Tragedy Reinvented?

(Tony Kushner, the playwrite, found in Google Image Search)

Tony Kushner’s Angel in America is probably my favorite read of the semester.  I love the complexity of the characters and the constant underling anger just bubbling under the surface. Kushner is disgusted by the fact that no one is paying attention to the AIDS issues and gay rights, and so writes a play with some many heart wrenching scenes which truly make you feel for the characters that your are dying to know what happens to them. Sadly, we are only provided with the first part of the play here. Over break I will have to find a copy of the second play to find out what happens.

One of the more interesting and dislikeable characters of play is Roy Cohn. Though Kushner makes him based off the real life figure who spent his life working to flush communism out of America and as many questionable morals, it is difficult not to feel bad for the guy in some ways. Cohn’s power broking done in both the play and real life is representative of why nothing can get done in politics, because there are like Cohn obsessively working to counter act it.

Though there is no possible other way to describe Cohn as a pretentious ass, he still in some ways is a tragic figure. Cohn is a closeted gay man, who is dying of AIDS. With the way he treats people it isn’t that far of stretch to believe that Cohn might be virtually alone when he dies.

It is because of his political beliefs and his work as a lawyer that keeps Cohn closeted. He’s working hard to follow in his family’s footsteps and being an open gay man. It is doubtful his practice would have been as successful if he was an open gay because of the homophobia that raged at this decade. It is also doubtful without that position he would have gotten the political connections he did.

It is both sad and frustrating that Cohn has to deny their truth for their work. Reading the play you get the sense that Cohn is not happy. He has everything in the world except his truth, and at the end of the day that should be the only thing that matters. Cohn’s much less loveable characteristics may come with his frustration of having to hide who he is.

Cohn represented a tragedy of the 20^th Century that is common in the drive for American politics. In order to get there you must deny any passions or truth to yourself. You’re a held to this ‘moral’ ideal that hardly anyone else in American follows. Yet, you can be an absolute jackass in everything else. The fact that Cohn chooses this life may be his own fault, but the tragedy is even if his death he can’t have his truth because the lingering reputation of AIDS on his memory would have undone everything he worked for.

Even if Cohn is not a tragic figure, it is difficult not to feel for him. I think Kushner in many ways is reinventing a tragic character with Angels. Kushner certainly felt something for him, because he placed him in his play, gave him a central role, and gives him such a complex characterization. For me, tragic or not tragic, Cohn’s life is still extremely sad existence.  He has everything, but nothing at all. 

To Move or Not To Move? That is the Question!

    (Caryl Churchill, playwrite. Found in Google Image Search)

A Number by Caryl Churchill is the second play we have read by a female playwright this semester. Like the other play we read by a female playwright, Trifles by Susan Glaspell, the major female character of the play is absent and we are only allowed to make our understanding over he based off the information that is provided by the characters.

Though in Churchill’s play understanding the female character is not critical to the point of the play, it’s a striking similarity. Churchill’s play deals with a contemporary issue like Glaspell who was commenting on female rights. Only Churchill takes on one of the most provoking issues of the modern world: human cloning.

Churchill’s piece is very striking in both is content but also in its scripts form. There is not a single stage direction other than minor character descriptions. This does a lot for the play in terms for the plays analysis and production.

When I first flipped through the pages of A Number trying to see if there were stage directions, I wasn’t sure I was going to like the fact that there were none. However, I really enjoyed it. The stage directions did not become distracting like they do in many plays, but instead you are allowed to focus on the dialogue and the characters themselves. This made it for a very enjoyable and complex play.

The lack of stage directions help you focus on the plays purpose, which is to comment and examine the reality of human cloning. The lack of stage directions also leaves this very open to director interpretation. You could do virtually anything you wanted with this play as far as setting, directions, character looks, ect. For me this was exciting!

In my mind as I was reading the play, I pictured both Bernard’s as very stationary and unmoving. I pictured them almost helpless and crippled by the news and discovery of the fact that they had clones. This to me was symbolic of the helplessness we all feel and experience at the reality of cloning. Though we may not agree with it, we are helpless to stop science, just as in many ways we are helpless of our own genetic nature that unfolds from us, much like the original Bernard, who killed himself. Perhaps, he had a predisposition to killing himself because of the depression he was in after the discovery. His mother had done the same after all….

I saw the only moving characters as Salter and Michael, because they accepted the reality and embraced it. They will move forward with science, while the others are clearly incapable of this new reality. For me this post focused on Salter’s choice as much as anything else, and for me he was the central character. Without his choice, nothing would have happened the way it did. I think this play deals with reality and our ability to let go, which for Salter is difficult. He would rather live in an odd sort of reality with 20 sons rather than just one or even none.

Chruchill’s play provokes a wide range of thoughts and questions and I’m interested in discussing the play because like Beckett’s Waiting for Godot it seems to raise more questions than it answers.

