Saturday, September 28, 2013
Sunday, September 22, 2013
4000 Miles Commentary
Amy Herzog seems to have taken advantage of motifs when
writing 4000 Miles. A repeated
pattern in the play that creates some interesting moments occurs in the
recurring misunderstandings between the characters, particularly between Vera
and Leo. There are many times in the play when one character thinks the other
is talking about something completely different than he or she is. There are
also times when characters search for words and cannot find the right ones to
say. For instance, Vera often forgets the names of common things and just
replaces them with “whaddayacallit.” This occurs frequently throughout the
play. Some other missed communications happen in the conversation with Leo and
Bec where they keep finding each other on totally different pages,
metaphorically. I think this motif of missed communication could actually be a
key to understanding the play. Although I’m still trying to wrap my head around
this play, I think one of the play’s themes is about people trying to get
through to other people and how difficult that can be sometimes. The motif does
seem to shift slightly in the last scene. Although there is no obvious dialogue
that leads me to believe this, there seems to be some mutual understanding in
the subtext between Vera and Leo in the last scene where Leo is practicing his
speech for Ginny’s funeral, a woman he never even met. I think Herzog was
trying to convey something about how a person you never even met could bring
you some perspective more than someone close to you.
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Hey Judith, Don't Make It Bad
I would first like to say that while reading Howard Barker’s
Judith, I could not help but diagnose
Judith with an array of mental illnesses. Though, I guess a mental illness in
2013 had many more names in biblical times, the time period the character of
Judith is based in. When thinking about the major dramatic question of the
play, there are many I think could serve the purpose of a production, but the
one that might most effectively do this would be the question of “Can the
connection with the Holofernes be strong enough to make Judith morally unable
to kill him?”. When I say strong connection, I do not mean some romantic
connection but rather some sort of intrigue that would have made Judith change
her mind. Although Holofernes was ultimately killed, it was not by the hand of
Judith so the answer to my proposed major dramatic would be yes. Of course, you
could argue that she would have eventually killed Holofernes if the Servant
wouldn’t have but that isn’t what the playwright wrote. Nothing Holofernes said
was particularly flattering to Judith but he said some really profound ideas
about death and about what’s actually honorable vs. what people think is
honorable and I think all this insight made Judith want to stick around figure
him out. She was intrigued or she wouldn’t have put off killing him for so
long. She does, however; confess after Holofernes’ slain that, “I was. So
fucking silly. Nearly fucked it, didn’t I?” but it’s always easier to judge our
actions in hindsight rather than as they are happening, isn’t it?
Friday, September 13, 2013
Night, Mother Response
Hi hypothetical director, dramaturg here to keep you on
track.
wholeheartedly agree that an important question of the
script and one that our audience will keep firmly in their heads throughout the
play is the debate of whether or not Jessie will actually kill herself.
However, I think this will not serve our play best as the “major dramatic
question.” I think solely focusing on the possibility of suicide could change
the play into something Norman did not intend it to be, which would somewhat of
a suspenseful show. From just a brief summary, the play may come across as
suspenseful but the complexity of the exchanges between Mama and Jessie make it
much different than that. The two get into issues like Jessie’s divorce,
Jessie’s child, crime, the death of Jessie’s father and Mama’s husband,
resentments never previously spoken about, etc. Sprinkled in between discussion
of these deep-seated issues are Jessie’s instructions to Mama for how to take
care of herself once Jessie kills herself. These instructions make up a good
portion of the dialogue and I don’t think Norman added all that in just to have
something for the characters to talk about. I think he made Jessie stress these
things to Mama to give Mama the chance to change Jessie’s mind. This brings me
to what I think would be a better major dramatic question for our production:
“Can Jessie be convinced to not kill herself?” or more broadly, “Can a person
be talked out of something they have made up their mind about?”. Shifting the
question to this would engage the audience more in what I think Norman intended
the audience to be engaged in, which is the dynamic relationship of Mama and
Jessie and the strength of love. These are two people who have a deep physical
connection having lived together for many years but as we find out in the
script, their emotional connection was not always there. When I read the
script, I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe Jessie and Mama could emotionally
find some common ground, maybe Jessie wouldn’t feel so alone and feel the need
to end her life. I am most interested in the play retaining the intent of the
playwright and this shift in the MDQ would assist in that.
Thursday, September 5, 2013
Trifles Response
While I can entertain the idea of minimalistic theatrical
designing in the case of many plays I’ve read, Trifles is not one of those,
for many reasons. As the story began unfolding, it was quite obvious that the
play falls into the category of a “feminist drama,” meaning that the playwright
must have wanted to use this piece of literature to say something about the
personal and public lives of women and how affected they are by men. Although
the play was written in the early 1900s, I found the script easily relatable to
today’s time, just maybe replace a bird to occupy a woman’s time back then with
an Ipad today. Thinking back to proposing this play in a lab season with neutral
design, I think much would be lost. One
of the less tangible but very important conflicts in the play is the idea of man
vs. woman and the thought of dressing the male and female actors in neutral
colored clothing would, in my opinion, be meshing the two genders together and
making those conflicting forces less obvious to the audience. I think back to
the neutral body suits worn by the actors in Lab Show 6 and while the actors in
this show would not be wearing full body suits, I really think those costumes
minimalized the gender of the actors in show. This worked for Lab Show 6 because
gender was not one of the themes highlighted on in the show, but gender is
highlighted in Trifles. One positive I could see from the production
using neutral costumes would be the focus shifted from the gender roles and to
a more objective look at fact of the matter, which is that a woman killed her
husband and justice should be served. However, the role of gender is so interwoven
into the whole script that this separation would cause the play to lose
meaning. I have less of a problem with the props being symbolic of actual
items, but I still think it is not the wisest decision as a director and for
this reason: this play relies heavily on the idea of a person’s “things” and
how those things are a huge part of the person. The mention of Mrs. Wright’s
fruit jars, apron, quilting supplies, birdcage, etc., gives the audience a
window into her life. These belongings are the only “gifts” the audience is
given to understand who this woman was. A piece of paper to illustrate this sad
woman’s quilt would not have nearly as much meaning as the quilt itself. As
people, we often forget how much our belongings are a part of us. I also think
Mrs. Wright’s objects gives the play a more eerie vibe because as an audience
member watching the two women go through Mrs. Wright’s things, I feel this
sense that they are doing something wrong because of how personal these things feel.
Overall, I think realistic props, costumes, and set would allow the audience to
most effectively focus on the important themes in the play.
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