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

Come See Eurydice! Talking Stones Promised!

When thinking about the quote I would include on my publicity poster of Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice, the first quote that comes to mind is: “What are you thinking about?”. This phrase is asked of Eurydice to Orpheus more than once in the play and is referenced another time later. I would go as far as to say that this quote captures a central theme of the play. Upon finishing the play, the audience gets a sense that these two lovers who are“a little bit too in love,” are not as they seem. They appear to be on different pages so to speak and in an attempt to understand the page Orpheus is on, Eurydice often asks this question. This quote could go further to describe Eurydice’s final action of going back to her father at the end, despite Orpheus’ great attempt to get Eurydice back. This makes the audience wonder what Eurydice was actually thinking during the “loving” scenes between she and Orpheus at the beginning. This quote could work on another level in the poster as well. Seeing a direct question would not only entice the public to think, but would encourage this thought process to continue during the viewing of the play. With this quote, I can see production of this play emphasizing the inner thoughts of all the characters, with an emphasis put on facial expression. I could also picture a few deliberate pauses during the production in which the audience would have time to think about what they just saw on stage.

Another quote that would work well on the publicity poster could be: “How does a person remember to forget.” This is spoken by the Father towards the end of the play when Eurydice leaves him and he is left with the pain of losing his daughter. The Father destroys the string room he has made for Eurydice and sits for a while before saying this. The quote could apply to several characters in the play and would give the public some general idea of the melancholic nature of the play. The pain of a loved one surrounds the play and the desire to forget the pain is central to the plot, with the river acting as the solution of this play. I could imagine a production of this play emphasizing on the earnest and eager desire for the characters to forget their past in an attempt to not experience the pain. I would imagine this production to emphasize the importance of the river, possibly highlighting its design.

Love! Valour! Compassion! Innovation!

If a future historian were to look at Terrence McNally’s Love! Valour! Compassion!, he might think that 1994 in America was a very interesting/disheartening/heartening time. What I mean by that is that the historian might take note of the vast grey area of the play when it comes to what’s wrong and what’s right. Most of the characters in this play are constantly judging each other, these judgments usually seen in monologues to which the characters speak directly to the audience. This historian may be confused about the way in which the characters of the play rank “sins.” For instance, a character in the play might put the wrong of reading someone’s personal diary over the wrong of infidelity. In gist, every character has such a distinct view of what they consider to be the “wrongest” of all actions and in the world of this play, these characters are allowed to have their own views. This is because the play is not based in reality; it is a somewhat stylized play in which an ultimate, objective capital T-truth does not exist. The historian would definitely pick up on the dramatic play structure evolving. McNally decided that Love! Valour! Compassion! did not have to stick to previously established rules or norms of other plays. For example, the floor can instantly turn from a lake to a house, the characters can talk to the audience and to each other, and multiple scenes can be occurring all at once on the stage. This historian would see how differently this play’s structure is in comparison to well-made plays, like The Children’s Hour. The historian might realize something distinctly different about this play in regards to how each act ends. Never does the act end in some huge realization followed by a neat climax. Each act ends quite softly and somewhat open-ended. The play actually ends with John saying a simple word, but one that serves as a motif in the play. “Anyway,” he says, while looking at the audience. This makes it clear that McNally wanted some ambiguity for the audience to bring home with them and think about. 

The Children's Hour (to ruin lives!)

However beautifully written, for obvious reasons, Lillian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour, I found difficult to stomach. Seeing such evil nature portrayed in a young child, along with watching a person mask her own sexual identity, is hard to handle. This is another play that fits along with the well-made play structure relatively well, minus a few parts. The place in the play that I found deterred the most from this structure was in the final act. In a state of complete pessimism, Karen ends things with Cardin and refuses to go to Vienna with him, saying that these troubles will continue to follow them. Afterwards, Mrs. Tilford comes to the scene, telling Karen that she now knows the truth and has already made arrangements to fix the situation. If the play fit perfectly with the well-made play structure, the character of Karen would take this news and use it to motivate some sort of action, like going back to Cardin, and living  “happily ever after.” Instead, when Mrs. Tilford tells Karen to go back to Cardin, Karen responds, clearly unmotivated, with a simple “Perhaps.” Mrs. Tilford leaves and asks Karen to write her, to which Karen replies with, “If I ever have anything to say.” This final act leaves the audience with a high level of uncertainty, which is not a characteristic of the well-made play structure. I definitely thing Hellman made this stray from the well-made play structure deliberate. I think this choice was intended to give the audience an idea of just a little gossip can ruin an entire person’s life; that sometimes even when the truth is revealed, the person’s personal state can still not be fixed. Homosexuality, especially in the time this play was written, was something people were highly ashamed of, and with good reason, with society’s prejudice for it being so high. If Lillian Hellman would have ended the play with Karen going back to Cardin, I think it would have diminished the play’s disheartening effect on the audience.