November 17, 2011: Saginaw Valley State University’s Production of Michael Hollinger’s "Incorruptible"

I really enjoyed this performance! There were many things I liked about it. First off, the comedy was amazing. Seeing it performed made the physical comedy that Hollinger includes in the stage directions much more humorous.  

Many of the actors were spot on to my reading of the script and the character information given. The actor playing Olf: amazing. The Peasant Woman: Spot on! Charles: perfect. Marie: Great.

I also really liked the set; it was very well designed and decorated. I did not expect that for a play at a University, which though have professionals working on them, are not always high budget productions. This set was up with the quality of the stuff we saw in Stratford in October.

That being said, there were some major issues I had with the performance. Firstly, Martin spoke way to fast! I loved the pompous almost feminine flair he gave off, but he needed to slow his lines down. Had I not been familiar with the material, I wouldn’t have gotten many of his jokes. In fact, I was the only one in the theater who did many times. Yeah, we had a conversation about being the only person laughing earlier that day in class…

I did not like the fit they had Agatha throw towards the end of her stage time. What was that about? That was way over the top and unnecessary. It was funny, to a point, but then it just became over dramatic (can you really be over dramatic with a character in a play? I wonder what Pirendello would say about this....).

The final thing that stuck out to me that was different than my reading of the play was Jack. He was not the central character in the performance. In fact, Charles and Martian kind of take over the lime light a little bit. The director kind of made him come off as weak in the play. He gets pushed very easily around by Marie on stage several times. He kind of just seems to be caught up in the rush over everything, and not really the true master mind behind most of it. I think it does make some sense to make Charles the center of the play on one level, because Charles has a back story that is much longer and richer than Jack's. However, Jack’s miracle at the end and good deed felt a bit crowded over by than it should have been! This was slightly frustrating because they are the total purpose of the play itself.

All and all though, this was a really good performance. I enjoyed it, and laughed probably more than reading it for class last week. The physical comedy takes this play to the next level, and I think this play, might make some sort of entrance into cannon future. I was pleased with a lot, the quality of the actors and their performance especially. I also really liked the set and the line delivery was verbatim of the script. There were not really major scene switches or changes other than a few directors’ interpretations that bothered me. However, I don’t expect to agree with every version of a play I see and I certainly enjoyed this one. This performance was memorable in many ways, which is good because like all live performances, they are unrepeatable.

Breaking the Theatrical Illusion: Bertolt Breckt

  (Bertolt Breckt, playwrite of The Good Person of Szechwan, found on a Google Image Search)

The Good Person of Szechwan by Bertolt Breckt is one of the plays I have trouble understanding this semester. I was especially not a fan of his moments where he broke the illusion of the pseudo reality created by the play. Breckt is famous for this, and although I have not had a problem yet with the direct address to the audience, the occasional song, the experimental, or the odd almost insulting humor, this was a little too much for me.

Breckt breaks the theatrical illusion in two ways: direct addresses to the audience and with random songs and verse thrown in amongst the scenes of the play.

I didn’t mind is direct address to the audience so much in the beginning of the play, because they were ways to introduce the characters and in some ways heightened the sense of anxiety Wang felt trying to find a place for the Gods.

                   (add for the play found on Google Image Search)

It was more of the songs and verses that bothered me. I realize some of these songs and verses gave you a flavor of the culture Breckt was choosing to set his play in, but their breaking of the illusion was way too strong and far too frequent for my liking. It was confusing and broken the train of the play. So I found myself becoming quickly confused and I actually had to read the play completely through twice before I realized that Shen Teh and Shui Ta were the same person.

This play was very confusing, and the breaking of the illusions did not help, I kept thinking the songs were symbolic of something, or representative of the next scene in the play, but it seems they are just kind of randomly thrown in there. This creates an unnecessary distraction as far as I’m concerned. I’ve never been a huge fan of musicals but I can respect and admire the genre, and at least in musicals the songs included make sense to the story line….

The ending also bothered me. It was way to quickly wrapped up (if you can even call it a wrap up). Breckt throws the solution on to the audience. Which I realize why he’s doing, but how do you solve the problem of people being too good and innocent at heart to say no to helping people? Make it so people don’t need help? That’s pretty well impossible. If Breckt is trying to do a call to action here, he needs to be clear about WHAT action he wants the audience to solve.

                     (Image of the Tabacco Shop, found in Google Image Search)

The Good Person of Szechwan is confusing and the illusion breaking is startling. I like theater, books, movies, and art to pull me. I like to get lost in something. Not necessarily always for the idea of escapism, but I like something to be so realistic or well written or a character to interesting that I get pulled in and lost in their lives for a brief little bit. I get to experience a variety of perspectives and interests this way. With Breckt’s I never quite felt his characters were developed nor was his plot. It was just random instances connected with songs.

