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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. 

Water By the Spoonful

There are many story lines in this play and all of them cross in interesting ways throughout. In particular in Scene Six at the end, the lights come up on Elliot in the gym with the ghost while the chat between Fountainhead, Orangutan, Chutes&Ladders, and Haikumom continues. The chatters have just had a little online intervention with Fountainhead to get him to admit that he is a crack head (a sort of bonding experience, I think).  The chatters are then jokingly talking about their favorite rehab slogans when we see Elliot boxing (which we know he does for aggression although he shouldn't with his leg), we also see the Ghost that's been repeating the Arabic phrase to Elliot as well, and in between the Ghost asks for his passport. We then see Haikumom lose her cool and curse for the first time because her sister is in the paper, and then she realizes it's her death in the paper. 

I think it's so smart to have the realities cross in this way. Until that point we don't know who the chatters are, we know Odessa is somehow related to Elliot and Yaz, but we don't really know what she has to do with the threads in the chat room. This is the first time we are seeing how Elliot is connected to this chat room. It's like in those movies with an overwhelming amount of famous people because the movie isn't good. Like Valentine's Day where all of the stories are connected, it's always interesting to see the way they connect, and this is that moment in this play. Rather than seeing Odessa at the funeral or having her receive a call from Elliot, we see it through the chat room and we also see a bit of Haikumom's real identity.

Buried Child

Buried Child is not a cookie cutter, black and white, this-is-what-this-means type of play. There is a lot of ambiguity surrounding Vince and the crops and, I think, the buried child. The play's setting and lines could fall under realism, yes, because they show a slice of life, with normal dialogue, but there is no real tie up and explanation at the end. The reader is left with questions. 

Who is Vince’s mother? It seems that Tilden might have been the father of the child Dodge drowned so if that baby really is dead then who is Vince, really? If he grew up with the family then who was the mother?

Why after thirty years did crops start growing again? And why didn’t Hallie notice until after Tilden had unburied the baby?

The buried child was Hallie’s, and it is assumed that Tilden was the father, but it isn’t certain. Why did Dodge drowned it if that wasn’t the case?

There are a lot of unanswered questions left by the end of the play and so I don’t think it would be considered a well-made play because the ends aren’t tied up perfectly. Sheppard leaves a lot for the reader to ponder and decide for themselves.

Noises Off

A motif throughout the play is malfunction. Malfunctions of wardrobe, of props, of people even. Sometimes the malfunctions are planned, meaning they were used as sabotage (the cactus-butt problem, shoes tied together). Other malfunctions were completely accidental, but all of them reflect the craziness of the cast in general. The show that they are trying to put on is extremely complicated and the cast is too crazy and caught in their own world to do it. Then there's the malfunctions in the personal lives of all of them, jealousy, love triangles, alcoholism. The fact that Poppy is pregnant and Lloyd is the father while Lloyd really doesn't care about Poppy at all. All the characters are like chickens running around with their heads cut off or, you could say, robots malfunctioning.(mwahha bringing it full circle) 

Choosing a tagline, is hard because at first I wanted to do something with the sardines, because that’s my favorite part about this play is how complicated everything is with the damn sardines. But it’s kind of hard to encapsulate the play with a line about sardines, so the perfect solution is to choose a line that was supposed to be about sardines, but because of the craziness got turned into something else. The perfect tagline for this farce is the final line of the play, "When all around is strife and uncertainty, there's nothing like..a good old-fashioned..plate of curtain!"

Glass of Water

The question of the Protagonist in Glass of Water is a difficult one to answer. It seems at first that Abigail and Masham's story is most prevalent, but soon you see that all the characters stories revolve around one man, Bolingbroke. Bolingbroke has his own motives for everything he helps with and in the end he gets exactly what he wants while ensuring that Masham and Abigail get what they want as well. Bolingbroke is in the center of the Duchess and the Queen’s relationship, the Duchess and Masham’s relationship, the Duchess and Abigail’s relationship, Abigail and Masham’s relationship, and the Queen and Masham’s relationship. He uses all these couples to needle his way into different places so he can be at the right place at the right time. So even when he isn’t on stage, there is either a letter from him, an idea that he planted, or they are expecting him.

