Checkpoint #2 Comment Links

http://mpret7.blogspot.com/2013/03/noses-off.html?showComment=1365793095441#c3522007400837574508

http://sstev31.blogspot.com/2013/04/show-and-tell-post-2-asssassins.html?showComment=1365793498949#c5813197043299761641

http://tweber7.blogspot.com/2013/03/noises-off.html?showComment=1365793985620#c643304571923661088

http://tweber7.blogspot.com/2013/04/detroit-city.html?showComment=1365880550316#c6639339464395673789

http://comingsoontotheatrenearyou.blogspot.com/2013/04/insert-door-puns-here.html?showComment=1365881110509#c2216461163293891004

http://yvettebourgeoisthtr2130.blogspot.com/2013/03/buried-child-by-sam-shepard.html?showComment=1365883567372#c343545776915700109

Reading Response to D'Amour's "Detroit"

So… why title a play Detroit if it isn’t about Detroit, it isn’t set in Detroit, and the characters never even so much as allude to Detroit? Assuming Lisa D’Amour isn’t just trying to give readers and audiences an answerless riddle to ponder over, a good dramaturge will research the possible connection between the “Motor City” and the characters and events in D’Amour’s play. Based on my own research into the subject matter, I have reason to believe D’Amour is trying to connect the current plight of middle-class Americans, such as Ben and Mary, to the economic and social decline of Detroit, Michigan, which was once the tenth largest city in the country just thirteen years ago.

Much like the 1950’s cookie-cutter neighborhood that Ben and Mary live in, Detroit in the early 21^st century is merely a shadow of its former glory. Unemployment rates are obscenely high (around 15%) due to the closure of factories and other places of business in and around the city, forcing many residents to look for opportunities in other states. This flight from the city only compounds its dismal financial situation. According to one New York Times article, there are nearly 70,000 abandoned buildings in the city of Detroit that one resident stated leaves the children of the city psychologically traumatized (Binelli). Detroit reached its peak population in the 1950’s at about 1.8 million residents; this was right at the beginning of the city’s automobile industry renaissance (U.S. Census Bureau). However the population has been declining significantly since then. From 2000 to 2010, the city went from being the tenth largest city in the nation to just eighteenth, experiencing a drop in population of roughly 25% (Wisely).

Much like Detroit, the couples in Detroit face many of the same struggles. Ben and Kenny both struggle with unemployment and the thought of not being able to provide for their wives and be the breadwinner in the family. The house that Kenny and Sharon move into was abandoned for quite some time before they moved in, according to Ben and Mary, and it may very well continue to be left unoccupied after they leave in a hurry. Ultimately, the neighborhood that once offered the promise of a “bright” new life for families in the 1950’s can no longer live up to its name. Houses have been changed beyond recognition and neighbors refuse to get close to each other, perhaps because they fear these new people who just moved next door may only be passing through.

Binelli, Mark. “How Detroit Became the World Capital of Staring at Abandoned Old Buildings.” New York Times 9 November 2012. Web. 10 April 2013.

United States Census Bureau. U.S. Department of Commerce, 15 June 1998. Web. 11 April 2013.

<http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027/tab18.txt.>.

Wisely, John and Todd Spangler. “Motor City population declines 25%.” USA Today  24 March 2011. Web. 11 April 2013.

Reading Response to Hudes's "Water by the Spoonful"

While many plays may have several different “worlds” or realities that exist within them, a good playwright will have these realities coexist with one another in such a way that the overall play as a whole gains a level of depth worthy of analysis. In her play Water by the Spoonful, Quiara Alegría Hudes expertly weaves a great play by creating two realities, the real world of Elliot and his family as well as the various users of Odessa’s website and the virtual world of the website itself, and having them interact with one another at key points to emphasize the complexity of certain relationships or themes.

For example, the first time these two realities mesh is when Odessa and John’s lunch meeting is interrupted by the arrival of Elliot and Yaz. When the scene begins, Odessa and John are discussing their lives and addictions as though they are still in the safe, virtual world of the website. While both individuals are incredibly friendly with one another, the conversation is almost too light for such serious subject matter. As audience members later realize, neither person is being completely honest with the other, leaving many important pieces of information left unsaid for fear of judgment. Their real world rendezvous is just as safe as a conversation on the website because Odessa and John can still hide behind the mask they want the other to see.

However, when Elliot and Yaz arrive on the scene to chastise Odessa for not contributing to her sister’s funeral costs, the real world breaks apart the illusions created in the virtual world. Odessa becomes almost hostile and shows a more severe side to her personality that audiences have not yet seen and most likely did not expect since her demeanor on the website is so calm and maternal. The dissonance that results from this clash between the two realities underscores how various characters in the play hide behind a virtual mask so as to avoid taking responsibility for past actions or mistakes. However, as Odessa finds out after this confrontation with Elliot and Yaz, sooner or later a person’s “real” self will have to face what he or she has done if any closure is to be gotten.

Reading Response to Shepard's "Buried Child"

How best to tackle the fundamental mystery of Sam Shepard’s Buried Child? For being a play filled with a good deal of realism (“slice-of-life” dialogue, realistic setting and characters, etc.), there exist certain elements within the play that don’t quite fit in with the common definition of theatrical realism. Part of this has to do with the ambiguities that lie at the center of Buried Child; they drive the action of the play but are never fully explained by the characters’ dialogue or the stage directions written by Shepard.

