Next to Normal, or in 2013, Normal

Being the first musical I’ve ever read, Next to Normal was not a bad way to start. Full of mental illness and a dysfunctional family, this piece of work really appealed to me. In regards to Hornby’s elements, a significant choice Brian Yorkey made early on that worked in favor of the script was having Diana be the first one to break in song. This choice helps set up whose story this is, who is the one to watch, who the audience will see struggle the most, etc. The first line of her song is “They’re the perfect loving fam’ly, so adoring…” (Yorkey 8) accompanied by a somewhat somber melody. Because this is the first line of song Diana sings, the audience gets a sense that this is a play about the protagonist vs. the world, which isn’t incorrect to say in regards to this play. In addition to setting up the protagonist, the contrast between the “happy” lyrics of that first song and the accompanying sad melody sets up, at least it for me, some idea that there is something a little off with this character of Diana.

Another Hornby element, the intentional use of tempo can be found in the song “who’s crazy/my psychpharmacologist and i.” This is the first time in the play that the audience learns about the relationship between Diana and Doctor Fine, much less that she has a psychiatric doctor. By the time in the plot that the audience finds all this out, Diana has clearly been seeing this doctor for quite some time. The song, although interjected with non-singing parts, has an increasingly fast tempo. This kind of tempo gives the feel of increasing anxiety, which, in her failing attempts to feel normal, Diana is feeling as well. Kitt does an excellent job with creating the quickening tempo filled with ebbs and flows. 

Topdog/Underdog, or quite the opposite

I, for one, did not catch the allusion to the Abraham Lincoln assassination until now. Just kidding.  Parks makes great use of theatrical mirrors in Topdog/Underdog, meaning that she calls out to something outside of the script. The question asked of me is to find the significance and correlation of the two central mirrors in the play: Lincoln’s assassination performance and the three-card Monte card game that Booth seeks to learn from his brother. In the play, we learn that the character of Lincoln dresses up every day as Abe himself and lets people pretend to shoot him at the arcade he works. We also learn that this same character was once a very successful three-card Monte player; a skill his brother, Booth, is trying to perfect. I think these two elements have a lot to do with each other. For one, both of these elements have the quality of performance to them and both cost customers money to participate. Both of these performances are highly feigned in that both Booth and Lincoln are taking on the role of a character when they are participating in said acts. Also, from what I’ve read about the card game itself, it appears that even when the customer picks the correct card, the dealer is able to cheat the system, thus cheating the customer out of his rightful money. In Lincoln’s assassination performance, he is “cheating” people into thinking they are getting to shoot one of America’s most prominent figures of all time. In both performances, the customer is getting tricked into believing something and while they may feel as if they have been, it does not keep them for coming back. I guess with both Lincoln’s assassination performance and the three-card Monte game, you could argue that, in regards to the customer/dealer, the role of “topdog” and “underdog” could be up for argument. Who comes out on top and who on bottom?

The House of Trials, on trial

I admit that when I first started reading Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz’s The House of Trials, I couldn’t help but wonder if the playwright was trying to appeal to a less sophisticated audience of theatre watchers; for reason that the characters would often break the fourth-wall dimension and speak directly to the audience, but unlike Shakespeare’s plays, there was no heightened language. It almost felt like reading a musical where characters sing to reiterate events that have already happened. And while the characters in The House of Trials would often unveil information that was not previously known to the audience, since the language was not heightened like in Shakespeare’s plays, it just read as elementary to me. However, I could see this working incredibly well on stage and playing out to be quite entertaining for audiences, both old and young. This element of a diminishing the 4^th wall and having actors reveal things to the audience seemed to be a quite consistent element of this play and if reading only this in the Spanish Golden Age comedia genre, I would think it was a consistent feature of the genre itself. Another initially apparent element of this play was the use of verse structure from beginning to end, with rhyme occasionally incorporated. Although there is no intentional use of iambic pentameter, there is a vague sense of spoken rhythm that would accompany the text of the play with all of the lines of s stanza being about the same length. This is another element that could read elementary or uninventive in the play, but would play out very musically on stage and would be helpful for audiences, especially with many of them “listening” to plays rather than “watching them.”

Little Happy Secrets Response

Honestly, I chose this play because I find Mormonism fascinating. I don’t know why, but I always have, and I was intrigued to read a play with Mormonism in it.

Similar to a Children’s Hour, Melissa Larson’s Little Happy Secrets also centers on a same-sex attraction a woman has to her best friend. A Mormon herself, Larson often inserts Mormon characters into her plays, with this one being no exception. Little Happy Secrets centers on Claire, who has romantic feelings for her best friend, Brennan. What makes these feelings so “forbidden” is that, aside from being a Mormon, Claire is also very conservative and very into her faith. Her best friend, Brennan, however, views the world with a much more open mind. When Brennan ends up engaged to a boy Claire does not approve of, for selfish and unselfish reasons, things begin to twist. I found this play to give a refreshing twist on an idea quite overdone.

A dramaturgical choice Larsen made that I found significant was that the play did not have this completely “happily ever after” kind of ending. Yes, Brennan sends Claire the note, and yes, this entire situation does not destroy she and Claire’s relationship. In the perfect world, however, a part of me wanted to see Brennan come out and say that she, too, had feelings for Claire. To the audience, this was highly unlikely, but boy, would it have wrapped up the story with a big bow. I’m glad that did not happen, however. Larson did an excellent job of creating realistic characters with many dimensions while avoiding stereotypes.

Another dramaturgical choice that I thought really worked in the favor of the play was that there was some breaking of the fourth wall where Claire addresses the audience. It happened sometimes at the beginning of scenes, sometimes at the end, and something mid scenes. Because this play is largely dependent on the character of Claire and her inner thoughts surrounding the situation, I think this decision is vital for the audience’s true understanding of the play. 

Caro's Comments 2.0

http://theatre2130.blogspot.com/2013/11/work-it-i-need-glass-of-water.html?showComment=1383774753214#c6033027360605899132

http://bturn2130.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-childrens-hour.html?showComment=1383775021185#c5037768212232338393

http://andreagracethtr2130.blogspot.com/2013/10/love-valour-compassion.html?showComment=1383775326296#c7363642068660475827

http://morgansthtr2130blog.blogspot.com/2013/10/love-valour-compassion-response.html?showComment=1383775806104#c4553713190612911499

http://andreagracethtr2130.blogspot.com/2013/10/glass-of-water.html?showComment=1383776230539#c2619936705908699814