The only think I could identify with on some level, is the small feminist reading I could do of Shen Teh. I understand her frustration of trying to be a woman in business and having everyone walk all over you because you are so ‘warm and cuddly’ that you will be able to help every single charity or charity case, because you can’t say no like a man can. So I understand and sympathize with her when she chooses to invent a male identity and pass as a male.

So, I did get something out of it, but it was only have long and careful reflection and frustration that I go there. It wasn’t even gratifying to me to have found it. I don’t always want my message easily laid out for me, but I want my plays to have a sturdy plot and be connected by more than just a musical number here and there. I’m not impressed with Breckt’s contribution to Modern Drama thus far, maybe after we discuss it in class I’ll have softened my opinion or be convinced of something else, but I just didn’t think it was that well written of a play.

                 (Shen Teh and Shui Ta, found ing Google Image Search)

Is making fun of Catholicism still funny?

      (Michael Hollinger, the playwrite, found in Google Image Search)

Incorruptible is just as the cover says: A Dark Comedy about the Dark Ages. It is defiantly not pro-catholic. A lot of its humor is marked by poking fun at the Catholic Religion’s past obsession with paying for your forgiveness and miracles. I was raised Luthern which started with 95 statements bashing the Catholic Church, so a lot of the stuff presented in this play I was aware of. Also with the sex scandals that became prevalent in the 80s and 90s…...

I guess my major question is: is this really any humor or reason to keep bashing the Catholic Church? Will it ever get old and worn out?

While I do admit to laughing several very hard several times while reading this play. I did think the humor of bashing the Church got kind of old after awhile. Personally, this play was not just about religion. This play was more about greed and power corruption. It makes sense to have it set in a Church because many people place a great deal of trust and authority into religions and religious figures.

I think Michael Hollinger was trying to point out, that the Church is run by human beings who are corruptible, but because they are working with an supposedly incorruptible intangible system, religion itself gets a bad rap. This is just speculation. This is my first experiences with Hollinger, so he could be an atheist for all I know.

Religion is suppose to be incorruptible, and I think because the Catholic Church in Europe has been the main leader in religion throughout history, and some of the unfortunate things that happened in past, they get to be the brunt of the religious jokes into the 21^st century. Is it still funny or not? Yes and No. It does have its lines and limits. If it stays funny, only time will tell.

Even taking out the fact that this is supposed to be the Catholic religion, the whole premise of the play is quite humorous. The idea of digging up people to sell them as parts of Saints is funny. Especially when you are selling four heads of John the Baptist.

I’m not sure what to make of the miracle at the end of the play. I think that is what makes the idea that it’s the people who get corrupted not the religion itself that gets corrupted. The people whose intentions are genuinely pure like Jack’s were, are the ones who faith and religion benefit. They haven’t been corrupted by power or greed. I think the danger Hollinger likes to point out is believing that even with faith you are incorruptible, because that is when you can justify doing bad things like selling bodies as saints for profit.

Minimalism done right: Waiting for Godot Post II

                                (Image found in Google Image Search of the Play)

One of the most striking things about reading and watching Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot is its very bleak setting. The set has basically a scrawny tree with a few leaves, a rock, and a few props that range from hats, a stool, to boots. This is direct contrast to many of the plays I have read so far this semester.

Especially, plays like Shaw’s or O’Neill’s whose sets are so detailed it become almost impossible to replicate them on stage. They get down to the level of detail that your know what kind of books on the book shelf.  Beckett’s lack of scenery is almost startling in comparison.

I do think Beckett was trying to do something new with this type of scenery and play. I think he was trying to comment on modernism in a new way. His scenery defiantly helps you focus in on the player’s actions and words. It helps you focus on the existentialism and the choices each of the characters are facing. We have Pozzo who is trying to decide what to do with Lucky. Lucky who is choosing to stay and work for Pozzo till the bitter end. Then we have Estragon and Vladimir who choose to continuously wait for Godot (who ever or whatever he is).

In Shaw’s play we see how helpless we are in our social classes, and that even with the proper training, we never stop being who we really are. In O’Neill’s play we see how helpless we are in fate, and that sometimes our choices are out of our own hands.

Yet, in Beckett’s play, everything is driven by choice. I think the fact that scenery is so space is symbolic of that fact. There is nothing around that that could affect or influence their fate in anyway…except for possibly the tree. Yet, ultimately, they make the choices and the play is driven entirely by their choices and actions.

The minimalist stage could also be a symbolic of the religious aspect. Which shows how bleak their life is while waiting for God. That is probably a stretch, since I don’t necessarily think you have to examine this play by its religious references alone.

Beckett’s minimalistic stage, is defiantly different from his predecessors, and aides Waiting for Godot very well. I think this might be my favorite piece we have read this semester.

