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On the Verge

I'm going address Mr. Coffee first. He's death. 

Moving on to posters:

I think a series of silhouette posters would be really cool. They are going through time and space so they are kind of a blur really. They aren't stationary in any one place. They get somewhere they say some things (which are interesting in and of themselves, especially the fact that the playwright is very strict on how he wants everything to sound because the language is so important), and then they move on leaving a proverbial hole where they used to be, if that makes sense. I also think simplistic posters are the best. You don't want to give everything away in the poster, you want to intrigue.

One would be white with a black silhouette of an egg beater, and it would say “Marsupial’s Unicycle.”

One would be the outline of three heads, the first facing left, one facing the middle, and one facing right. The tagline for that would be “On the brink. On the beach. On the verge.”

Then the last of the series would be a black outline of forest and trees, with a white path going through it and it would read “A jungle has its order, of course.” Which is funny because is there order in their life? Not really.

The point of these posters obviously is to garner attention. People aren't going to understand what they mean, but I think that will cause a curiosity that will bring an audience. 

Three Viewings

I think an important linking factor in Three Viewings is the obviously the funeral, but also the fact that they all three never got to say goodbye or tell them what they wanted to tell them. (Although we aren't supposed to put the “rules” of our world in a play because it’s its own small planet) That is something a lot of people think/worry about. What if I don’t get to say goodbye? I didn't get to tell ____ how I really felt. And these aren't just questions for death; they’re questions for loss in general. A lot of books, art, movies, etc, are created about these questions and they’re very prevalent in our society I’d say. So I think that’s something that connects these monologues. Not the death, but the loss and the inability to cope with the fact that they didn't get to say goodbye, and what comes after the loss.

There’s also the connection of the Green Mill. It’s like in the movies with the ridiculous story line and a bunch of famous people and somehow all the stories are connected. That part of those movies always interests me because the world is such a small place and we make all these connections we don’t really even know about. Seven degrees from Kevin Bacon, anyone? Anyways, these three people could have all been at the Green Mill at one point together, they could have even smiled in passing or bumped into each other and not given it a second thought, but Hatcher tells their story and we see that they are connected in their loss and they don’t even know it. I love stories like that. 

Drowsy Chaperone

I absolutely love this musical, mainly because of the fact that it's a "musical within a comedy." I did find myself completely separating the Man from the story though, which makes it hard to analyze because he is indeed the main character of the Drowsy Chaperone. The show is also hard to analyze because there’s the question of which show to actually analyze. There’s just the Drowsy Chaperone the musical, which the man analyzes in a very simplistic way and there’s the Drowsy Chaperone the musical within a comedy which includes any lines and actions the man has, there are some parts where the man involves himself in a song or something and then there is no distinction, the two stories meld together.

Obviously if you are analyzing the two plays as a whole the choice element is a huge factor. The choice to put the man onstage showing the audience the Drowsy Chaperone rather than just staging the Drowsy Chaperone, the choice to keep him on the stage during the musical numbers rather than exit and the choice to have him break the fourth wall all completely change the show in different ways. The Man is constantly in the foreground or background of the scene. It’s almost like putting an audience member on the stage. I think it’s also interesting to have the “L-ve while you can” line ambiguous which causes the Man to go into his monologue about his own life which we don’t really know much about at any point. That’s one of my favorite parts of the show because while it is funny, it allows you into a different part of his life you weren’t seeing before.

          The tempos of the two shows are also vastly different which causes some friction and tension. The musical is set in the 20’s. It’s a fast paced comedy with some cheesy scenes and some huge musical numbers and lots of things happening. The Man’s story is set in what seems to be present time, in his apartment, and he’s leisurely listening to this record and talking to the audience. He is obviously in no rush to go anywhere or do anything especially if it involves people. The extreme differences between the two stories’ tempos causes you to get lost in them and then when you are reminded of the other it’s a sharp turn like when the record skips or the Man’s electricity goes out and you are thrust back into his slow moving world. 

