a task that requires the students to read the extracts given and match them with the personality traits given. Initially, I thought of asking the students to figure out the traits themselves to make them think. But I wanted them to concentrate on the traits that I have come up with. If l had let them to figure it up themselves, I will get various answers. If this happens, I know that I will encounter problems leading them to the traits that I want to teach them.

I prepared two questions for the while reading stage. I asked the students to fill in the personality traits from previous task in the table that I have provided for question 1. In that same table, I asked them to decide if the traits are positively or negatively connoted. For question 2, I want the students to pick a trait from the previous question and elaborate on that trait. Here, I want the students to concentrate on one attribute and write a paragraph about it with textual evidenced.

If I were to grade myself, I would give myself an A- for this simulated teaching. My language use is my strength. Other than that, I would say just OK. Unfortunately, I did nothing extraordinary for these stages. Another thing is that I did not really walk around. I only stand at one place. I find it difficult for me to do so because the simulated teaching was conducted in a large lecture hall. I know this sound like an excuse but I can’t walk around with my microphone as it was not wireless. I had to use the microphone because the place is just too big and the students would not be able to listen to me. If I was asked to do the same lesson again, I would not change anything. I still think that the task is fine. The only change I want is the venue.

An Afternoon With Kee Thuan Chye

The best thing about this semester is that we get to meet Mr. Kee Thuan Chye, the brilliant man behind the play “The Swordfish, Then the Concubine”. To my surprise, he turns up to be down to earth and friendly. And he has a nice smile :)

He begins by telling us about his life since childhood. He talks about his interest in writing and also the fact that there are always raunchy sex scenes in the plays that he wrote when he was younger. It’s surprising to know that he’s so frank about it. Besides that, he talks about politics; about what is the truth and what seems to be like an illusion. Even though politics has always been a subject to talk about back home with my family, I hate the fact that I do not know how to differentiate between what is true and appears to be true. Mr. Kee talks about history, that what is written may not be the truth. Historians who are bias might have their own agenda for altering the truth. Since they happened in the past, we, the future generations are left in the dark not knowing the truth. All the history that we are forced to consume when we were in school may be fictional stories. Perhaps they can’t stomach the truth so they alter the stories to suit their taste.

Mr. Kee also asks us some questions about recent controversial issues. Some questions are rather provoking. I like the fact that he can speak to us freely. He asked us about the sodomy case by Anwar Ibrahim. Obviously, there are many supporters in the audience. Most of the newspapers are pro-government so I find it difficult what to believe in. I think most of us have the same problem too. I wonder, is it possible to bring the case to an international court?

It is an honour to meet Mr. Kee personally and I thank Dr. Edwin for giving us this opportunity before he leaves. I got excited because I get to shake hands and take a few photos with him. It was an experience not forgotten. I manage to buy two plays by Kee Thuan Chye. That night, I read the play “The Big Purge” which was staged at Essex University. I kept wondering how the Caucasians sound like when they berpantun. To my frustration, I was unable to buy the third play which is “We could #### you, Mr. Birch” because someone snatched it from me. Bummer.

When Politics Turns Humorous

This is one hell of a play! Pardon my language. The play ‘The Swordfish, Then the Concubine’ by Kee Thian Chye has successfully converted my perception towards plays. I have always had this notion about plays that they are always categorized as tragic, comedy or romantic. This play shocked me and confirmed my ignorance. How can I live for almost 22 years not knowing how brilliant a Brechtian play can be?

I enjoyed reading the play. Wait, I think “enjoy” is an understatement. To me, this play is an eye opener. And boy, I begin to dislike the common Aristotelian plays. I like the fact that the play is thought provoking. It makes me rethink about issues that seem trivial for me before. For example, I never knew that such covenant exists in Malaysia. I thought that it was merely a tale.

The story begins with a scene that shows us about the covenant between Sri Tri Buana and Demang Lebar Daun. According to this covenant, the Sultan must never disgrace His subjects no matter how grave their offence may be. In the play, we can see that Iskandar’s favourite concubine, Nurhalisa is sentenced to death by impalement after found guilty participating in a deviationist sect and also found guilty to the accusation that she attempts to kill the Sultan’s consort, Tun Dara. Another element in the covenant is that the subjects must never be disloyal towards the Sultan. In the play, Nurhalisa’s parents, Sang Ranjuna Tapa and Kesuma, betray the Sultan by teaming up with the enemy Majapahit to create a war with Singapura. The covenant also states that if the Sultan disgraces the subjects, his kingdom will be destroyed by Almighty God. In the play, we can see that several events led to Majapahit destroying the kingdom.

