Comments 3

Topdog/Underdog

Water by The Spoonful

'Tis Pity She A Whore

Show N Tell Post

Next to Normal

Next to Normal

The choice that Yorkey made to have Gabe a live person through out was a interesting. Gabe's status changes when the fact that Gabe is dead comes to light. At the beginning Gabe seems like he part of the family. But after when Gabe is revealed to be dead the idea that the family is miserable because of Gabe, and because Diana can see Gabe while Natalie and Dan cannot. The connection of why Diana is the way she is becomes apparent. 
The music before this realization Kitt gives a feeling of something is off. There is not sense of a ending in songs 2-6. The songs in the middle has a has more of the steady beat. Which the steadiness can go along with the fact that all the characters are trying to find something normal to handle the complication with Diana. It starts this steadiness after the big reveal about Gabe. The songs towards the end have a more of a resolution to the complicated problem they have faced.      

Water by the Spoonful

A moment where these separate realities cross in a way is in scene twelve. This scene is split with the Sapparo train station and Odessa's house. The moment starts with Odessa saying her last lines of her outer body experience. Then a "radiant white light" appears in Odessa's house and in the other scene there is a Policeman with a bright flashlight pointed at Orangutan. Then the moment goes on Orangutan and the Policeman. The Policeman is checking on her and informing her of the station rules. Orangutan leave and the Policeman turns off the flashlight. Odessa has crawled back into her body. The scene ends with Yaz saying to Elliot, "You've got to forgive her, Elliot.You have to." Even thought the people in this moment don't interact then bright lights share a meaning for Orangutan and Odessa. Before this moment we figure out that Odessa may have never met her dad. The end of the moment there is a realization that Orangutan and Odessa were abandoned. And there realities related to each other. They are looking for some kind of comfort or an answer in for the misery they faced in their lives. The light represents a turning point in the their lives to find the missing piece. They just want someone to care for them no matter what mistakes they hold.          

'Tis Pity She's A Whore

The idea of a jewel stuck with me for main image of the John Ford's 'Tis Pity She's A Whore. The jewel is in a diamond shape. The overall picture of the is a normal beautiful jewel that end up shattered at the end. To go into detail the jewel would be placed on the top of the poster starting out as a whole pretty jewel dripping with blood dripping from the jewel. Then there would be an effect of the jewel dropping from the top of the poster to the bottom. The end result is a shattered bloodshed jewel at the bottom of the poster. The shards of the shattered jewel would look like bloody daggers. The first quote to accompany the poster is, " Hath often wronged me, I to be revenged" said by Grimaldi. The next is, "Hath enriched my life with this most precious jewel" said by Soranzo. The third is, "Where'er I go, let me enjoy this grace" said by Giovanni. I would pick the second quote because is the word jewel is included in it. The quotes is positive and sweet , and you see this bloody jewel as the main image on the poster. The contrast of the poster design and the words would result in a eye catching poster with dramatic shattering of the jewel.         

Topdog/Underdog

The assassination of Lincoln and the 3 Card Monte relate to the idea of trick and power. The 3 card monte is the 
"real deal"(Parks,line 495). You let the Mark win or lose when there is money on the line. Like Lincoln says, " thuh moneys on thuh line, thats when thuh man wont want you picking right."(Parks,lines 496-497)  The mark and the dealer look face to to face so they know and see each other. Which makes the game more personal for the dealer and player. As for the fake Lincoln assassination which is done in a booth with the character Lincoln facing his back to a person holding a pistol with blanks. It may not have been a game when "Honest Abe" was shot for real but in the reenactment is a game of if you are going to pretend repeat history or just change it up by not pretending to shoot "Honest Abe." This game the player is not facing his dealer so it becomes a more high risk game but the high risk factor goes away when the pistol is contains blanks which makes the assassination reenactment not the "real deal." The 3 card monte and the assassination reenactment hold different values of power over trick or kill. The 3 card monte brings death by a simple trick of these small defenseless cards. And the assassination reenactment is just a trick to feel power. They connect in the idea of having power over the trick. The dealer in 3 card monte has the power to allow the mark to win or lose by tricking them. And it is seen in Lincoln's assassination reenactment the power of tricking your mark with a pistol. And the real deal comes down to the trick.                

Comments 2

The Glass of Water

The Children's Hour

Love! Valour! Compassion!

