As the script was written, the only thought the author had in his mind was to allow enough space for character development. Character development was not only applied to the antagonist nor the protagonist, but of every single character in the play.
An attempt to achieve this, the attention of the audience was not brought straight to the antagonist instead of the protagonist when the scene first began and that the protagonist’ lines only came in at the middle of the script, this was to allow sufficient character development of the antagonist. When you compare any other script, the attention of the audience was brought straight to the protagonist of the play and that would last all the way till the end of the play. which basically meant the obvious character development throughout the play was only a[plied on the protagonist
The author also tried to achieve this by making sure every single actor that got on the stage would have their own lines to say, that every single character that was penned down would have their own history, that everyone has their own reason for being in the scene at that very moment and that each actor had a history of their own which allowed a certain amount of depth to every single character. The lines in the play was spread evenly amongst the actors, though admittedly the hostages and the police officers did not have as many lines as the others did, but they still had their share to of the spotlight.
The author believes that a play should not only tell a single story, this is what is most commonly done, that the play would revolve on the protagonist and that the whole play would be his/her story, but in “Questionable Motives” every single character had their own story to tell, making it a layered cake giving depth to the script. The main reason in which why the author attempted this was that he wanted to discard the common look of a school play which is usually a team consisting of a group of people with single actor. this style instead allowed to show that this was a team of 15 actors working with each, which was an attempt to prove to the adjudicators, that this is indeed a team of actors who are all capable of delivering a performance and not just a team that had only a single actor in it.
Scripts would usually begin with a slow tempo where the character’s were slowly developed over the period of time, but this script began on a very intense note which was the intention of the author to grab the attention of the audience the minute the curtains opened and as well as it worked when the actors performed the piece on stage, the technique indeed worked in grabbing the attention of the audience. the challenging part was that for the author to maintain the atmosphere throughout the whole play until the piece reached its resolution and of course making room for character development and ample space to allow the intensity of the atmosphere to be felt.
Special thanks to Marvin Wong for going through and editing the script, and all the actors and those involved with the play...
But before I sign off, admit it people, you couldn’t have pulled it off without me and my pretty black pen... and face it, the three page draft passed to me was completely ripped apart and the whole story retold =P
