first. act.
february & march.
beginning. of. the. script.
Once I had spoken with these 5 people, it was time to start writing the script. I knew that I could speak with more people and that would always be helpful, but I felt like I had enough material to start writing. I still had a lot of blanks to fill: who are the characters, when will the first act end, and what will happen in the first act?But I did have certainties:
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The play was going to start with the breakdown of a character (from this moment on ´Coni´) trying to establish order and being questioned for taking to much leadership power (the memory I had more vivid of the first moment inside the occupation).
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A main character (from this moment on 'Soledad') and a support character (her friend, from this moment on 'Javiera') would be part of the more radical faction and the ones to make Coni break down.
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As I wanted to make a two act play, every act should be around 4o pages.
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They were going to be sitting on the floor around the space and the audience members, to make it feel as a real assembly. This was to make it feel like there was a loss of individuality of the characters and the audience would need to be looking around to find where a voice came from. This would create disorientation within the assembly, creating a small and chaotic space.
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The play should have 10 characters. At this point, from my own experience and out of the interviews I only had 4:
Soledad
Main character from the more radical faction of the occupation. Her name started as 'Mil Soles' (A thousand suns) because a lot of people in real life where called by their Facebook names instead of their real names. This idea was discarded and just ended up as 'Sol', which is nickname from the name 'Soledad' meaning loneliness in Spanish.
Javiera
Friend/classmate of Soledad. They represent the same radical force in the play. She gives her support to whatever Soledad believes in.
Coni
The first character that the audience will encounter. She was the spokeswoman before the occupation actually happened for the feminist movement and all the assemblies that had been happening during the month. Her leadership is questioned and the very first scene opens up the play demonstrating the fights of power in the space. She settles a chaos which was already in motion.
Ro
Catholic feminist inside the space. The event of the Santísimo inside the occupation was a very remembered one, and she opens the conversation about catholicism and feminism inside the space. Could also serve as a shy character who finds her real reason to be inside the occupation. Her name is Rosario, that means 'Rosary' in Spanish and it's a common name in Latin America.
I had certain clarity to these characters, but I knew it would be easier for my creative process to start writing and figure them out while I wrote. The rest of the characters (to get to 10) were going to have to be more supportive, or that's what I thought at that stage. Supportive or not, they would be crucial for the occupation and the chain of roles needed for it to succeed. I knew it was more of an emsemble-led narrative, with no real ´main characters´ in it.
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As I was writing this first draft, the other characters that appeared were all called 'Compañera' (#1, #2, #3, #4, and #5). As I already had 4 characters plus these ones, and I wanted a couple of male characters as well. The first draft of the first act had six female characters and two male characters, as I didn't know how many would appear as I wrote. I just knew that every time I introduced a new 'Compañera' there had to exist a reason behind it, a new voice or an urge to have a supportive character in one of the sides.
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Even though I didn't know the identities of these other characters (the 'compañeras'), I knew that in these assemblies theres usually a variety of careers. That's why it brings up so many different points of view, because in every school people usually think in a similar way or are used to things being done similarly. For example, in Engineering you'll have a very diverse political spectrum and/or activism, but usually everybody will try to follow the beaurocratic and institutional path to deal with any situation. However in the Art School there's usually many assemblies where even teachers attend to hear and propose things with their students directly. In this sense, what a person studies says a lot about this person, therefore, it would be a fundamental part of the character's identity as well. It's also the first thing you remember from a person in these sort of spaces; more than her name it is the 'she is from journalism', 'she studies sociology', 'she's from Lo Contador Campus', etc. So, while I was introducing these still unknown 'Compañera' characters in the first act, to diversify their voices and create a coherent thread of thought for them, I assigned them what they studied. These had to be different to the characters I had clarity about and would help in the roles they would serve in the toma as well.
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script's. first. structure.
Knowing how I wanted to begin this play, and with the help of the interviews, I knew the first act had to look like this:
1. I started with the breakdown of Coni and Soledad with Javiera questioning her leadership
2. Then I had to move to the burgeoise media discussion
3. The Santísimo scene
4. End with the dilema of if men should stay in the toma or not
Burgeoise media
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Santísimo
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Men in the toma
...and what's the end of the first act?
la. contratoma.
Another thing that I had had in my mind was the role of the Contratoma, that was an event that definitely marked it's importance in what the occupation was. Not every university under occupation had a 'Counter Occupation', but we were in the Pontifical Catholic University oif Chile, so it made sense.
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The 'Contratoma' appeared on Friday night, after the first whole day of assemblies, discussions, fights and attempts to organise. But before that, in the morning of Friday when all the press was outside, a student representative who was quite known in the university's political world came in a rage because of what was happening. Naturally, as this appeared in the news, this interview was widely ridiculed for the phrase 'this is my university'. She was also part of the 'Movimiento Gremial', the oldest and most conservative political movement in our university that had a historical weight not only in our university, but in the whole country. This is due to the fact that many past members occupied high ranking positions within conservative governments and had a role during the dictatorship.