Eurydice

Show and Tell Comment

The Children's Hour

The Children's Hour have aspects of a well-made play but there are some elements of Lillian Hellman's play that departs from the structure of a well-made play. The first element that departs from well-made play is the logical resolution. Martha killing herself is not a logical ending and is not an ending that was expected. The expectation of Martha, Karen, and Joe going off together is the logical resolution that is expected. Another element that departs from the well-made play is the just in time revelation. Mrs.Tilford did not show up just in time to save a life. She showed up just in time to capture the tragic ending. 

This play should not be shown today because the view on same sex relationships for women today are different than in the world of Hellman's play. The results can add up to someone being offended by the fact that Martha killed herself for loving Karen more than a friend. There can be someone who gets mad at how the situation was handled in Hellman's play. In today's world there would probably be more negative replies than good ones.  

Love! Valour! Compassion!

Love! Valour! Compassion! is structured and have choices that changes the worldview compared to other plays that we have read. McNally's choice of secluding the men in a lake house away for the city shows that the decision of who to love it between the person who they love, and not the standards of the world. In The Children's Hour Martha and Karen were accused of something that wasn't accepted at the time.The choice of making the men all gay shows that same sex relationships are a little more accepted within the same sex community, than compared to the worldview of The Children's Hour. There is a struggle that faces the same sex community which is AIDS. The struggle that is faced in The Children's Hours is a person's reputation. The structure of the play is non-linear. The timeline does not go in chronological order. McNally's choice can translate into that there is a change in how the order of this worldview has changed. Another choice that McNally made to reflect the worldview is having the men confess their fears about themselves in Act Three. This reflects that the wellbeing of same sex couples is important than the loss of a life which is seen in The Children's Hour.                   

The Glass of Water

The two moments that don't go alone with the Eugene Scribe's original play is the slaps in the face buy Duchess and Bolingbroke, and the other is the Queens look out on the balcony to find a new interest.

The whole play Scribe has violence set in the background of the play with the riot and Masham killing Richard Bolingbroke. We don't see these things happening on stage but we hear them. Then all of a sudden we see Duchess and Bolingbroke start to slap each other in the face. Why have a form of violence presented after the go wround for love?

But the action of Bolingbroke slaping the Duchess was where my eyebrow raised because throuhout the play we see Scibe has chosen to put focus on the Queen and how much power she had to use in a way to achieve love. We also see that in Duchess who is also a woman in power. And we see how Bolingbroke aids Abigail in achieving a position in the Queen's court, and overall succeeding in the union of Abigail and Masham. We see these women are well respected, and why would you disrespect a respected women a slap after you have seemed to show respect to all the others.

As for the Queen's new interest which opens up a new can of power love, I know all the snswers that want to know, and this moment just wants to drag me into how she is going to control this one. Well at least she found another interest. But would you have learned your lesson.
 

Eurydice

"Rooms are not allowed."(pg.214)
The room that Eurydice occupies in the underworld is made out of string. The room was made by her dad, who Eurydice connects with clearly than Orpheus. Orpheus wants to use Eurydice's hair which resembles string, and her father builds her a string house which is a stable structure in the overworld. The string is string, and is not something that just resembles string. In other words Eurydice's had a stronger connection with her father than her husband.  a space that is mirrored from the overworld, and is where Eurydice and her dad reconnect with the memories that are left. Rooms are connected with making memories and the underworld doesn't like that. This quote would give the imagery of  spacious and wonder world. Then when the viewer goes see the play there is a little room in this world where no rooms are allowed. 

"We two alone sing like birds in the cage."(pg.233)
 There are two relationships that involves a string of music. The relationship between Orpheus and Eurydice is a bit disconnected. The relationship between Eurydice and her Father are stringed together just right. For the poster this quote would give the idea that there is two relationships that merge well together. It also signifies the string room and how they musically meshed well in the wall of the room.
       

