Short Plays for Learning English -FindBook 找書網

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The plays in this collection have been written sporadically over the past thirty years. Some of them began as unpublished short stories, others started with a few brief notes, and the others are expansions of well-known stories with my personal interpretations. The all have one simple purpose: to help increase the fun of learning English.

Cinderella Fortuna was written in 2003, when I was serving as the chair of the Department of Applied English, St. John’s University. That was also the first year of the Department, and we had only one class. Near Christmas, some of the students asked me if they could put on a short play for the occasion. I did not give them a definite promise; I only said that I would try to accommodate their wish. Then, one day, about a week before Christmas, I suddenly had the idea of writing my own version of the popular story “Cinderella.” I managed to squeeze out ten or twelve hours in two days, and wrote the play as we see it here—with some minor revisions later on. I later found that I had been quite kind and forgiving in treating the stepmother and her own daughters—probably because of my age. I meant to emphasize the conflict between the father and the son—the King and Prince—but later tried very hard to minimize the conflict. The King’s soliloquy could have gone on for at least half a page, but I realized that it would be too difficult for any of our freshman students who played the role. Therefore, the whole play can be seen as written for the performance by intermediate-level students. However, I do hope that the readers will notice my interest in the character of Mother Fairy, whose desire to help Cinderella really roused my curiosity. Also, my Prince is not as perfect as those in most fairy tales, and I hope that he appears more like an ordinary man than a condescending figure that girls cannot resist. There might still be some snobbishness in my Cinderella—and I hope that will be forgiven; after all, what girl does not want to marry a prince? And I also hope that her mental toughness and consideration for other people can redeem her only “sin” of being beautiful—which seems to be the only virtue besides her kindness in most Cinderella stories.

Fantasy of the Night is actually revised from a short story that I wrote when I was a senior in college, some thirty-five years ago. That story was never published, and the original copy has long been lost. In 2006, I suddenly had the idea of reshaping it into a play, with the intention of trying my hand in imitating Marlowe—to write the whole play in iambic pentameter. The experiment proved a failure, and it soon became a form of torture. The first scene took about a month, and I could not do anything from the second scene on for almost a whole year. Later on, I decided to let my thoughts flow more naturally, and I wrote the following scenes in daily language. Today I still think that this is the worst play in the collection, although it represents something like a real personal experience in my life: I once had a talk with one of my best friends in college, when we were having lunch in a restaurant, about going on a “romantic adventure,” and we almost decided to really put our idea into action. In fact, it became a joke in about twenty minutes, after we tried to invite a waitress in the restaurant out on a date, and she turned us down with her chin in the air—very probably because we looked just like the very poor country boys that we were. I will never forget her contemptuous gesture. Our plan was, of course, never put into practice—it remains a fantasy today.

Dionysius; or, Damon and Pythias was written in 1978, when I had just received my master’s degree and had begun teaching full-time at St. John’s, then a five-year junior college named St. John’s & St. Mary’s Institute of Technology. Dionysius was actually the first play that I ever wrote. I revised the story of about seven hundred words from a textbook into a short play good for a twenty-minute performance, and in very simple English, too, for the performance by the students in the English Club. They did a good job of performing, especially considering they were virtually high-school students. Again, the original copy has long been lost. In 2007, I decided to write it again, this time expanding the scope and going at some depth into what I believe Dionysius might have thought and felt.

Eve and Adam are truly one story of two possible extremes, written at the same time in September, 2008, with the ideas taken down sometime in the 1990s. I wonder if they represent the cynical thoughts that I have found myself sometimes having. However, it was my intention to present some of my crazy ideas about the relationship between a man and a woman—an everlastingly interesting topic. My interpretations do not really include all of my true ideas about the topic. The simple truth is that these two plays were written just for dramatic fun.

Meeting Will is just a dream. One night in the summer of 2008, I suddenly woke up at midnight, grabbed a pen and a piece of paper, and started scribbling down the dream that I had just had. One hour later, the outline of the story was there. Two months later, I looked at the outline again and started to shape it into a play. I let my thoughts flow and finished the whole play in about twenty hours. I felt happy all the way. Later, I found that I had written down the experience of my lifetime career—as an English teacher. Well, maybe that is the true purpose of this collection: to help students learn English.

Sebieng

Department of Applied English

St. John’s University

Tamsui, Taipei, Taiwan