Fires in the Mirror

Fires in the Mirror is a unique and interesting play because of the format. The monologues of interviews of all kinds of different people give you so many different views that it can be hard to decide what “side” you’re on. I know that as I read I went back and forth on what was “right and wrong.” Considering the situation there were things wrong on both sides, but the other side couldn’t see it, and you’ll also get biased opinions, and bias is actually discussed in “Lousy Language” and how we have so many different kinds of bias. It’s important to understand people from both (cross out) all sides. Not just Blacks and Jews that were directly related to the riots, but also Blacks and Jews that only heard about it, or that have dealt with the racism or discrimination that helped spark the riots. Cutting out the first monologues of Smith's Fires in the Mirror would be like cutting out the exposition to any other play. Just because it's a series of interviews on the Crown Heights riots doesn't mean that an interview that doesn't speak directly to the riots isn't important.

 The very first monologue “Identity” I think is extremely important to the play because identity is so important in our world and people in the riots lost their identity and became either Black or Jewish. The following two monologues “Static” and “ 101 Dalmatians” are sort of like introducing the two “characters” that ultimately make up the show. Static is a small look into a Lubavitcher home and Dalmatians is a look at a black man’s childhood and how he understands his place in his world and in other people’s worlds. So it’s their introduction somewhat, and it’s important to see how a random person from those two identities sees themself and how they talk about themselves rather than from the other point of view. 

Then there is “Mirrors” which I think sheds an important light on the fact that having as many views and points as possible is the only way to keep distortion visible enough to fix. The bigger the telescope (the wider the range of people interviewed) the easier to see distortion (the easier to find the facts or lack of facts, you could say). The rest up until “Lousy Language” are all continuations of characterizing and discussing the life that led up to the riots. You have to have a background of a story to understand the conflict and-hopefully in the end-to be able to get to a resolution. To cut those out would be cutting out what I would call the unbiased accounts of their lives. As soon as you get to monologues directly related to the riots you are seeing one side of it because that is what they are concerned with discussing. Before that, they are simply discussing the life they live, race/racism, and how they deal with it. 

Comment links for Blog Check 2

http://comingsoontotheatrenearyou.blogspot.com/2013/04/buried-life.html?showComment=1365882856221#c7565043886096905573

http://frequentingplays.blogspot.com/2013/04/watering-spoonful.html?showComment=1365883121769

http://chassitycurlean.blogspot.com/2013/03/noises-off.html?showComment=1365883321265#c5122970941511949751

http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=5029293627620200755&postID=8876999071630251902&page=1&token=1365883486094

http://samcosby2130.blogspot.com/2013/04/show-and-tell-2-all-kings-men.html?showComment=1365883682918#c538882594649673405

http://dontstopmemeow2130.blogspot.com/2013/03/glass-of-water.html?showComment=1365883902900#c9107988578957767638

Detroit

“Not necessarily Detroit,” but Detroit. A confusing choice, maybe, to give your play a name that is not the setting and doesn’t really have anything to do with the show, but a provoking choice. The Time is also “now.” Not present day, but now, so that whenever anyone reads this from now until whenever they will feel as though it was written for their time. I think it’s especially relevant these days with unemployment rates, homelessness, and the economy in general. The fact the it’s specified as “not necessarily Detroit” gives it the ambiguity it needs to be relevant to any city with economic issues, much like the time making it relevant to any time period in the past or future.

The fact that the title is Detroit could be because of the drastic downhill roll the city’s population and economy fell. In fifty or so years, the population was cut by over half. High School dropout rates reached 76% the year the play premiered. Unemployment was at 28.9%, officially, however the actual was believed to be 50% because people had just stopped looking for work, and taking unemployment. Detroit was the quintessential rundown, economic despaired city. That name gave it an image. It instantly gave the audience an idea of what to expect because of what was happening in Detroit, and still is. The setting and time just allow it prevalence in a wider variety.