Comments

Overtones 
Trifles
'Night, Mother
Judith
4000 Miles
Show and Tell Post

Show and Tell Post #1

For Show and Tell, I read a play called Hot Stuff by Eulalie Spence. It was written and published in 1927 during the Harlem Renaissance. You can find this play on the North American Women’s Drama database which is available on LSU library’s website, and it is also published in Wines In the Wilderness: Plays by African American Women from the Harlem Renaissance to the Present. There are no records of productions.
The play has six characters that all interact with one of the characters and that is a Fanny. The first character Fanny interacts with is Mary Green, who is her friend. At the start of the play Fanny is going through a stack of slips. The conversation starts out with Fanny talking about numbers, and as the conversation goes on we found out that Fanny sells dresses, Mary is a doctor, and Mary is a not faithful as well. Mary leaves and we found out from her call with that she is unfaithful also. Then there is a knock on the door and it’s a John, who is “a number addict”, trying to figure out Fanny lost his numbers. And we see that fanny is a “number agent” and John accuses her for taking his money. John leaves and his girlfriend Jennie takes a visit to Fanny and Fanny doesn’t recognize her and Jennie reveals herself and threatens with “squealing” to her husband, Walter King.” Then a Jew named Isadore come to the door to sell Fanny an ermine wrap. She agrees to buy it from Isadore after some sexual convincing from him, and as she goes to get the money out her bedroom and Isadore has followed her in there, Walter King walks in and throws Isadore out. Walter goes back to the bed room to what we can hear a beating. And fanny comes out “in a most dishevelled condition” and continues with her admiring her coat and taking a phone call from her secret lover to cancel for tonight and meet tomorrow.

 The choice of having Mary say, “guess nobuddy can put anything over on you, Fanny,” sets up the play to be about this women who maybe is clever and hides things from others but her friend Mary. And looks like Fanny and Mary are running the same game. We know Mary is by Fanny asking her about , “that six foot sheik you was with at Craig’s last night,” then Fanny later goes on to ask, “what you done with Jack this last week?” Also the play unreels the ways we see Fanny get caught up with what she is known to get away with the “secrets of the trade.” First we see her getting accused of stealing which she denies it, “see here! I know you're excited an' all that, but I won't stand fer no funny talk! You gotta have your money! What money! You ain't got no money! You ain't got no winnings!” The Jennie, John’s girlfriend, come by and threaten her and she give in, “I'll give you the money. I can't afford to have you squeal. How do I know you won't tell no how?” Then her husband comes and set her straight.

The next choice that stood out to me was the ending when we hear Fanny get beat by her husband Walter King and Fanny comes out, “in a most dishevelled condition,” and she goes on to say,” The dirty brute! Glad he didn't scratch my face none.” This line alone says that Fanny is a “dirty brute” herself and she is an addict as well. After, “she smooths her hair. She turns around and around,” and she says, “Some bargain,” which refers to her wrap that she did not buy. And she walks over to the phone which sounds like she is answering the phone according to the text, “Bradhurst 2400. Hello! Jim? Jim, this is Fanny. Yes, I'm home. Can't make it tonight, kid. Of course, it's Walter. Tomorrow night, same time. OK. Say, honey, I just bought some coat. It's a peach! You'll see me strut tomorrow night, all right. I don't mean maybe.” Goodbye, honey. Goodnight.” Overall Fanny is obsessed with her things and what makes her happy even if she has to get beaten and harassed and she still would deny all she has done because she even told her husband, “I didn't do nuthin.”                   

4000 Miles

The motif or pattern/line/image that I see in this play is the image of a wall with reality on one side and the image of a wall on the other side of this wall with three other walls surrounding you. The first example of this image is when Leo and Bec are meeting at Vera's. We see that Leo is not on the same page as Bec and he tries to but he gets angry with Bec that she wants to break up. At this point Leo starts to put up a wall of well it's your fault that your breaking up with me and he is blinded by the reality that Bec went through and focuses on what he went instead of realizing what he did to not only Bec but to his whole family. Which we see the image of Leo putting up four walls to contain himself in is world. Another life event in Leo's life that he see totally denial of is the result of kissing his sister Lily. Leo takes it as not a big deal and she is in therapy for it. And Leo goes to blame something and someone for the problem. Once again we see Leo denying what he has done and hiding in his four walls again while reality is knocking on the other side. We also see an another motif of passive aggressiveness from Vera where she wants to accuse Leo of breaking the faucet but then she likes it's find  but you just could  tell me. I can also see this in Leo as well through out the play. At the end  of the play we see the an image of a guy who was afraid or weirded out by the reality of life and as Leo reads the eulogy and it merges in him and Vera talking about  Ginny and the avacado this to me represent the struggle of the hard reality of life and how you grow through it into a adult. Which takes note of the age where young people face the meaning of reality.