            I wouldn’t necessarily say that he is the one Scribe wants the audience to root for the most though. I was rooting for Masham and Abigail (hopeless romantic, I guess, ugh), but for others you certainly aren’t rooting for the Queen, because her character has no gumption or standing, she just sways whichever way the wind is most favorable. The Duchess is also not a favorable character because she is so selfish in her ways. Bolingbroke can also seem selfish at times, but he does still assure Abigail and Masham’s marriage so in a way, you’re rooting for Bolingbroke the entire time because (if) you’re rooting for A and M. Oh, and also peace in England, that’s important. So I take back my first statement, you are rooting for Bolingbroke because he is the only one looking out for more than just himself. 

Hornby

In How I Learned to Drive, there is the repeated titling of scenes as something to do with driving. The whole show is given as a broken up driving lesson. The title reflects what you can expect in that scene. For example, a scene entitled "You and the Reverse Gear" will be in the past. A scene titled "Shifting Forward From First to Second Gear" will be about Lil Bit and Peck's relationship developing further. It isn't the exact same everytime but it always uses a metaphor with a car to show what will be happening. Driving is used as the overlaying motif because Uncle Peck and Lil Bit's weird messed up relationship started with him taking her on a drive and teaching her how to drive. They got their alone time when driving somewhere, they had special (creepy) moments in a car, and eventually a car gave Lil Bit the freedom to get away from her family, and move on from Uncle Peck.

A motif in Harry Potter is "the chosen one." This is throughout all 7 books and 8 movies. Harry Potter was the chosen one before he was even born because of a prophecy that actually could have been talking about 2 different people. But, because of who Voldemort went after Harry Potter's life was decided from the beginning. He would have to be the one to defeat the Dark Lord or die. The "chosen one" is repeated often through out both whether it be in a mocking fashion or in an encouraging, praiseful fashion, both J.K. Rowling and the script writers kept it in play the entire series because it was really by chance that Harry was the chosen on rather then Neville.
I had no idea how nerdy that would sound until I reread it, hopefully it's a good example of a motif.

How I learned to Drive

Vogel's How I learned to drive is quite a departure from Fornes' The Conduct of Life although it deals with vaguely similar creepiness. 

The way they are written is vastly different. One of the difference is the Greek chorus that Vogel includes to play all the characters but Uncle Peck and Lil Bit. There could be a myriad of reasons why Vogel chose this but the main one is because it heavily emphasizes Uncle Peck and Lil Bit's relationship. If you had given each character its own permanent actor it would make them and their story lines more substantial to the audience. With the Greek chorus the other characters become a sort of blur around Peck and Lil Bit and their relationship to each other and to the other characters is crystal clear. Obviously the opinions of the other characters are not important to P and B and they don't have too much of an effect on them. It's like they are faceless beings in P and B's story and while they do have lines and are a part of the story they aren't really essential. Their parts could be told through other ways like a monologue from Lil Bit or dialouge between P and B, so it's interesting that she chooses the Greek chorus to give theses characters their voice. 

Another choice that's interesting to me is why she has the "Uncle Peck Teaches Cousin Bobby How to Fish" scene somewhat randomly in the play. Why even include that in the show, what does that have to do with the rest of the story. I just realized as I was typing the title is we don't really know how he is a cousin to Lil Bit. Is Bobby Uncle Peck's son? That would be interesting if Uncle Peck had a kid with his wife and whether or not that effected how he was towards Lil Bit or if Lil Bit felt guilty about that, because she said she felt bad about doing all that to her aunt. You also wonder towards the end becuase their is no written proof whether or not Uncle Peck molested Bobby in the end. I'm still not sure why this scene is included. Any ideas?

