Dear Friends.

I am at a loss, and I am terribly in need of help.

Thus far in my research and my efforts to begin crafting a substantial thesis proposal for my new problem, I am continually stunted with wit the last question my adviser left me: What's you're angle? What do you want to find out about this study you're doing?

I've found how directors and playwrights work hand-in-hand (or at least, how they ought to) in Broadway productions in the States. It is, indeed, a collaborative effort: director and playwright sit down together and talk about the play. This happens before the director scribbles down his ideas on the script. As Harold Clurman in his book On Directing states, "As in marriage, there is a degree of uncertainty on both sides." They air out their understandings of the script, work out problematic scenes, change some parts if necessary, long as the finished product can manage to "work" onstage. It doesnt stop there. This goes on through rehearsals, even right until the production's first show. It's a process; it's gestation.

As in another book, "As a director, the first thing you must do is to simply do no harm. You are there at the birth of the play for clinical reasons." To paraphrase, it's up to the director to decide whether the child will thrive or suffer, live or die. And perhaps, the playwright is there, pushing pushing pushing for all it's worth.

At least, that's how I imagine it to be.

But still, oh still. That terrible question still drives me insane. What's my angle?

I've consulted with Ma'am Edna May for some possible angles I might take the thesis to. What about the fact that 77% of the plays Dulaang UP ever did wre foreign or western pieces, leaving 33% written by Filipinos? Could it be because, as Professor Amiel Leonardia mentioned in an interview I once conducted with him, there's a dearth of good Philippine material? That point, my adviser said, was debatable.

Or what about... considering most, or rather all of the sample Philippine Production pieces held the question of National Identity (Domingo Landicho's Toreng Garing and Elias at Salome: A Musical, Elsa Coscolluela's In My Father's House, Dong De Los Reyes' Daungan.. Laot... Daungan, Floy Quintos' ..And St. Louis Loves Dem Filipinos), could perhaps a collaboration with Director and Professor Emeritus Antonio Mabesa, what would this say of how they define National Identity?

And again, this was debatable.

Thus, I am at a loss.

I would most appreciate any kind of help from you. Suggestions, coments are most welcome.

From one attempting scholar to another.