Session 18 may get me in trouble if ever I run for political office. I will most certainly be called a sexist (as that is what I called myself during today's session)! The dialogue style of the female character in the script again caught my attention, and we dove into a discussion of voice-gender.
Workshopping Stephen Baily's play, "A Dozen Roses," was a raucous international interplay of dialogue analysis and themes between characters that left the question of sexuality on the table.
Workshopping the script with me were Max Gill from New York City and Altenir Silva from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Even though Altenir claimed his languages skills were not ready for reading, he was assigned a part nonetheless (Big Hank), and he brought a new quality to his character, so much so that we even talked about the value of specifying an accent for certain characters. Baily's play was staged in 2010. You can watch the YouTube video of it and then listen to the reading from today's session and see if Altenir's reading gives you a different idea of the "Big Hank" character.
The international flare of this session reminded me of how different cultures can receive nuances and messages in scripts differently, and how an international workshop is a wonderful way to see the layers of meaning in a piece of writing.
Baily's script spurred a strong discussion of relationship tension and believability mixed with a surprise ending that left the audience to answer their own questions. My thanks to Stephen for his script and to Max and Altenir for reading and workshopping it with me! It truly was a pleasure to have a non-native speaker in the workshop, as it brought so much texture to the character Altenir read. Thank you!
You can listen to an audio recording of the workshop.