HOUSE OF THE WEEK

Value for money in two-storey Thingangyun house

THIS fully furnished two-storey house in Thingangyun could be considered something of a bargain because it provides loads of space and plenty of features for a relatively low price of K200 million. more

Yangon Weather Forecast, Burma

US dramatist and Pulitzer winner visits Myanmar

MS Suzan-Lori Parks, American dramatist and Pulitzer prize winner was in Myanmar from May 10-16 to meet with local students looking to improve their creative writing skills.

“I think writing plays is a wonderful opportunity for the students to… get more comfortable with writing, which is a skill that is going to help them in any aspect of their lives. I told them if you can get good at writing plays you can really be good at communicating on paper, you can be good at public speaking, a whole host of things,” said Ms Parks on May 13.

The trip to Yangon was organised by the US embassy as part of its speaker program. It also included a speech on May 14 at the Jefferson Center in Mandalay entitled “One million suggestions from Suzan Lori-Parks”.

In 2002 Ms Parks was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play Topdog/Underdog, which is about the troubled lives of two African American brothers.

“I was the first African American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in the drama category… there were construction workers, labourers on the street in New York City who recognised me and would scream across the street in Time Square ‘Suzan-Lori!’” said Ms Parks about her success.

Still, she doesn’t believe that the prize has changed her.

“There’s a wonderful Zen saying that goes: ‘Before enlightenment I chopped wood and carried water. After enlightenment I chopped wood and carried water’… so deep inside it’s the same, nothing changed. Oh maybe I get invited to fun parties now, maybe they want me to come here to Myanmar to teach play writing, that’s very nice, but the basic everyday truth is the same: I still work hard, I still work to write as best as I can,” explained Ms Parks.

During her stay in Yangon Ms Parks taught play writing classes at the Myanmar Institute of Theology (MIT) and also had the opportunity to visit Gitameit music school. In particular, she enjoyed jamming on her guitar with MIT students.

“We had a jam on the porch of MIT, it was fantastic. It was like a spontaneous band,” said Ms Parks. “I would play chords and they would play all these beautiful notes.”

After the success of Topdog/Underdog, Ms Parks completed a project to write a play every day for a year. The result was 365 Plays/365 Days (2006), which she believes is about saying thank you to yourself and others.

“I think the theme is giving thanks. Showing up every day, the sort of commitment and courage it takes to show up every day. The frame of mind it takes to say thank you to an art form.

“It’s difficult to win a prize but it’s more difficult to keep going,” explained the dramatist who has participated in the US embassy speaker program once before when she visited India.

Brought up in a military family, Ms Parks spent part of her childhood in Germany where she studied at the local, rather than military, school.

“From a very early age my parents told me ‘You are our ambassador… when you leave the house you are representing America.’”

 

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