The Conduct of Life

Maria Fornes seems to want to give the reader a very minimal amount of the lives of the characters and what's happening to them. She has to make a lot of choices about what to include or exclude in order to still tell the story fully.
A choice that I found puzzling was why she chose to have scenes focused around Olimpia rather than giving more back story for seemingly more important characters like Orlando or Leticia. Why was it so important to have Olimpia there, and to dedicate quite a bit of the play to her and what she has to say?
Of course, an obvious answer would be that is somewhat comedic relief to ease the extreme tension created in scenes that include rape and old men keeping young girls in their basement. But in class someone brought up a really great point that I had never even considered. Olimpia is Nina's voice. Without the scene between Olimpia and Nina we would have absolutely no background on the young girl. Because even though Leticia says she would jump in front of a bullet for a deer, she isn't willing to do so for Nina and after realizing she's in the basement doesn't do anything. Olimpia is the only one who cares, or is lonely enough to question and listen to Nina.
So Olimpia helps with the tension of the play and she also allows the reader to learn about Nina. Olimpia was my favorite character in this show. At first, probably because she is the only innocent person, other then Nina, and she is comedic. Now I love her more, because I realize that she is really the only thing Nina has in the world now and she, I think, wants to sort of protect her from everything. I like to think Olimpia either told on Leticia for shooting Orlando or she took the blame herself so Nina wouldn't have to.

Minimal Trifles

At first, thinking of a stripped down version of Trifles didn't make sense to me. It being a almost CSI-like story-line, taking away all the details seemed wrong. But, if you think about it, the show isn't about figuring out who did it. The show is about women of that time, being forced to spend their time inside cleaning and taking care of the house on their own, and having men tear them down as if it should be the easiest thing in the world because women are "made" to do it. 

The two other women in the show actually figure out what happened and hide it from the men because they understand how bad Mrs. Wright's life had been, and the fact that honestly deep down they may have though of doing the exact same thing. Being stuck in that daily life of being forced to do this and that, of being made to feel like you are ridiculous and lesser then the opposite gender, a person is bound to go crazy. I think making this show ultra minimalist would solidify that idea even further. If you think about it, to Mrs. Wright her home probably looked that way in her mind. There was no life in the home, no children, no pets, nothing. Her quilt wasn't being made to decorate, it was being made because it's what she was supposed to do. 

The minimalist approach would enhance the feeling that there really was nothing to the house, it's "lonesome and always was." 

Overtones and Undertones

The rules of the "small world" created in Overtones by Alice Gerstenberg are fairly clear throughout. There is a put together, controlled version of the character (Margaret and Harriet) and then there is the wild, primitive  strong, version (Hattie and Maggie). The distinction between the characters while first reading the script is a bit blurry, but becomes extremely clear as the play goes on.

Harriet only hears Hattie, but never sees her. Margaret hears Maggie, but never sees her. Margaret and Harriet see and speak to each other, making them the "real-life" versions of these characters. The fact that the well-mannered counterparts can not hear the other's primitive selves is shown multiple times throughout the play. However there are times when the veil between the two characters thins. For instance, there is a point before Margaret enters when Harriet calms Hattie and says she doesn't want Margaret to see her. Harriet also says that Hattie is stronger than her meaning Hattie voluntarily allows Harriet to control these situations.

A rule that was never clear to me however is whether or not the primitive halves speak to each other. There are instances when it seems they are responding to each other, but if that were the fact then Margaret and Harriet would know more about the other's primitive side. Perhaps the primitive selves are responding to the body language of the well-mannered selves and, being more instinctive and primal, they are able to pick up on real feelings rather then the facade that is put on.

I thought this was a thought provoking show and a good read because it has a huge commentary on how much of our own human nature we try to hide, and even though it was set in the past when manners, especially for women, were of a greater importance then they are now, we still tend to hide our more instinctive, dramatic sides in every day life.