A Play Inside of a Play, About Creating a Play: Luigi Pirandello’s "Six Characters in Search of an Author"

                

                       (Luigi Pirandello, the playwrite, found in Google Image Search)

Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author is perhaps the most confusing play I have read this semester in terms of action, stage directions, actor relationship, and characterization.

I am not quite sure what to make of this play. It starts off with a drama company preparing for their first rehearsal of a new play (ironically by Pirandello), and randomly this family shows up, demanding they perform a play they are going to act out and create before them. The relations between all of the family members are unclear, expect they all think they are better than this professional acting company.

The family flatter’s the director into letting them act out this confusing play, which makes even less sense. The company actors are insulted and irritated, but end up going along with this, up until it looks like one of the family’s children dies upon the stage. Then everyone departs and the step daughter runs around laughing.

This play is extremely confusing and might make more sense if I could see it preformed. This would allow me to see the actor placement and frequent action and scene changes they are working with since the characters are essentially creating a play. Though I generally don’t mind the creation of a play inside of a play, (the play inside of Hamlet is the first one that comes to mind), this just seemed ridiculous! The way Pirandello lays this out, it seems more like a cheap trick to me than good drama.

However, Pirandello raises some interesting points in his play about the differences between reality, fiction, and performance. At the start of the semester we had a discussion about performance in everyday life. We talked about doing something as simple as following the social conventions sometimes of responding in a conversation about something you have not interest it as being a performance. You are putting on an act that you care what this other person is saying. This is what I kept thinking about when I was reading the play. Perhaps Pirandello was seeing the beginning of the blurring lines between reality and performance in everyday life and wanted to comment on it.

It was fairly easy for this family to walk in off the street and present themselves as ‘actors’ even though they claimed much of their story to be ‘reality’.

However, though Pirandello’s use of ‘breaking the frame’ by mixing in characters walk onto stage and join in effective. I found it very disorientating in this play. It almost creates more confusion than necessary, even if it helps strengthen the point he is trying to make.

Though, Pirandello’s play within a play is not as flawlessly and seamlessly transitioned into as it is in Hamlet, I also do not think it is not suppose to be. This is supposed to jar the audience into the same level of confusion as the characters with the original play.

I almost wonder, with the new level of mediation the world is going through at this moment, what Pirandello would have to say about it blurring the lines further between reality and fiction, especially with things like ‘reality TV’. Hmmm…..

What is so funny about waiting two days and Godot not showing?

                          
       (Image of Playwrite, found on Google Image Search of Samuel Beckett)

There are a lot of thing that are funny about waiting two days for Godot (whoever he is) and having him not come. I am not sure it this script is just funnier to me than Pinter’s The Homecoming or that after my experience going to see the The Homecoming, I have become much more sensitive to absurd/sardonic humor. Or maybe I’m just a sick person who found Sameul Beckett’s Waiting for Godot probably the funniest thing I’ve read in awhile.

There are a lot of instances in this play that are just plain hilarious:

-        The opening of the play has Estragon trying to pull of his boots which turns into this big struggle in which Vladimir has to help him. During all of this they are having a fairly serious conversation.

-        Estragon and Vladimir’s constant speech one after anouther. They follow up after the other very quickly like:
Estragon: What it is?

Vladimir: I don’t know. A willow.

Estragon: Where are the leaves?

Vladimir: It must be dead.

Estragon: No more weeping.

Vladimir: Or perhaps it’s not the season.

Estragon: Looks to me more like a bush.

Vladimir: A shrub.

Estragon: A bush.
(Beckett pg 852)
This bantering back and forth produces some quite comical instances in the play.

-        The turnip/radish/carrot nonsense.

-        Their attempted hanging on the dead tree/willow/shrub/bush. They don’t seem to be sad, they seem to just want to do it for something to do. In the process of planning their ‘suicide’ they discuss the erection and mandrakes they will create. Which just makes Estragon want to do it all the faster.

  (Image of the Play with the famed tree, found in Google Image Search of Waiting for Godot)

More comedy is added outside of Vladimir and Estragon’s nonsense with Pozzo and Lucky

            - Lucky drops the luggage he is carrying and his fumbling are quite funny.

-        Then when Lucky is finally allowed to speak, he makes the most intelligent babble that I’ve heard, since of course Lenny from The Homecoming.

-         Pozzo's fumbling in Act 2.

-         Pozzo's treatment of Lucky, though mean, is somewhat humorous.

This is of course mostly in Act I of the play. Interestingly, much of the same action in Act 1 of Waiting for Godot repeats itself in Act 2. Act 2, almost seems like a dream like state, especially the second Pozzo and Lucky scene. This repetition doesn’t make it any less funny, in fact I’m sure with Pozzo being blind the second time, it would add more interesting stage directions to add to the humor.