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So, the Contratoma had a lot of importance in this story. These students, that were against the toma, stayed the same nights on the other side of the campus that was not under occupation. Therefore, to get to know the other's sides reason for assembling, this point of view needed to be researched as well.
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Javiera Rodriguez, the representative that is mentioned before, participated in the Contratoma. And not only that, but she wrote a book:
'La Contratoma' told the story of Javiera and these 4 days of protest; how she saw everything, how she and her partners thought –sometimes different–, why the Contratoma began in the first place. Reading this definitely was helpful to put the event of the Counter Occupation in the script, as I understood why these people were doing what they did, to know how to write about all the rumours that were installed that year around the Contratoma. In the end, to communicate to my actors in what was happening and how their characters should perceive the event.
"The toma was an illegitimate mechanism of political action" (p. 24)
"(...) Who believed that violence was, in fact, a tool to negotiate" (p.28)
"We were in different lanes. The Principal would never totally understand us and even less would take care of our frustrations" (p.28)
"I tried to situate myself in the shoes of the most radical, so their words would hurt less. That in the end, and according to their vision of the conflict, they were doing what they believed was right and that, just as me, didn't have any experience in this. It was just a political matter and I was on the other side" (p.35)
About the assemblies before the occupation:
"It didn't look like a meeting done for them who wanted to inform themselves, but it was a space for them, where the map was already traced. Where all the dialogue would serve in which grade the measures would be adopted" (p.107)
Rodríguez, J. (2019) La Contratoma. Santiago: Ediciones El Líbero.
IJaviera's book also provided a timeline of events that helped with my own timeline I was creating of that weekend, in addition to documents and news I had found myself. I believe the thing that helped the most was reading about the rumors from the other side, and knowing the reason why they were putting on a Contratoma, something nobody really knew in the moment or in the interviews I had either.
what happens in a toma?
As I made a timeline of events that had happened in the occupation, I still had to figure out what was going to happen in the middle of these 'checkpoints' I had established. So, recalling the little details of the things that happen during assemblies and the whole first moment of organisation, I made a list of little events that could help build up the story. I would also contextualize how a toma operates from the inside in managing a big group of people in these kind of situations: putting them into teams.
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Different teams included:
- Negotiations with authorities
- Collection of food
-Communication with the outside (what was happening outside, after all?)
- Writing a press release
-Making teams and distributing roles
-Choosing leaders
-Counting people inside the assembly to know the quantity of people inside
-Etc.
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Then, I thought also of the things that had already happened when the play began: how the characters had already took over the university; so when the play begins, they are in that climatic and confusing moment of 'and now what' that was described.
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end. of. first. act.
As I had decided to have 6 characters with the name ‘Compañera’, that development didn’t last very long. The ‘Compañeras’ were quite anonymous, and, as I was writing, I had to constantly go back to make sure the ‘Compañera #2’ said something before that would make sense with what she was saying now.
My reason to call them all ‘Compañera’ was, in the first place, to give a sense of reality to the play, as in these kinds of assemblies nobody knows each other’s name’s, but everybody refers to the other as ‘Compañera/o/e’ (sort of a ‘comrade’, in a way). On another hand, I wanted to create this sense of loss of individuality that this creates. Since it is such a big group with so many different voices, it develops a uniform but heterogeneous universe of people, which ends up being perceived as a whole.
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Regarding the development of actions between the ‘bourgeoisie press’ scene and the ‘santísimo’ scene, I decided these had to be filled up with the real things that happen in an assembly. This first moment, until the Santísimo, had to be about the whole settling in and organizing from the inside: the leading power was already questioned, there was a first break, now we need to create an organic motion inside the assembly to start to work towards what we really came for: demand a better Sexual Violence Protocol.
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As I reached the Santísimo scene, the students had already organised and had reached a point of peace. So between the Santísimo scene and the Men in the Occupation scene, we had to develop the next part: it’s time to get to the petition and start making decisions regarding how to achieve their main objective of the toma.
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When I finished the last point (Men in the Toma), the first act was already long, so I decided I would only tell what happened on Friday. The First Act would be until the Contratoma -that was set Friday night- and then the second act would be about Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
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In a first version of the script, the first act finished with the announcement of the existence of the Contratoma and that Cami and Coni, called urgently by Almendra, had to go outside to see what was happening (ALMENDRA: CAMI, CONI, you have to come see this, NOW.)
feedback. on. first. act.
Cami stands out; there's characters that speak a lot and others that don't say that much.
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Giving more distinctive voices: allow some of them to have shorter thoughts, some of them more direct, etc.
Set the language early. Put Spanish words in the play early, and use them during the entire play.
Start with more energy. After the big thing that has happened there is no well way to go.
The discussions are making it complicated to understand why they are here and what they want.
Start with 'why they believe what the do', what do they want and why do they believe in this thing? Is this the way to get it? Yes, this is the way to get it.
They wanted different things, even though they don’t know what they want at this stage.
Make 'outside forces' feel closer. We forget about them, and they cannot feel like they are gone.
Put a name to the 'Compañera X' 's, even though they call each other 'Compañera'. This will help the actors and you as a writer.
New question for the second act: there is a new threat. Hear they saying something like ‘are they coming for us?’.