"Open text"

What are you writing?
Nothing.
[They drink.]
Not writing?
No.
Why not?
Nothing to say.
Doesn’t stop others. Written out?
Yes.
[They drink.]
Now, what are you writing?
Nothing.

When the first time I saw the extract, I had no ideas on how to perform it with my partner because it was my first time to come across a play that did not state clearly the amount of and the gender of the speakers. I did not know what were the feelings and emotions of the speakers because there were no tone, pitch, and attitude of the speakers involved. In fact, there was no mention of the setting at all. No stage direction was given to show how the storyline developed.

"Whoa… it was interesting, I never came across something so ambiguous in its nature." I found it a challenging task. However, Dr. Edwin used another terms -- "total freedoms of interpretation" to describe this extract. Ok… I suddenly was able to grab the idea… it was actually depended on the readers how to interpret this extract. Readers could either interpret these lines positively or negatively.

If readers viewed this extract positively, they might feel that the first speaker was actually challenging the second speaker to perform better, if the second speaker accepted the challenges, it might motivate him to work harder, and therefore, created healthy competition among them.

On the other hand, if the readers viewed the extract negatively, they might feel that the second speaker was actually questioning the first speaker, suspicious that the first speaker was secretive and tried to hide something from the information of the second speaker.

In fact, I was deeply impressed by the notion that these dialogues of this extract was actually happening between two chicken. Whoa, it was creative! However, I got another idea… these dialogues could actually take place between two wood-peckers also…indeed it was not writing, it was searching for worms to feed its stomach!

By: Chuah Kar Wooi (134185)
B. Ed. (TESL)
Group 21