Each act includes the introduction of a particular mystery into Dodge’s farmhouse that leads to confusion and, as a result, intense conflict between the members of the family. In the first act, Tilden brings in a huge armful of corn from the fields behind the house and deposits them all over Dodge. Naturally, the patriarch of the family is confused by this because no crops have grown or been planted since the 1930’s, leading Dodge to wonder if Tilden has stolen the corn. A similar event happens in act II when Tilden brings in a large number of carrots and has Shelly skin them, presumably so they can be eaten later. When Bradley enters the house later in the act, he is outraged to find an intruder in his home as well as the vegetables that Tilden has brought into the house.

However, the mystery at the center of Buried Child is the actual child buried in the yard behind the farmhouse that Tilden brings upstairs at the end of act III. Although its true identity is never revealed, leaving the mystery up for debate long after the curtain has fallen, Dodge drops hints that the child was the result of an incestuous union between Tilden and Halie. Even more mysterious than the child’s identity is the circumstances of its death. Did Dodge actually drown his son's own flesh and blood? Or is there another truth that refuses to reveal itself?

Despite being mostly realistic, the ambiguity that pervades Shepard’s Buried Child gives the play an almost dreamlike or surreal atmosphere that refuses to be ignored.

Reading Response to Frayn's "Noises Off"

There are a number of motifs that are common in nearly every farce that has been written since the form was first created. These include motifs of miscommunication, mistaken identity, and misplaced items of importance, just to name a few. And while Michael Frayn’s brilliant comedy Noises Off has all of these motifs, there is another one that is a bit more specific to this script. Frayn includes the motif of the “real” world intruding into the world of the play within a play as a way of adding a level of complexity that many farces tend to lack. For example, Selsdon’s senility and poor drinking habits affect his performance in Nothing On just as the quarrel between the feuding lovers, Dotty and Garry, must be prevented from manifesting itself onstage in the form of Garry sabotaging Freddy’s own performance. Act II in particular shows that the dividing line between the “real” world and the world of Nothing On is tenuous at best as the actors struggle to get all of their cues right while maintaining peace between one another backstage.

An appropriate unifying principle for Noises Off would be "Curtain!" or bring the curtain down. Each act ends with Lloyd begging for Poppy to bring the curtain down on the show so that the act may end and the barrier between the two worlds of the play can be reestablished. Once the curtain is down, the actors can return to the “real” world conflicts without having to worry about whether or not the show will quite literally fall apart around them. Each act, then, is a desperate struggle to reach Selsdon’s final tagline (IF he remembers it) so that the cast can return to their own lives. In this way, Noises Off shows how a play rarely exists as its own self-contained world. The relationships between the actors and crew and their own conflicts and personal struggles often make their way onto the stage no matter how strong the wall between the real world and the world of the play may be.

Reading Response to Scribe's "The Glass of Water"

Despite the various characters and plot points competing for attention in Eugene Scribe’s The Glass of Water, one character in particular stands out as the protagonist to me. Without the careful plotting and planning of Bolingbroke, the events of the play would not occur since it is he who drives the action forward time and time again despite the attempts made by the Duchess to thwart his political plans. It is Bolingbroke, driven by his desire to gain political power in the Queen’s court, who brings the French ambassador to St. James Place and who helps Abigail to obtain a position in the court so that she can make a living. While it is clear that Scribe wants the audience to “root for” Masham and Abigail (the audience is sympathetic to their romance), these two lovebirds would never have been able to be united in matrimony had it not been for Bolingbroke’s intervention. Whether or not he does this out of the kindness of his heart is another matter entirely. He knows that the union of the lovers will infuriate the Duchess, his sworn rival and equal in political intrigue, so he could very well be acting in a beneficent manner simply for his own pleasure at seeing the Duchess scorned. Without Bolingbroke, there would be no play at all. Or, at least, it would be an entirely different story. Even the secret of the glass of water would not have been revealed had Bolingbroke not so carefully intervened so as to spite the Duchess once more. He also brings about the play’s happy ending by freeing Masham from incarceration, uniting the two lovers, and giving the French envoy an audience with the Queen, thus fulfilling all of his political desires.

Reading Response to Glaspell's "Trifles"

For a play as reliant upon on images and descriptions as Susan Glaspell’s Trifles, directors face the unique challenge of how best to stage the production in a way that remains true to the nearly one hundred year old script while still being widely accessible to modern audiences. Essentially, directors can either stage the script with period sets and costumes or with minimal staging and props and simple costumes so as not to distract audiences from the words, emotions, and actions of the actors on stage. The first option makes the play more true to life since it gives audiences a definite setting in which to place the scene. The small “trifles” that abound throughout Minnie Wright’s kitchen would give members of the audience a better understanding of how she kept her house and what life must have been like in the harsh Nebraska environment. However, the latter option is equally plausible because the dialogue spoken on stage gives audience members all of the information they need to know that is relevant to the plot, including descriptions of the jars of preserves, the birdcage, the quilt, and the appearance of the farmhouse in general. Personally, I find the first option to be more practical for several reasons. To begin with, the play is already fairly dated, but performing the play as a “concept” production might disinterest audience members even more since it combines surreal staging elements with a script that relies heavily on an understanding of what life was like for rural women during the early 20^th century. If the play is staged with full sets and costumes, the production then fuels the audience’s collective imagination and brings the material to life before their very eyes.