  (Intresting Image of the four major characters, found in Google Image Search of the Play)

Waiting for Godot’s humor is different that The Homecoming (or again maybe I’ve just gotten better at seeing it), because the actions and the stage directions are more evident and funny in this play. In The Homecoming much of the humor was sarcasm, which doesn’t always come across the page as easily. Waiting For Godot’s humor is in its stage directions, their nonsensical conversations (much like the cheese roll scene in The Homecoming), and one’s own imagination.

Though this play makes relatively no sense in the long term plot, it’s a hilarious read, and if following the tradition of The Homecoming I’m sure it is all the more funny on stage. Or maybe I’m just like the rest of the audience in Stratford, laughing at odd parts.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Beckett, Samuel. “Waiting for Godot”. The Norton Anthology of Drama Volume Two: The    Nineteenth Century to the Present. Ed. J. Ellen Gainor, Stanton B. Garner Jr., Martin      Punchner. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2009. 849-905. Print.

Long Day's Journey in Mary's Night

              (Eugene O'Neill, Long Day's playwrite, obtained in Google image search)

After reading Pinter’s The Homecoming, I was certain there was not a more dysfunctional family in literature. Ironically, I was proven wrong merely a few weeks later when I read Long Day’s Journey Into Night. This family not only does not get along, but the source doesn’t come from just one individual, it comes from all of them. None of them mind fighting dirty and are not afraid to say anything to the other no matter how hurtful.

As each character adds a whole new level of dysfunction to the family, the conflicts become worse and worse. Mary Tyrone is interesting the glue of the family, but it is extremely poor glue. Mary is fighting a morphine addiction in the beginning of the play and by the end with her finally drug induced babblings we have seen she has totally lost that battle.

(Image obtained through google image search of morphine)

Why she is addicted is fairly obvious as the play continues. She is married to an selfish alcoholic, who can’t even give her a permanent home besides the summer one they stay in every year it seems. Her oldest son, Jamie, is a unemployed budding alcoholic. Jamie also may or may not have killed their other son by ‘accidently’ exposing him the mumps.  Edmund, her youngest, was a hard birth, and her husband’s cheap doctor selection, introduced her to the morphine. Edmund also seems to be dying of consumption slowly and painfully and she cannot deal with that, choosing the call it ‘a summer cold’ rather than what it really is.

Mary references her dislike and disappointment in Jamie frequently, especially in Act 2, Scene 2 when she admits her suspicions of Jamie killing her second son Eugene by going to play with him while he had mumps staying ‘he knew it could have killed the baby’ and that Jamie was jealous of the babies attention. She also blames herself because she had been away on business with her husband rather than with her children.

Mary also states she has been neglected by her husband with frequent references to the doctor he had gotten her after Edmunds birth being a quack, Also in Act 2, Scene 2, and throughout the play there are references to her husband’s inability to give her a permanent home and frequently leaving her alone while he went out to get drunk.

(obtained in Google Image Search of the play)

Though she is generally kind to Edmund, it is easy to see that she blames him for her addiction.  Yet, because he is her baby, she cannot bear the thought of him sent to a sanitarium to get better, because she has been to one herself for her addiction. Also, admitting that he may die and her addiction and suffering through his birth was for nothing. This may finally push her over the edge of sanity.

Dealing with reality seems too painful for Mary. She is mistreated and neglected by her husband and cannot handle the fact that her children dislike her and their father greatly. Mary reverts often to references to memories and her childhood because those are times of happiness and innocence for her. Her childhood, especially her hopes as a young bride, remind her of happiness, before she was trapped in a patriarchy and at the fate of her husband’s mistreatments. Before she knew what he was really like. Mary even admits had she known how much he drank, she would not have married him has she known then what she does at the present in the play.

Yet, Mary is the reason the three male characters attempt to get along and attempt to work through their problems again and again. She holds them together and yet it is very obvious that her addiction and her inability to deal with reality or their family problems are slowly and painfully tearing them apart.

Interestingly, there is this reoccurring theme of fog in the play. Mary especially likes the fog because it can hide the world from you and you from the world. No one can find you in the fog. Therefore, not one can hurt you. Mary is afraid to be hurt anymore because it will only push forward her addiction, which she is deeply ashamed of. Sadly for her, the only hope she seems to have for her future is an accident overdose…

Mary’s is the character in Long Day’s Journey Into Night that seems call for the most sympathy, or at least the most wonder about her the state of her sanity; perhaps because she seems the most pathetic because she is a women or because much of her current state does not seem to be her fault. Or because of her current state the characters have chosen to not comment on any other fault of hers other than her addiction.

                                  (Image obtainedi n Google Image Search of the Play)

A lot in “Much Ado About Nothing”

                                                       (found in Google Image Search)

I recently watched a mediated performance of Much Ado About Nothing, starring Kenneth Branagh as Benedick, Emma Thompson as Beatrice. The wonderful Robert Sean Leonard played Claudio and a very young Kate Beckinsale appeared as Hero. This movie was fairly recent made in 1993, directed and adapted for screen by Branagh.