Judith by Howard Barker

Major Dramatic Question to answer in this play would be "Does Judith have complete power over her mind?" Through out the play there are instance where we can question the choices that Judith makes.
Judith seems like a woman to herself and quiet at the start of the play. The Servant is speaking for her as if Judith is mute but then Judith speaks to defend The Servant. Judith asks to speak and she nearly gave her cleverness away. The Servant is bate for the real weapon, but Judith still play as the shy woman who can seem to get it together. She starts to converse with Holofernes and Judith and The Servant's front for being in the tent is to be Holofernes' harlots. Judith gets naked and after she stars to converse with Holofernes with talk of battle, death, and cleaverness. As the talk carries on we see Holofernes fall for Judith and Judith doing the same. The Servant plays as a commentator for all these events. Then Judith and Holofernes nestles together. Then we find out the real truth behind Judith and The Servant's visit. This is when we question if Judith has complete power over her emotions. At the end we see her with raging power over The Servant and at this point I wonder at one or many moments did it go through her mind to not kill Holofernes. After Judith kills him she gets on top of his headless body and caress him as if he was alive, which gives me thought did she handle her emotions and feeling properly and appropriately. The next thing that questions her power in the vile situation is The Servant who is the ideologist convince her that she has the choice of being weak or being a great influence. At the end we see that she does gain power and control. 
Another thought that interest me is how the The Servant enjoyed Judith controlling her, which was like The Servant was experimenting on the power of killing can have on a person especially with cleverness to get back at their enemies. Judith and Holofernes sort of mirrored each other but the woman won at the end. Overall, I see this play about a woman's body over her mind.                    

'Night, Mother by Marsha Norman

The major dramatic question  "Will Jessie kill herself" is a valid one but I wouldn't choose this one because it is a simple question to think about and to explain. The question "Was Jessie really Mama's?" is a major dramatic question that I would like to answer and give an explanation about. This question is derived for one of the last lines Mama says, "I thought you were mine." She thought she knew Jessie because "they have lived together for so long there is very rarely any reason for one to ask what the other was about to do." Mama saw Jessie go through so much that she would be the one to convince her of not going through with this act. Mama wanted to be to the last hope for Jessie. She thought that she was protecting Jessie from her sickness but she came short at the end. And to add, Jessie was really the only person in Mama's life that Mama felt loved by. 

This would be a great question, I think because it's not only about feeling sorry for Jessie and what she went through but for her mother because she feels completely responsible for leaving out a extremely important detail to Jessie's life which was one major cause in her death.  The answer to that question would be no that Jessie was not Mama's. Jessie was convince that she was committing suicide and her reason behind. Mama didn't know and that is where she loses all knowing and control of her child. This mirrors when Jessie was a child and Mama didn't tell her about her fits. This results to bad communication through time in which one end of the line gets lost.   

Trifles

Trifles by Susan Glaspell as a minimal production can be a possibility, but the set with all the props and the world to support the text would satisfy the production. Going back to the minimal production, this can be a beneficial setting in certain aspects. One aspect is if you make the important props contrast enough with the bare background there can be a good emphasis on the props which are one of the important visual properties. Another aspect that can make the stripped down version of the play work is the text. The text explains enough of what is taking place in the world to give us a sort of clear visual setting of the production and with the actors supporting the actions and emotions well enough can possibly work as far as text. Another that can enhance the world the minimal set is sound even though there is a bare set we can get the visual juices going with sound. The blank/abstract idea for Trifles can be one way of approaching this play. 
The thing that this minimal set would be missing would be the full visual environment. It was lose the messy, incomplete, and earthy farmhouse world. It would also lose the rich earthy colors in a farmhouse. On the other hand the production would gain a challenge of getting the full world across through a bare set. But, after examining the possible ways that the minimal world could work, I wouldn't mind see this approach on stage. It would be  a challenge but maybe a successful challenge. The naturalist production would be fun and challenging as well with the choices you can make but there are more complicated choices in the theatrical production because there is not much to work with. In my opinion it can go either way.   
          

Overtones

I  would agree that the inner selves see and hear each other with different elements in mind. The way I think the inner selves can see each other is by the way  the outer selves act towards each, body language, and facial expressions . The way the inner selves can hear each other is by the language used towards each other, tones of each others voices. The pattern to when the inner selves hear, see, or speak to each other fall on the type of relationship the outer selves have with each other. These relationships can be close, falling out relationships, awkward relationships, and so on. Also, most common inner selves like to chime in when we do not know much about the person we are conversing with. This idea sums up as judging before getting to know the person.  From the script you can see that the two women have a subtle  relationship based on there inner selves at the beginning. The inner selves have an alternative motive than just a little conversation and tea. As I read along the inner selves start to battle the outer selves and we see a instance where only the outer selves are in control and they have a good feel for each other. This concludes that the inner selves interact with each other with out knowing it. The inner selves mirror your conscience. As humans, we natural judge others by the way they talk, act, and dress and as we get to know a person our harsh inner selves seem to disappear and  look at the person as a whole and not what we think , see, and hear. I think the script did a good job in pointing out the inner and outer selves, and making it little funny and dramatic at the same time.