This module kicks-off a discussion on the play “Amoy Pulbo Ang Mga Alabok Sa Ilalim ng Riles ng Tren” by Lino Balmes. Through class discussion, it seeks to build upon the present milieu as frame of the text, as a dramaturgical exercise.
Guide questions for discussion:
(1) Look at the main setting of this play. What does it say about the characters within it? What does it establish off-the-bat about who these characters are? How do they live? Who are they?
(2) Look at the secondary setting of this play. What kind of relationship does it have with the play’s main setting, what layer does this secondary setting add to who these characters are?
(3) Given those two settings and its characters, what aspects of the present does this play present to us? What is it highlighting about this present we live in, given the settings and characters?
(4) The play shifts across two settings. How is the audience or spectator also changed by these shifts? How different is watching a play from watching a TV show?
(5) Imagine how the setting changes everything on the stage, from lights to sounds to even how the characters act: how does that change who the audience is as well?
(6) A constant and repeating moment in the play is the shaking of the ground and the falling of dust in the main setting. What do you think does that signify, and why was it necessary to have that on repeat as a device in the play? ***
