Oneiros
Oneiros – In Greek Mythology, the sons of Hypnos, the god of sleep, are collectively known as the Oneiroi, gods of dreams. Oneiros is a singular term. The most famous of the Oneiroi would perhaps be Morpheus, who has been referenced many times in pop culture.
Imagine that your dreams are actually staged. That they have gone through rehearsals and script reading. That perhaps a dreamwright, much like a playwright, wrote and directed your dream. That the characters in your dreams, while subjected to your fantasies and dreamwright’s directions, have voices and grouses of their own. That every night, in your mind, plays are actually behind rehearsed and staged…
This week’s lesson was a blast and may just possibly be the most interesting one I’ve ever had in my all years in NUS. We had red wine and pizza while we had class, because as Mr Sulaiman said, food and drinks go well with comedy! Eight of us (Sulastri was absent) with 3 pizzas and a bottle of wine.
Though it was Comedy Week, that didn’t stop Faith from coming up with a play that had dark undertones. That girl is amazing. Kudos to her writing talent! Marcus’ outbursts at the funny lines was utterly hilarious that we all had to just stop and laugh our hearts out. Haza wrote a very touching piece which doesn’t quite work as comedy but worked on all other levels in terms of emotions and character development. We dined, drank and laughed. I think Haza got a little too high on wine at the end of the lesson, on the wine! This module is really making leaving NUS very very hard, haha.
Since I am on the topic of people in our class, I think Mr Sulaiman deserves some mention as well because he read some of the lines in our play really superbly. The “feel”, tone and accent along with the play-acting was all there. I was truly in awe and still am.
Now, to start on that 30-minute play…
PS: The name of the dreamwright in my play is Meng, which is the hanyu-pinyin of the Mandarin word for "dream".