Throughout the story, several issues have been brought up. Mostly are about politics. An issue that I would like to talk about is Awang. He is the chosen winner of The P.F. Show. The people voted for his religious kampong values instead on how well he can sing. Sultan Iskandar gets mad at the people for being so backward in thinking. But then, he uses Awang to give the people hope when they the country is threaten by Majapahit. Towards the end, Awang is killed by the people after knowing that his presence is to avert the people’s attention from their current problems. Based on this event, I conclude that the writer is trying to tell us about the government or lawmakers. The lawmakers try to bring up an event or issue to ward off the people’s attention. In other words, new events are brought up to shut the prolonged current events. This tells me that the higher authorities are trying to fool the people to cover up something scandalous.

Of Royalty and Power

Throughout this course, we are asked to watch a few movies that are adapted from the plays that we studied in class. The first movie was Elizabeth: The Golden Age. We watched this movie so that we can get an idea or two about the life and culture of the Elizabethan people. I personally enjoy this movie because she is a figure in history that will never be forgotten. Her father fought with the Catholic Church so that he can marry Elizabeth’s mother; all for the sake of getting male heirs to the throne. It’s an irony because after the reign of King Henry, female rulers start emerging in the monarchy. Elizabeth was a tough queen who refused to succumb to any other power and did everything she could for the sake of her country. An example would be that she defeated the Spanish Armada. What I learn from this movie is that the rulers should put the people before themselves. It is their job to protect the people from all harm. Another thing that I would like to point out is the importance of making decisions. Elizabeth made a decision to behead her cousin to eliminate the arising problems and her decision provokes the Spanish King to declare a Holy war with England.

The following movie was Macbeth. It is not a play that we did for this course but we have done it before during our Foundation Course years. This is my first and favourite Shakespearean play. I find Macbeth an interesting character who craves for power. But my favourite character is his wife, Lady Macbeth. She is one lady who would do anything to get what she wants. She planned for the murder of King Duncan and decided what to do to cover the deed. Her famous line, “Unsex me here” shows that she does not want to be perceived as a female. Greediness is the feeling to be avoided. Greed for power will lead to self-destruction.

The movie Oedipus Rex was not that clear, unfortunately. I was enthusiastic to watch the adaptation but I was disappointed by the quality of the movie. Nevertheless, I watched the movie till the end and enjoyed it. However, I wished that the movie would be more gruesome when Oedipus blinded himself. The actors in the movie played their roles well minus the club foot. Oedipus is a man who tries to lead his own life and avoiding the prophecies as stated by the oracles. I salute his attempt but Fate is already written by the gods. After knowing his incestuous sins, he punished himself by blinding himself with Iocastê’s brooches. I find this punishment too heavy for him to bear. I would rather have him kill himself like what Iocastê did. But I think that it would be worst for him if he died because he will have to meet his slain father in the afterworld.

The next movie was King Lear . It is a good adaptation from the original play. Now that I’ve read the play, I realized that this movie closely follow the real play. The movie gives me the visual representation of the play and helps me understand more about the play. I can finally put faces to the characters. King Lear teaches me about the Natural Order that the people believe in. King Lear went against the order by abdicating and giving his throne to his treacherous daughters. This world is made in order so that things would not go astray. Basically, this whole play is about defying the Natural Order and the consequences the characters have to face.

The last movie we watched is Streetcar Named Desire. At first when I knew that it would be in black and white, I was disappointed. I thought that it would be so ancient that it would be boring. But my thoughts were wrong. When I read the play, I tend to imagine how the characters look like and what they wear, how they react to each other while playing poker or arguing with each other. The movie, though an old one, lived up to my expectations. Being in black and white did not stop me from understanding the play. I pity Blanche. Is she really mad from the beginning of the play or is she just pretentious who ended up being mad after the rape case? I keep on wondering about that. Anyways, I do not like Blanche’s perception towards Stanley. She is so high and mighty and thinks that he isn’t suitable for her sister, Stella. I learnt that one should not be bias or prejudice towards others of different background. We all have red blood after all.

