Saturday, May 4, 2013
Show and Tell #3!: "Clybourne Park"
Given
the imminent production being produced by Cripple Creek Productions in New Orleans
this month, I decided to choose Bruce Norris’s uncomfortable hilarious play Clybourne Park. The play had its world premiere at the
Playwrights Horizons Mainstage Theatre on February 21, 2010. Despite its relatively
short initial run (only about four weeks), Clybourne
Park went on to have major productions in London (2010), Rhode Island
(2011), and Philadelphia (2012) before finally landing a sixteen-week limited
run on Broadway in April of 2012. The show has been immensely successful since
its first production and has earned the 2011 Laurence Olivier award for Best
New Play, the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and the 2012 Tony Award for Best
Play. This information was gathered various articles on www.playbill.com and from my own copy of the
script which can be found online at sites such as www.amazon.com or in most major bookstores.
Act I of Clybourne Park takes place in 1959 in “a modest three-bedroom bungalow” on Clybourne Street in a predominantly white neighborhood of Chicago. At the top of the show, Russ and Bev, the married couple who owns the house, are packing up boxes and preparing to move after the recent suicide of their son. However, Russ and Bev have decided to sell their house to a middle-class black family. Their neighbors, Karl and Betsy, and a reverend named Jim arrive at the house in an attempt to persuade the couple to sell their home to a white family. These conversations are witnessed by the house’s black maid, Francine, and her husband, Albert. Act II picks up fifty years later in 2009. The house is now run down, in need of repairs, and situated in an all-black neighborhood. The houses new residents, Lena and Kevin, are looking to sell the house to Steve and Lindsey, a white couple looking to renovate the house and reinvigorate the neighborhood by buying houses and beautifying them. The discussions are negotiated by the couples’ respective lawyers. Ultimately, the negotiations lead to verbal conflicts centering on race relations in modern America.
One interesting dramaturgical choice that Bruce Norris makes is that he specifies that the actors in the show double up on roles so that they play one character in Act I and another in Act II (in the original production, one actor was tasked with playing three roles). For example, the actors who play Francine and Albert in act I also play Lena and Kevin in act II. In this particular case, the actors are tasked with playing African-Americans from two very different periods in American history. In act I, Francine and Albert are hesitant to speak out and get involved with the affairs of the white characters until asked for their opinions. In act II, though, Lena and Kevin are much more expressive. While not necessarily confrontational, neither individual is afraid to stand up for themselves and stand their ground against the vaguely racist comments that are made during the negotiations.
Another dramaturgical choice that caught my immediate interest is Norris’s choice to include the character of Kenneth, Russ and Bev’s Korean War veteran son who suffered from PTSD and committed suicide. The character and his actions are brought up and discussed in act I. However, Kenneth only appears at the end of act II after the “modern” characters have stormed out of the house in anger, thereby reversing time from 2009 back to 1959 for the last five minutes of the play. His physical appearance is accompanied by the digging up of his army trunk by Dan, an electrician working on renovating the house. Inside the trunk is Kenneth’s suicide note. In several ways, Kenneth acts to connect the two storylines by showing how history has an impact on the current events of the play. After all, had Kenneth not killed himself, Russ and Bev would not have been compelled to sell the house in the first place.
Act I of Clybourne Park takes place in 1959 in “a modest three-bedroom bungalow” on Clybourne Street in a predominantly white neighborhood of Chicago. At the top of the show, Russ and Bev, the married couple who owns the house, are packing up boxes and preparing to move after the recent suicide of their son. However, Russ and Bev have decided to sell their house to a middle-class black family. Their neighbors, Karl and Betsy, and a reverend named Jim arrive at the house in an attempt to persuade the couple to sell their home to a white family. These conversations are witnessed by the house’s black maid, Francine, and her husband, Albert. Act II picks up fifty years later in 2009. The house is now run down, in need of repairs, and situated in an all-black neighborhood. The houses new residents, Lena and Kevin, are looking to sell the house to Steve and Lindsey, a white couple looking to renovate the house and reinvigorate the neighborhood by buying houses and beautifying them. The discussions are negotiated by the couples’ respective lawyers. Ultimately, the negotiations lead to verbal conflicts centering on race relations in modern America.
One interesting dramaturgical choice that Bruce Norris makes is that he specifies that the actors in the show double up on roles so that they play one character in Act I and another in Act II (in the original production, one actor was tasked with playing three roles). For example, the actors who play Francine and Albert in act I also play Lena and Kevin in act II. In this particular case, the actors are tasked with playing African-Americans from two very different periods in American history. In act I, Francine and Albert are hesitant to speak out and get involved with the affairs of the white characters until asked for their opinions. In act II, though, Lena and Kevin are much more expressive. While not necessarily confrontational, neither individual is afraid to stand up for themselves and stand their ground against the vaguely racist comments that are made during the negotiations.
