Fires in the Mirror Respones

I understand the concerns you have about the necessity of the beginning monologues in the play and I understand that you think you can cut them and still retain the meaning of the piece. I’m worried about the execution of that and what cutting them will do to the play. Let me explain:  

In the first few monologues in Fires in the Mirror, Smith is setting the scene. They don’t directly relate to the riots in Crown Heights, but they directly show the people involved. They show how these people lived and acted outside of the riots before the major conflict began. If these monologues were to be cut out we would lose the story of the people involved. We would lose how the felt before and how they felt after and the play would become less about the characters and more about just reporting what happened. Sure you would get two sides of what happened but without those first few monologues setting up how the two different demographics view their lives, all we would see was needless fighting.

The Shape of Things: Show and Tell

The Shape of Things is a play written by Neil LaBute in 2001. It premiered at the Almeida Theatre in London. Lebute directed the play himself and he also directed the 2003 film adaptation.  The play has been done several times over in many places including the Bernie West Theater in New York City and it again in London at The Gallery Soho.

In The Shape of Things we follow the character Adam Sorenson, who is an English Li major at Clarkson College, as he meets and begins to date Evelyn Ann Thompson, an art student. She slowly begins to make ‘improvements’ to Adam, dictating what he should wear and who he should hang out with and how he should look. She even goes as far as to convince him to get a nose job. The new and improved Adam ends up having a tryst with his friend Phillip’s girlfriend Jenny. When Evelyn finds out she demands that Adam never see either of them again or she will leave him. He willing gives them up.  In the end we find out that Evelyn has tricked Adam into being her thesis project and she rejects him when he proposes to her.

One dramaturgical choice Lebute makes is to make a literary illusion to the Bible by naming his characters after Adam and Eve (Eve being short of Evelyn). I know that it’s the most obvious thing Lebute does, but that’s why I think it’s important. . He wouldn’t have made such an obvious reference if he didn’t want you to think about what it meant, and what it has to do with his story. And given that in the Bible Eve convinces Adam to do something (eat the fruit of knowledge) that will change him, and that’s exactly what Evelyn does. And once both Adams are changed you can’t get them back.

Another dramaturgical choice Lebute makes, is to not tell the audience what Evelyn whispers in Adam’s ear. Again, an obvious one but an important one. What she whispers is what she claims is the only true thing she has ever told him. Lebute leaves what she whispered up to the imagination of the audience, of the director, of the actor, ect. This decision is very important because it leaves people questioning.

Noises Off! Response

In my opinion, a very persistent motif in Noises Off! is the use of pet names, or in the case of act three the lack of pet names. In the first act of the play all the actors and Lloyd use several different pet names, such as ‘darling’ and ‘love’ and ‘honey’, to talk to each other and they use them almost constantly, but in the second act the use of pet names has dwindled and by the third act they don’t use any pet names at all.

I think the tag line for this play is “Down comes the curtain.” I think the unifying principal of this play is ‘the unraveling of the curtain’ and I think the falling down of the curtain at the end of this play not only fits but it describes the whole play, in that the play is unraveling throw out the whole show and in the end it just falls apart and hits the ground. There is nothing more a play can do after the curtain falls because it generally means the play is over. This play with in a play is over when the curtain falls down.

Glass of Water Response

I would say that the protagonist of this play, if I had to choose one, would be Bolingbroke. It is his desire to stop the war from happening that causes him to interfere with everyone else’s business. The Duchess is the clear antagonist of the play, what with her desire to start a war and have an affair, and Bolingbroke manages to thwart both of her plots. I think because of this reason, he is the person the audience is supposed to root for (if they actually do, that depends).  Bolingbroke is definitely the character who gets the most stage time, and his goals are so tightly wound with what happens to the other characters that he has to manipulate them to get what he wants and thus, he moves the plot forward.

Lets talk about Killer Joe for a bit

Killer Joe was written by Tracy Letts in 1991 but it wasn’t produced until 1993 because of the violence in the play. It’s first production was in Evanston, Illinois by Next Lab. If you want to find the play my suggestion would be to buy it. It’s very good.