I have never read Much Ado About Nothing, but I was familiar with the plot, having read some critical essays which included it in their argument. I am going off the assumption that because it is Kenneth Branagh production, that it is so close to verbatim that I need not worry. His version of Hamlet is perhaps the best mediated performance I have ever seen.

(Google Image Search)

The plot is very Shakespearian: Benedick and Beatrice hate each other, and banter back and forth with great delight. When Benedick accompanies a Prince to her family’s estate to stay for a month, fireworks are sure to happen. The Prince’s stay is dominated however by one of his friends, Claudio falling head over heels for Hero, Beatrice’s younger cousin.

The Prince’s brother orchestrates a plan to break them up to get back as his brother. He sets up a situation where Hero looks like she’s given up her maiden head, and Claudio enraged, calls of the wedding and calls her a whore in front of the entire family and guests. It is soon discovered that this is not true, but by that time, Hero’s family has hidden her and lied saying she died in grief of Claudio’s words.

(Google Image Search)

They make Claudio plan to marry her other cousin, who is actually Hero, and in the end they are happily united. During all of this madness, the various parties trick Benedick and Beatrice into believing the other loves them. After some difficulty and a great Emma Thomspon scene where she demands Benedick kill Claudio for slandering Hero, they end up happily together. This makes them joyously happy and in true Shakespearian comedy, everyone ends up together, and almost everyone is happy. Again, Shakespeare shows his fondness of double weddings.

 After recently seeing live Shakespeare play, I have some idea of how they stage these dramas. There are many differences I have noticed that make the mediated performance almost as enjoyable to the real experience.

(Google Image Search)

The first being: the close ups and variety of views. In plays depending on where you are seated, you do not always have the greatest views, and with the close ups you get to see expressions on the actor’s faces perfectly. Close ups allow you to see every expression on a given actors face; however, because you are focusing on one actor, you are missing what the others are doing at that time. However, this was a very lively film. There is a lot of dancing, parties, and a lot of action; almost too much, and the limiting of vision, in some ways allows you to see more because you have shots of just the party. So in some ways limiting the views is helpful.

There is also this marvelous double exposure scene with the two B’s after they have overheard the others talking about how they love each other. This would not have been possible on stage and was very well symbolic of the prodigious-ness of that moment in the play.

(Google Image Search)

The second reason this mediated performance was almost more enjoyable, was the lushness of the scenery. The scenery was so much more rich and exciting than stage scenery. This is no fault of stage performance; they have much more limited resources and space. It is nice though in the mediated performance, because it allows to them to do more things (like dance in fountains, bathing scenes, dramatic horse riding entrances, hide in the garden, ect.) with the characters.

Thirdly, the humor can still be put into mediated performances. There were many moments in this play that were hilarious and were just as good as on stage. The Monty Python-ish horse riding in some scenes was almost too much to handle!

Sadly though, the thing that always for me makes the live shows more enjoyable than the mediated performances is watching it with a whole group of people and laughing along with them. I watched this mediated performance by myself, and though I laughed, it doesn’t seem as good when there are other people laughing with you.

All and all, from what I can devise, this was a great version of Much Ado About Nothing, it certainly left me with a lot to say!

                                                    (Google Image Search)

Oct. 1 Performance of Twelfth Night in Stratford Ontario

I haven’t laughed as much as I did during the performance of Twelfth Night in a long time. It was a very enjoyable performance. Many of the cast from The Homecoming which was preformed earlier that day were in the Twelfth Night, which I have no doubt made for an exhausting day for the actors.

Brian Dennehy as Sir Toby, Stephen Ouimette as Sir Andrew, and Tom Rooney as Malvolio stole the show. Ben Carlson, who played Hamlet back in the 2008 Season when I went, was Feste, which totally changed my opinion of him as an actor. It added a lot more range of character for him in my mind. Sir Toby and Sir Andrew’s antics on stage were utterly ridiculous and kept me laughing throughout the night. This was a complete change for me from reading the play last semester in English 311. I saw the plots with Sir Andrew, Sir Toby, and Malvolio as this annoying side plot that dragged the play on longer than it needed to be. Seeing it on stage changed my whole opinion of the play. It just might be one of my favorite plays of all time.

This play had a lot more director’s interpretation to it and I think he attempted to bring out as much humor as he could. They switched the first two scenes around and their costumes had no time period. They ranged from 1980s dressed to 1920 sports and athletic wear. Yes, athletic wear. There were golf scenes (complete with golf cart) and scenes in a Sauna, complete with almost towel/wardrobe malfunction.