King Lear

I had high enthusiasm towards King Lear. I was so eager to read it that I brought it with me when I went to the salon to highlight my hair. Sad to say that I did not enjoy reading it as much as I did when I read Macbeth. I actually enjoy reading the subplot more than the main plot. I love the story of unnatural son versus natural son. That I think is far more enjoyable to read. No offence to King Lear fans. Clearly he broke the covenant with God and had to pay the price for his deed. In my opinion, he caused his own madness. It was he himself who gave up his throne to pass it on to his treacherous daughters. People said that the older you get, the wiser you will be. Apparently this is not the case. He is a King and by right, he should have known that Goneril and Regan fake their love for him. Obviously, he is easily swayed by flattery.

As I’ve mentioned earlier, I prefer the subplot. I love the villain in Edmund. He is pure evil and dares to challenge the world if he had to. I do not blame him for his evil ways. He is like that because of his father’s adulterous ways. I like his pretentious ways to lure others into believing that he is the innocent one. I wish that someone could try to make a play out of this character. And please, don’t kill him.

I realize that there is a constant element of karma in this play. Don’t you think so?

Of Mistaken Identity (Mole, actually)

During the first lecture, we were informed that we would be writing on our own play. I was excited. I was happy because of two reasons. Number one, I didn’t have to analyze themes or characterizations for an assignment. Number two, I was glad because this is the chance to try on new grounds, which is to create a play.

After years of reading clichéd stories, I got tired of them. Yes, they bore me to death. I began to search for books that are different and unique for me to read. No more hopeless romance or typical save the day stories. So, me, Samantha Yong and Kong Hui Yi made a pact not to write about lovey dovey stories. Just because this is an all-girls group, does not mean that we have to write about girly things. Yes, we were that ambitious.

We took some time brainstorming for ideas and issues that are intriguing enough for secondary school students. We wanted to write about something that they can relate with. Hence, we chose gangsterism. This issue always ends tragically, even bloody. Because we were ambitious, we opt to make it tragic comedy instead. There’s nothing wrong with a little bit of humour, right? Hui Yi came out with the idea of the mole because of her own significant mole on her face. Based on that, we developed our storyline together. Unlike other groups who separate the acts, we did ours together. We blend our ideas and Sam typed them. The idea of mistaken identity is to confuse the readers. We want the readers to pay attention to certain scenes that lead to the mistake. Because this is a play, there are some limitations. We had ideas, some are absurd, I must say. But some are rather awesome and yet we find it difficult to put it into words in a play.

Overall, I am satisfied with the play. This is after all our first attempt writing a play. Our tutor mentioned that he enjoyed reading it. I sure hope he was frank about it. Nevertheless, we lack the feedback from our lecturer. I was downright disappointed (don’t kill me for this). Perhaps, we should have found some time to consult the lecturer as I felt like I was in a dark not knowing if it was good enough.

The Trio

Set Induction

Today, everyone has completed the set induction stage. Personally, it is my favourite stage because here, I can see who the creative ones are and who the copycats are. This is the stage where we can let our hair down and get creative.

After much thinking, I decided to use the play "The Ring" by Vincent Jeremiah. I was attracted by the storyline and the female demon. I was also into the whole imaginary friend thing. So, without further delay I brainstormed for ideas for the set induction. Unfortunately, all I can think of is what anyone can do. I refused to conform to normality and mediocrity. I was ambitious. I wanted to do more.

I got worried as time was running out. In the midst of doing my assignments, the thought of recording my own original video came into mind. I asked for help from two of my friends; Sam as the videographer and Hui Yi as the amateur actress. We recorded a scene whereby Hui Yi is talking to an imaginary friend whose voice can be heard but the person is not seen. The idea was to give the students a gist of what the play is all about. Instead of simply downloading videos from Youtube, i decided to record an authentic video so that the students can relate the issue with their own life.

I believe I did well during my set induction presentation. I succeeded in getting the students' attention and they were watching the video attentively. However, the audio wasn't that good so they can't really hear the conversation clearly. I was glad that the students were able to respond actively to my questions. Some produce hilarious yet one-of-a-kind responses about their imaginary friends.