Another dramaturgical choice that caught my immediate interest is Norris’s choice to include the character of Kenneth, Russ and Bev’s Korean War veteran son who suffered from PTSD and committed suicide. The character and his actions are brought up and discussed in act I. However, Kenneth only appears at the end of act II after the “modern” characters have stormed out of the house in anger, thereby reversing time from 2009 back to 1959 for the last five minutes of the play. His physical appearance is accompanied by the digging up of his army trunk by Dan, an electrician working on renovating the house. Inside the trunk is Kenneth’s suicide note. In several ways, Kenneth acts to connect the two storylines by showing how history has an impact on the current events of the play. After all, had Kenneth not killed himself, Russ and Bev would not have been compelled to sell the house in the first place.
Reading Response to "The Drowsy Chaperone"
First
of all, I would like to start by saying that I enjoyed reading (and listening
to) this script much more than I originally thought I would. When I was first
introduced to the musical several years ago, I thought the whole thing was too
campy and simplistic for my own personal tastes. However, after looking at the
show from a more analytical angle, I have gained an appreciation for the
deceptive simplicity of the show and what it aims to achieve with its
meta-commentary on musical theatre. Ultimately, I can’t wait to write my final analysis
on this musical
That being said, the flow of the action of The Drowsy Chaperone follows an interesting pattern. The musical begins with the Man greeting the audience and inviting them to “escape” with him into the world of a famous (fictional) 1920’s musical comedy. In fact, in most productions, the Man’s apartment turn s into the various scenes and sets that are used throughout the play-within-a-play so that the Man quite literally escapes his dreary surroundings. In a similar way, the musical begins with the celebration of an imminent marriage between Janet and Robert. Janet, like the Man, is attempting to pull off her own escape by leaving the world of show business behind to settle into a happy marriage like any average young woman of her age. In fact, much of the show revolves around individual characters attempting to escape some aspect of their lives. Mr. Feldzieg wishes to escape an unpleasant demise at the hands of two gangsters, Kitty is trying desperately to escape mediocrity and achieve stardom, and the chaperone herself is just trying to get away from sobriety. Tension results when other characters and situations do their best to prevent such escapes from occurring as a means of keeping the stasis.
That being said, the flow of the action of The Drowsy Chaperone follows an interesting pattern. The musical begins with the Man greeting the audience and inviting them to “escape” with him into the world of a famous (fictional) 1920’s musical comedy. In fact, in most productions, the Man’s apartment turn s into the various scenes and sets that are used throughout the play-within-a-play so that the Man quite literally escapes his dreary surroundings. In a similar way, the musical begins with the celebration of an imminent marriage between Janet and Robert. Janet, like the Man, is attempting to pull off her own escape by leaving the world of show business behind to settle into a happy marriage like any average young woman of her age. In fact, much of the show revolves around individual characters attempting to escape some aspect of their lives. Mr. Feldzieg wishes to escape an unpleasant demise at the hands of two gangsters, Kitty is trying desperately to escape mediocrity and achieve stardom, and the chaperone herself is just trying to get away from sobriety. Tension results when other characters and situations do their best to prevent such escapes from occurring as a means of keeping the stasis.
Reading Response to Hatcher's "Three Viewings"
Perhaps
the best way to first approach Jeffrey Hatcher’s Three Viewings is by finding a thread that ties the three separate
(but intertwined) stories together. Obviously the three extended monologues in the
play each take place at the same funeral home, but there exists a singular
theme between them that gives the play a cohesive whole.
First, though, I will focus on some of the surface similarities or those that are most obvious. Emil, the director of the funeral parlor, acts as the undertaker for Nettie James (Mac’s grandmother) and Ed Carpolotti (Virginia’s husband) and is thus indirectly connected to the two women who deliver the subsequent monologues after his own. Emil is perhaps the most obvious connecting thread between the monologues simply because he is so intimately involved with the preparations of the bodies of the deceased loved ones.
However, on a much deeper level, a common theme throughout the three monologues is that of recognizing love only after it has been lost. For Emil, what first started as an obsessive infatuation with a frequent funeral-goer named Tessie turned into a legitimate longing for her once she passed away. Once Emil was tasked with the incredibly intimate task of preparing the body for cremation, he found that her pacemaker was still ticking. So, Emil holds onto the device as a way of holding on to her memory. For Mac, attending her grandmother’s funeral leads her to the realization of how much she misses her husband and children after accidentally killing them while she attempted to commit suicide by car exhaust inhalation. For Virginia, the loss of her husband enables her to reflect on their long marriage and realize just how much he loved her all these years. As unfortunate as it is, for each of the characters, death acts as an agent to help the characters recognize and cherish the love in their own lives.
First, though, I will focus on some of the surface similarities or those that are most obvious. Emil, the director of the funeral parlor, acts as the undertaker for Nettie James (Mac’s grandmother) and Ed Carpolotti (Virginia’s husband) and is thus indirectly connected to the two women who deliver the subsequent monologues after his own. Emil is perhaps the most obvious connecting thread between the monologues simply because he is so intimately involved with the preparations of the bodies of the deceased loved ones.