There was also this hilarious pizza scene, where Sir. Andrew orders a pizza and begins to eat it on stage! Also, Malvolio’s costume to win Olivia’s love was just priceless!

One of the things that I’m still trying to decide if I liked or not, was the amount of music in this performance. The actors had a lot of singing and there were musicians on stage at least every other scene, it was almost pushing rock opera for me. I think the director was trying to liven it up and really play out the comedy quality of this Shakespearean drama.

I like this play a lot more seeing it than reading it. The humor came out much stronger and I didn’t mind many of the director’s interpretations.  Changing up some of the wardrobe and time period in Shakespeare doesn’t bother me as much as it use to. I didn’t care much for the rock opera quality of the play, and they kept pushing the line:
“If music be the fruit of love: play on” too much. They said/sang it at least five times in the performance!

Twelfth Night is perhaps the best play I’ve seen since my 2008 trip. Each time I go it gets better and better! I do know I can’t wait to go back!

Oct. 1 Performance of The Homecoming in Stratford, Ontario

I was hoping by seeing The Homecoming preformed on stage that I would understand it better than I did by reading it. Sadly, that wasn’t the cause. I am now more confused about the plays purpose, who Ruth really is, if this is a play about power, or if Ruth is even the main character of the play than ever. After seeing the play, I think Max is the main character of the play.

This performance of The Homecoming was superbly done. The cast was spot on, especially Brian Dennehy as Max. All of the actors were as I pictured them, except for Ruth; although, to be fair I wasn’t quite sure how to picture her.

Seeing the play live was a great experience. There are so many pauses and lack of stage directions throughout the play, that there was a lot of room for directors to interpret things. I especially liked when they had Ruth sit down and put her feet up on a table after she begins to make her demands after making out with Joey. It really shows the power play that is beginning to take a turn. I liked being able to see what was going on in those pauses as well as how aloof Teddy was during much of the action happening with his wife. I also finally see the play as humorous, because you can see where the sarcasm as well as the physical interactions with the characters.

There were things I didn’t like. Lenny talked a little fast in a few lines and it would have been funnier had he slowed his speech down, especially with the “Don’t hit me with the stick, Daddy” moment. I also wasn’t a fan of how assertive they made Teddy by having him shout a few of his lines. I saw him as meeker than that, but it also gives a larger allusion to him fighting for the little power that he has.

The director’s interpretation of the play was a lot of the action on the stage. The lines and scene order was verbatim the script. However, given the lack of many stage directions (other than pauses) this gives a lot of freedom. Like Sam during the entire last scene downing drink after drink at the bar, where Lenny stood off to the side, and where Sam made his last stand.

All and all, it was an incredibly performance and I was really glad I went despite how unsure I felt about this play. I do feel I have a better appreciation for it now at the very least.   

The Absurdity of The Homecoming

(Photo of the Playwrite obtained in Google Image Search)

The Homecoming by Harold Pinter is possibly one of the most shocking and confusing plays I have ever read. I think this is a play that would be better to watch then to read the script, because it is very confusing and starting to read. Pinter’s play is very vulgar and sexual, and I feel as if these things might me humorous if acted out because the actors can take some of the edge off on how rude or nasty the line is.

Pinter’s play is an extremely sexualized power play between and all male family and a woman who has come to replace the last female member of their family. Ruth comes back to her original promiscuous self, before having married Teddy, and uses her sexuality as way to gain power over the men. This is an interesting take on female empowerment that I am not quite sure how I feel about.

One thing I do know for sure is Pinter’s The Homecoming borders is a drama of the absurd. Absurd plays portrayed its events not as a connected storyline, but moments and incidents presenting people as overwhelmed and bewildered creatures in an incomprehensible universe. (Harmon and Holman 2). There are several moments in The Homecoming that present this. Many times they deal with Teddy as he randomly stands by and watches as Ruth and his brothers get it on right in front of him. At one point the only thing he’s concerned with is that he doesn’t have a ride to the airport anymore. Max also becomes in the end unable to retain his power that he has unknowingly lost until the last moment. He becomes bewildered and helpless at the end, begging Ruth to give him his power back by kissing him.

The characters in The Homecoming often stand by or have conversations that are almost irrelevant or unnecessary digressions from the topic or the present issues, because they don’t know what to make of what is currently happening. These digressions interestingly though often reveal an inner look at their true characters. It is often what is not what is directly said there that is important.  

There many random and awkward pauses in Pinter’s script, which shows again just how bewildered and often helpless these characters are in this universe. Although, I wonder if different characters show different levels of inability to deal with their universe, because characters like Ruth and Lopakhin from The Cherry Orchard seem to be in perfect control of their universes. However, Ruth would not have been able to return to her true self without Teddy’s family and Lopakhin could not have gotten the cherry orchard without Libov’s inability to deal with her problems.   