 

In Killer Joe, a trailer park family falls into trouble with money when the son Chris falls into debt with some bad people. In order to pay it off, they hire the hit man Killer Joe to kill the mother (who is not in the play as the parents are divorced and the father is remarried) to collect the life insurance. Killer Joe takes the sister Dottie as a “retainer” to make sure he gets his cut when the job is done. It all falls to hell after that.

 

I think the fact that the play is set in a trailer park is very interesting. Letts could have set it in a middle or upper class neighborhood with the same basic plot but because he set it in the trailer park it seems sadder, in a way. Because that’s where it’s set it’s gritty and rough and just violent.

Letts also chooses to not show the mother at all in this play. She is only mentioned and not very fondly. By keeping her out of the picture, the audience can only form opinions based on what we are told about her, all of which is, again, not very good. Another thing that would happen if the mother was actually in the play, is that it would take the focus off the characters of Dottie, Chris, and Joe (and to a lesser extent Ansel and Sharla) and put more focus on the murder plot which isn’t really the point.

How I Learned to Drive Response

I think Vogel used the “Greek Chorus” in How I Learned to Drive because this is Lil’ Bit’s story, and it’s the story of her and Uncle Peck. The other characters are non-essential. The play is like Lil’ Bit’s memory in which she is choosing to remember the things that were important to her. By having the other characters being played by the Greek Chorus, Vogel is showing how those characters appearances and opinions don’t really matter to Lil’ Bit or to the story.

Vogel uses a Voice throughout the play to say things that sound like driving instructions. I can understand how the instructions relate to the story but I find it curious that she chooses to do it through a “Voice”. She could have just had the Greek Chorus or Lil’ Bit do it. She could have even had Uncle Peck do it but she didn’t. I can’t think of why. Well I have ideas but they are disjointed at best.

The Conduct of Life Response

I think Fornes’ use of the character of Olimpia in The Conduct of Life is an excellent way to provide the voice of reason in the play. She contrasts Orlando, who is violent and cruel, and Leticia, who chooses to ignore the tragedy that’s right in front of her. She calls Orlando out on his cruelty and tries to take care of Nena, and she tries to bring things to attention (ie the fact she needs a new pot or the fact that Nena is ill). What makes her an interesting character to choose for this position in the play, is that she is the servant which means she is going to notice everything but because of her position there is no chance for her words to fall on anything but deaf ears. Perhaps if Olimpia was a character with a higher position in this world she would have been able to stop everything that happened but then again if she was she probably wouldn’t have seen what was going on

Overtones Response

In the play Overtones, everyone can see and hear the characters of Harriet and Margaret. The only person to hear Hattie is Harriet and the only person to hear Maggie is Margaret, but neither of them acknowledge their ‘primitives selves’, as Gerstenberg puts it, other than to respond to them verbally. However, there is at only one point in the play when someone appears to see Hattie and Maggie and that is when they converse with each other. This only happens when the conversation between Margaret and Harriet becomes very heated and appears to be reaching the climax. It’s interesting that this would be the point where the inner selves acknowledge each other because it would suggest that this is not only the point where the separation between the outer appearance and the inner appearance are the closest, but it also suggests that the characters of Harriet and Margaret can see through each other to see exactly what the other wants.

Trifels Response

I think it would work to strip the play down and put the emphasis on the characters and dialogue like the director wants, but I’m not sure you would need to strip the play down in order to do that. I am of the belief that the set of the play leads the characters to their conclusion of what happened. Without the set, it would mean the actors would have to hint at what was there and what they were seeing and that might actually contradict what the director wants to do. I don’t think there is anything to be gained from the stripping down of the play, other than the audience might feel more connected to the characters because they are plain and simple and that might make them more relatable. That is a big might, however. The audience could be confused as to why the actors weren’t in costume and wonder what period they were from, because they would be able to infer from the dialogue but they wouldn’t know for sure. With these complications in mind I don’t think the production would gain anything from being performed in a theatricalized way. I honestly see no reason to strip this play down. Unless the budget for the production is very low or non-existent, and even then I would encourage the director to find as many ways as possible to give the audience the setting of this play.