In December, Checkpoint Theatre will be staging its first live production for the year, a premier of Session Zero by Jo Tan. The play revolves around a couple trying to save their marriage by playing the fantasy role-playing game, Dungeons & Dragons.
Intrigued by the premise of the play, I spoke to Jo Tan to find out more about the show.
What inspired you to write a play about a couple trying to save their marriage?
I don’t know what it was about the pandemic, although I saw friends less, I managed to fall out with several of them… pretty hard. We had common passions about common issues, but the gap between how these issues affected us differently suddenly seemed an uncrossable chasm. I had a hard sleepless time understanding how these relationships had fallen apart so thoroughly, and I wanted to use this play, and the marriage in it, to try and figure out whether any differences are truly irreconcilable.
Why did you decide to choose the game, Dungeons & Dragons, as a main feature of the play?
Dungeons & Dragons got me through a large part of the pandemic — I couldn’t go out or act much, but I could escape to a different body and fantasy land in my head. And it just fascinated me how people (including myself) played their game characters. You could see how it was a tool for them to express how they could have been if only things were a little different. What if the play’s hopelessly estranged couple could be other people for a day?
As you are an avid player of the game itself, has the process of creating this piece made you appreciate new facets of the game?
I generally play with actors (which make up three-quarters of my social circle), and you tend to take it for granted that they will be quite unabashed when inhabiting the characters. However, when my co-actor Brendon led everybody in the show’s crew in a game as part of the rehearsal process, it was quite incredible to watch how playing the game characters empowered some of the more reserved personalities to make dramatic flourishes, laugh out loud, and take up more space. That’s the magic of the theatre of the mind.
As you are also performing in the show, has the rehearsal process made you see the story and characters you created in a new light?
Definitely. I always tend to separate my playwright self and my actor self, since the playwright just sets things on paper while the actor is generally a tool and channel for the visions of many people — the director, the writer, the designers.
You always see different things when performing something than when writing it. In both this and previous things I’ve written, I’ve definitely tried to say some lines which made me go, “who the heck wrote that?” But just walking through the story as opposed to living it in your head makes you understand them better, so I even have to empathise with the aggressors.
How does one win in a game of love and marriage?
Try to equate the two. That’s probably most important.
Catch It!
Session Zero by Checkpoint Theatre runs from 2 to 19 December 2021 at 42 Waterloo Street. Tickets from Peatix.
Originally published at http://isaactanbr.com on November 11, 2021.