Absurdity plays and interesting role in The Cherry Orchard as well. Each character’s fate is ultimately out of their control, it is all hindering on what Libov chooses to do. Seeing how Lobov is unable to deal with reality or her issues, she is unable to respond to her universe’s needs. Much like The Homecoming there really is no storyline, but in fact it is just characters attempting to handle and processes the changes that are happening to them.

This brings up some interesting questions about reality. How much are we really in control? And how much of our lives are us being bewildered in an incompressible universe?

The answers much like the closing to The Homecoming are left up for our interpretation…..

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Harmon, Harmon and Hugh Holman. A Handbook to Literature. 11^th ed. New Jersey: Pearson Practice Hall, 2009. Print.

Cherry Blossoms and Nostalgia: "The Cherry Orchard" by Anton Chekhov

                      Anton Chekhov, the playwrite

                         (obtained in Google image search)

“The Cherry Orchard” by Anton Chekhov is a very strange play that deals a lot with human psychology and paralysis. It is a meant to be a comedy and although there are several comic moments, the events of the play are not necessarily comical.

“The Cherry Orchid” follows the Ranyevskaya family and a menagerie of other characters all connected by this large mansion and a historic cherry orchard. The changing social environment in Russia, a five year trip to Paris, and a lack of current income have finally broken the failing fortune of Liubov Ranyevskaya. She cannot afford to pay the interest on this mansion, and so it and the cherry orchard are put up for auction.

A businessman Lopakhin, buys it, whose family ironically use to be labors for the Ranyevskaya family at this very mansion. He had reached success despite his humble origins and plans on destroying the orchard and carving up the land into vacation homes. An idea he pitches and offers to help that Ranyevskaya family do several times throughout the play, but no one listens to him.

The family loses their ancestral home and parts ways at the close of the play, and we do not know what happens to them after that. One of the lines that stands out in the play is at one point when Lopakhin, tries to give the family a reality check by telling them “You can’t ever go back to the past.”

Although each character in their own way would like to go back to the past, none seems to want to more than Liubov Ranyevskaya, who is the owner of the mansion.  The cherry orchard again and again throughout the play seems symbolize her childhood, which she misses greatly. She misses the old roles of Serfdom Russia. Or at the very least she probably wishes she could go back to before he son drowned. This would give her back her son as well as keep her from fleeing to Paris because she couldn’t deal with being in the place he died constantly, where she would further “waste” her money as she called it in Act 2.

Liubov would like to return to the past, to when this Mansion was her family’s and there was no questioning that, and because her choices have always been poor, she may even desire to return to her childhood, before she set on the path of losing her mansion and her fortune.

(Image obtained in Google Image Search of "The Cherry Orchard". This fits the symbolism of the cherry orchard for Liubov Ranyevskaya)

Gayev, her brother more than likely desires the same thing. He is in love with the memories and the nostalgia that this mansion brings. He was raised here and he seems to have no desire to leave this house.

The various servants that still live with the Ranyevskaya family are also saddened about losing their home, especially Firs, who has gone a bit crazy in his old age. He actually misses the past, where he was a serf for the family. He takes pride in the fact that he has stayed with his masters even after serfdom was outlawed by the Russian Czar.

Anya and Varya, Libov’s daughters would like to return to the past probably to be able to save their brother and to help their mother be happy. Varya, might try to find herself a different suitor, other than Lopahkin, who just plays around with the idea.

Anya interestingly, is the only member of the Ranyevskaya family who is eager to face this new mansion-less future. She is eager to go with Petya Trofimov, who she has fallen in love with back to his university so that he may finish his graduate degree.

Petya , Anya, Lopakhin, and Yasha, are the only members of the cast no paralyzed in some sense by losing this cherry orchard. Petya and Anya look forward to a future; we can only assume that has them together. Lopakin looks forward to further fortune and business ventures, and is thrilled to have possession of the cherry orchard. Yasha, the Ranyevskaya’s valet, gets to go back to Paris, which is what he wanted throughout the play. Their futures all seem to hold what they desire, and therefore are eager to leave.

But for the rest of the characters, whose futures are uncertain without the mansion, they are all timid and sadden at the close of the play.  Each of these characters long to return to the past, to a simpler time, where it seemed like, they would live forever in that Mansion overlooking the cherry orchard.

“The Cherry Orchard” has interesting themes of nostalgia throughout its pages. You begin to wonder what you would like to return to in your past. You want to return to a point when life was simpler, to a past lover, or to a family or friend that the future has drifted you from. Returning to the past is easy because it is certain, you know what happens, so you want to return because it is safe and you want to remember the feelings of the moments that have marked you life so strongly and made you who you are.

The difference between us and many of these characters however, is that we aren’t paralyzed by the past. We can move forward to the future, even if it is unsure.

(Obtained in Google Image Search of Cherry Blossoms)