It's disappointing to see the same idea used again and again. This made it difficult for me to evaluate because I tend to compare peers who did on similar ideas. But, I got excited when something different appears and there were quite a number of them. I thought that my idea was good but apparently Mr. Harold had a better idea. He said that it would be much more interesting to have the teacher act out the role of Raj in front of the students. That was brilliant. I wished I had thought of it first.

Next will be the pre and while reading stages. I hope we will be able to live up to Mr. Harold's expectations as he said that he wanted diversity.

Teiresias, the she-he?

I find the stories about Teiresias interesting and entertaining, particularly regarding how he lost his sight. And it seems to me that he’s so popular that a number of playwrights or poets just have to add him in their plays; be it as a useful advisor or the neglected prophet. Unlike Oedipus who blinded himself, Teiresias was blinded because of his own bad luck and mischievous actions.

One account on how he got blinded is because he saw Athena, the goddess bathed naked in a pool. This is based on the poet Pherecydes in Callimachus’ poem “The Bathing of Pallas”. Athena blinded Teiresias by covering his eyes with her hands. Teiresias’ mother, Chariclo, is a nymph of Athena. She pleaded to the goddesss to restore his sight. Unfortunately, what has been done cannot be reversed. So, Athena cleaned his ears so that he can hear and understand the sounds of the birds. This enabled him to foretell the future. Teiresias’ power to utter oracles can still be used in the afterworld.

Another version of Teiresias’ blindness is taken from the lost lines of Hesoid. Near Mount Kyllene in the Peloponnese, he stumbled upon two snakes mating. He separated them for no reason at all by hitting the female snake. His action angered Hera, the sensuous seductress of Zeus because she approved of sex, for any creatures. Teiresias was punished by being transformed into a woman, body and soul. As a female, Teiresias became the priestess of Hera, married and gave birth to children. It was said that Teiresias was a well-known prostitute. Seven years later, he again saw two mating snakes. He decided to kill the male snake and transformed back into a man.

One day, Zeus and Hera had an argument about who receive more pleasure during intercourse. Zeus claimed that women enjoy sex than men. Hera argued the opposite. They decided to ask Teiresias to judge as he had experienced sex as both man and woman. Teiresias revealed that man gives more pleasure than he receives. For this, Hera struck him blind. Zeus was not able to stop her so to make up for this deed; he rewarded Teiresias the ability to prophesy the future. Zeus also granted him the gift to live an extraordinarily long life for seven generations.

These stories give me an insight look into the lives of the Greeks. I have always been fascinated with how they lead their lives and now I understand more about them. What I learnt from these accounts is that one should be hold responsible for one’s actions. If we dare to do some things, we should also have the courage to accept the implications, whatever they may be. Teiresias accepted his punishments after hitting the snake. Because the world of Ancient Greek is the time where almost anything is possible, Teiresias succeeded in returning back to his own male self. I strongly believe that like Teiresias, we should be responsible for our own deeds or mistakes.

What's left from the headhunting days...

During the days of our forefathers, the Ibans, or the ‘Sea Dayaks’ are known to be the most fearsome and ferocious headhunters in Borneo. I am one of the descendants of the headhunters and my family still keeps the skulls of the enemies as a memento of the olden ways. Although the Ibans do not practice headhunting anymore, the legend lives on in the traditional dance, ‘ngajat’.

Ngajat was performed by the warriors after their return from successful battles. The males would dance in a very aggressive manner and depict scenes from the battle. The warriors may even bring along the beheaded enemies. On the other hand, the women dance with soft and graceful movements, with precise body turns.

From my observation, the ngajat dance is such a famous traditional dance among Malaysians that they often perform it during cultural shows or events to welcome important guests. The concept of borderless world had invaded this dance and other tribal dances. Various dances are integrated into a whole new dance that makes some people, especially the elderly; feel that the dance has lost its meaning. Even the costumes are now altered differently to catch up with the demands of the new world.

