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.