However, on a much deeper level, a common theme throughout the three monologues is that of recognizing love only after it has been lost. For Emil, what first started as an obsessive infatuation with a frequent funeral-goer named Tessie turned into a legitimate longing for her once she passed away. Once Emil was tasked with the incredibly intimate task of preparing the body for cremation, he found that her pacemaker was still ticking. So, Emil holds onto the device as a way of holding on to her memory. For Mac, attending her grandmother’s funeral leads her to the realization of how much she misses her husband and children after accidentally killing them while she attempted to commit suicide by car exhaust inhalation. For Virginia, the loss of her husband enables her to reflect on their long marriage and realize just how much he loved her all these years. As unfortunate as it is, for each of the characters, death acts as an agent to help the characters recognize and cherish the love in their own lives.
Reading Response to Overmyer's "On the Verge"
First
of all, if I were asked to design a poster for Eric Overmyer’s On the Verge, or The Geography of Yearning,
my initial impulse is to slap a picture of a dictionary on there since that’s
what the audience will need to bring with them if they want any hope of
understanding what the various characters are saying.
On a more serious note, however, I would show an imaged of the three women scaling the face of a cliff. However, instead of using a rope, I would find a way to photoshop the image to make it look as though the women are using a timeline as a means of scaling the cliff. Cheesy, I know, but it emphasizes the play’s idea of facing the future as though it is an uncharted territory ripe for exploration and discovery. The tagline from the script at the bottom of the poster would be “I am experiencing a definite, a palpable – yearning for the future!”
Also, one particularly intriguing aspect of the play is the character of Mr. Coffee. He is one of two characters that only Fanny ever interacts with, the other one being the dream figure of Grover, her husband. Mr. Coffee, dressed all in white, does not seem to be from any particular era in history yet he knows Fanny and Grover well enough to inform her of her husband’s death. Judging from the fact that Mr. Coffee says he only had one meeting with Grover and that he says that he will meet Fanny yet again, it is incredibly possible that Mr. Coffee acts as an angel of death in the play. After all, since the women are in fact exploring aspects of the future, part of every person’s future is the inevitable end of one’s life.
On a more serious note, however, I would show an imaged of the three women scaling the face of a cliff. However, instead of using a rope, I would find a way to photoshop the image to make it look as though the women are using a timeline as a means of scaling the cliff. Cheesy, I know, but it emphasizes the play’s idea of facing the future as though it is an uncharted territory ripe for exploration and discovery. The tagline from the script at the bottom of the poster would be “I am experiencing a definite, a palpable – yearning for the future!”
Also, one particularly intriguing aspect of the play is the character of Mr. Coffee. He is one of two characters that only Fanny ever interacts with, the other one being the dream figure of Grover, her husband. Mr. Coffee, dressed all in white, does not seem to be from any particular era in history yet he knows Fanny and Grover well enough to inform her of her husband’s death. Judging from the fact that Mr. Coffee says he only had one meeting with Grover and that he says that he will meet Fanny yet again, it is incredibly possible that Mr. Coffee acts as an angel of death in the play. After all, since the women are in fact exploring aspects of the future, part of every person’s future is the inevitable end of one’s life.
Reading Response to Smith's "Fires in the Mirror"
For
many audience members and readers, it is all too easy to get caught up in the
story behind Anna Deavere Smith’s Fires
in the Mirror: Brooklyn, Crown Heights, and Other Identities. I know that I
personally was not at all familiar with the events of the Crown Heights riots
until reading this play in class, and I was immensely intrigued both by the
story and Smith’s own presentation of the events from various perspectives of
the community.
Many audience members and readers will want to dismiss the play’s first sixteen or so monologues because they do not have any direct bearing on the story of the riots; however, Smith’s choice to include these monologues about identity (both racial and religious) reveals much about the social forces in effect that brought the Crown Heights riot to its climax. After all, if audience members do not first understand how black and Lubavich members of the Crown Heights community express their own identities and how they regard one another, it can be very difficult to understand why the tensions that led to the riots even existed in the first place.
Monologues from some Lubavich women describe various religious practices, such as keeping their hair short and wearing wigs and now using electronics on the Sabbath, as a way of illustrating how they are a close-knit community that is dependent upon one another for help and support. In a similar vein, one young black girl talks about how the other students in her class use their hair as a way of expressing their racial identities. Already, we see how something as simple as hairstyle can be used to express and shape a person’s identity.
Many audience members and readers will want to dismiss the play’s first sixteen or so monologues because they do not have any direct bearing on the story of the riots; however, Smith’s choice to include these monologues about identity (both racial and religious) reveals much about the social forces in effect that brought the Crown Heights riot to its climax. After all, if audience members do not first understand how black and Lubavich members of the Crown Heights community express their own identities and how they regard one another, it can be very difficult to understand why the tensions that led to the riots even existed in the first place.
Monologues from some Lubavich women describe various religious practices, such as keeping their hair short and wearing wigs and now using electronics on the Sabbath, as a way of illustrating how they are a close-knit community that is dependent upon one another for help and support. In a similar vein, one young black girl talks about how the other students in her class use their hair as a way of expressing their racial identities. Already, we see how something as simple as hairstyle can be used to express and shape a person’s identity.
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