I am a product of a mix marriage. I count myself lucky as I am exposed to 2 different cultures since young. However, the one thing that I regret not learning is this beautiful dance. I know that I am missing out something so big and important. Even my dad who is not an Iban knows how to ngajat. In a way, I think that it is quite embarrassing not to know how to dance my own cultural dance. Once, for a competition during TESL Camp, I was ‘selected’ to dance a somewhat altered version of ngajat. I failed miserably at learning how to dance. Besides, I did not feel that it was right to dance without the traditional costume. I know how important it is to preserve this dance. Because of its unique moves, I do not think that this dance will die away with time. But, sad to say that there are too many amendments made to the dance and the costume that make both not as significant as they used to be.

Support our local dance! Support originality! Say no to dance piracy!

Are Prophecies for real?

Oedipus Rex is an interesting play. It is undeniable that the books that often attract my attention are always the ones with unique themes; something eccentric, forbidden, and somewhat wicked. For this play, the story consists of all of the above. I find it eccentric because Oedipus' biological parents would kill their only son because of a prophecy. I also think that it is forbidden due to the issue of incest. And it is wicked because he jabbed his own eyes.

It seems to me that during those days, prophecies are not taken lightly and that the oracles play an important part in the lives of the characters. Oedipus left home because it was predicted that he would kill his own father and bed his own mother. The irony here is that when he left Corinth, he is unconsciously leaving his sactuary and heading towards doom. In my opinion, if he had disregarded the prophecy, Oedipus would have not leave Corinth. And he would have not encounter the incident where he is forced to kill a man and his company. I think that circumstances would change if he ignored the words of the oracles.

The Greeks had so much respect for the gods that they heed to their commands and prophecies. Laios and Iocaste tried to skip Fate by attempting to kill their only son and heir. It's as if prophecies are meant to come true and there is no room fo r doubt. They go to great extent to run away from fate or destiny. But Laios' plan failed. It is clear that there is a greater power that controls all the forces of nature that led to Laios' demise in the hands of his own son (as told by the oracle). The story gets wicked when Iocaste realized that she has married her own son and bear his son's children. That fact prompted her to end her incestuous life. As predicted, Oedipus ends up a blind and broken man.

So, all these prophecy talk got me thinking. If Laios and Iocaste had taken care of Oedipus with great care and love like any parents would do, they would have had longer lives, instead of getting killed or married to Oedipus. It's like karma, what goes around, comes around. But, like I said, there is a greater power that can control one's actions, be it good or bad.

After reading and analyzing this play, I am convinced that some people do believe in Fate and prophecies. I do not condemn their beliefs but I think we are in control of our lives. We do not know the future and we are left in the dark not knowing what is going to happen the next minute. But we can decide on own our about what to do next. I know that we can plan for the future even though it would not turn up as how we expected it would be. And I know that believing soley in prophecies won't do us any good. I believe that determination and hard work will bring us a step further in life.

This is just the beginning

It's weird to be sitting here in the library and blogging for the sake of EDU 3217 Teaching the Language of Drama. All this while, blogging has been a somewhat pleasurable 'hobby' during my free time or when wrath strikes and gets it its way. I am thankful that I can be informal, because there are few assignments if not none, where I get to use informal language. But of course, no vulgar words are allowed.


It is interesting to be blogging about something other than myself and the people around me. This is a good change, I think. Anyways, I look forward to read my course mates' blogs and comment on what they have to say about the issues discussed during lecture and tutorial hours.


Yesterday was the first lecture hours for this course and we were given a short peek into the history of theatre. Dr Edwin gave us a lot of information and we discussed certain issues about theater. I have heard, watched and seen some of the plays mentioned in class. However, it is sad to say that there are a number of plays or playwrights that I have never stumbled upon. This shows my lack of knowledge about history and had exposed my ignorance to learn about it. The world of theatre during those years sounded so exciting and I can’t wait to watch one sometime soon.

I realized that politics and religion play a big role in the world of theatre. For instance, different types of plays emerge when the Church was in control. I also learnt that the world’s economic status can influence the popularity of plays. The Industrial Revolution was the cause of the decline of theatre because during that era, people experienced poverty and they had no time or interest in plays. For them, plays are not significant in their lives.

There are a few eras of theatre and each one of them has their own significant features and renowned plays. I hope that by the end of this course, I will be able to gain more knowledge in this field. I look forward to read the chosen texts despite the linguistic difficulty that I may encounter.