"You have one job okay? You are a student. You study. That’s all you need to do. Nothing else. Why is that so hard?"
Photo: John Rata
A Korean high school student.
A Korean private tutor.
They study together once a week in preparation for the NCEA Level 1 Exams.
They also talk about life and feel sad and stuff.
Uhyoung Choi’s first foray into playwriting has been a tandem journey into theatre, story and what his values are. An unassuming powerhouse, Uhyoung’s quest to dive into the arts in 2019 to expand his horizons has led him here - to the Fresh off the Page series where new writers are challenged to complete a new script and have it read aloud in front of a live audience. Working with playwright mentor Nathan Joe, Uhyoung’s first play ‘My Original Position’ explores the relationship between a tutor, a student and the world around them.Uhyoung opens up about the process and what inspired him to dive in.
Come to the live reading!
Wednesday, 8:30 PM
November 13th, 2019
Basement Theatre (Lower Greys Ave).
This event only requires you to register for a FREE entry and is open to all. Grab your seat/s here: https://bit.ly/32OLy2Z
What inspired you to write the play?
When I was in Korea around age 5, I had many extracurricular activities. I was still in kindergarten, but I had a private English tutor, a private math tutor, I had recorder lessons, harmonica lessons, piano lessons, taekwondo lessons and multiple art classes.
When I moved to New Zealand the extracurricular activities continued, and I would study while my Kiwi friends played after school. I felt like I had a class for everything, from violin to tap dancing to French. I would arrive home and my father would tutor me in math and sciences. I had piles of workbooks, including SAT prep books, that my parents expected me to work through by myself after school and on the weekends.
These lessons formed a large portion of my childhood. I was expected to excel in every aspect of school life, and anything but the best was unacceptable. Needless to say, I was quite miserable at times.
Now that I am older, I am now on the other side tutoring students in math, English, legal studies, and philosophy. And I remember, around two years ago, I was tutoring a 17-year-old Korean girl who was living in New Zealand by herself, funded by her extremely wealthy parents. Through our lessons I noticed that she was a very sad person. She had all the money she could want, but she felt that she had been abandoned by her parents. So, each lesson we would spend a portion of the class just talking about life and our problems, and we both learned a lot through them.
This led me to wonder what my tutors had thought when I was much younger. I wondered if they had noticed when I was sad. I wondered if they cared about what I was going through. I wondered if they knew I wanted to run away.
So, I wondered, if I had the chance to go back in time and tutor my younger self, what would I do? What would I tell him? And would I be able to make a positive difference in my life?
This is what inspired me to write my play, My Original Position.
What were the challenges you faced during the process?
As a first-time writer, I found everything extremely challenging.
The biggest challenge I faced was trying to figure out exactly what I wanted to say through my play. I had ideas and emotions I wanted to express, but sometimes writing your thoughts out on paper makes you realize just how illogical your thoughts can be. This made me seriously reflect on my beliefs and I think the writing process changed me a lot. As my views developed, the play itself took dramatic turns to accommodate, and at many points I had to fully overhaul my play as I was no longer the person that started writing it.
What do you think makes a good story?
Personally, I love stories that challenge my views and beliefs. Stories that make me reflect on my memories. Stories that leave me thinking afterwards.
I also love stories with real (fictional) people in them. People doing people things with other people. I think that’s what makes a good story.
How do you want people to feel at the end of the play?
“Oh, I never thought about it like that before”
Or
“Huh, haven’t seen that on stage before”
Or
“Wow, Uhyoung is a real cool dude”
I think any of these reactions would make me very happy.
Who did you write your play for?
I think this is a very selfish play, I wrote it primarily for me. I wrote it for my past self, because I would have loved to have read this when I was younger. I wrote it for the me of today, because it was fun and helped me process my thoughts and emotions. And I wrote it for my future self, in the hopes that it will set in motion a lifelong pursuit and love of writing plays.
What characters was the easiest to write? Why?
They were all hard. Writing is hard. If you are reading this, please send help.
Can you explain any ‘theatrical’ ideas/concepts utilized in the play?
It was very important for me to convey a sense of entrapment and constant observation throughout the play. I, hopefully, achieved this through the use of a one room play.
I absolutely love one room plays and storytelling within that limitation. It traps the characters in a small space, forces unique and heightened interactions, and creates an almost pressure cooker experience. Limiting the play to one room also allowed me to play around with sound, and how the sound would travel from the room to the rest of the house, and vice versa, to create a sense of constant observation.