Fences

Fences by August Wilson is an interesting play. I thought this play had a similar theme to Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, but Wilson adds his own unique elements to the story of a man pursuing the "American Dream." What really surprised me about the main character, Troy, was how he didn't support Cory and Lyons with what they wanted to do with their lives. Troy not supporting Lyons in his music career has very little effect on him because Lyons is thirty-four and his own man. Cory on the other hand, is a senior in high school and about to make some important life decisions. Cory dreams of going to college and playing football. Instead, Troy keeps his son from playing football for the college recruiter. I understand that Troy was trying to protect Cory from the pain he experienced when he didn't make baseball into a career, but I also believe that he hurt Cory by not allowing him to make this mistake.

Krapp's Last Tape

Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape was an interesting read. I actually enjoyed reading Beckett's specific stage directions. It is rather obvious that they were important to him because there is over a page of stage directions out of this four page play. I think Beckett wanted to emphasize that our actions can speak louder than our words. There are lots of things that Krapp does in this play that tell us who he is without using words. In the beginning of the play, Krapp paces and eats a banana meditatively. This told me that Krapp spends a lot of time thinking about something, but at this point in the play I wasn't sure what he was thinking about. A moment later Krapp disappears and the audience hears a cork pop and then a few seconds later Krapp returns wiping his mouth. To me this portrayed that Krapp drank a lot and was most likely an alcoholic. At the end of the play, we don't know much about Krapp. We know that he is a miserable, old man that listens to tapes that he made when he was younger and that he believes that his best years are gone.

The Cherry Orchard

When I sat down to read Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, I expected a comedy similar to Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. I was very disappointed that I did not find the comedy that I was anticipating. Chekhov got my hopes up when he subtitled his play "A Comedy in Four Acts." Did Chekhov incorporate elements that are necessary to make up a good comedy? Yes, I believe he did. His characters all have very ironic personalities and in the end the young take control from the old, which every good comedy should have. The character Gayev was my favorite because of his ironic personality. Gayev is the uncle to Anya and Varya. I would expect him to act mature and have lots of wisdom and knowledge, but instead he acts like a teenage boy by bragging about a game of billiards and eating candy.

The end of the play is where I would say that most of the tragedy happens. I think that if this were to be a comedy, the family would have magically saved the orchard. Instead, Lopakhin wins the orchard in the auction and decides to chop all of the cherry trees down to make vacation homes. Now this might just be the country girl in me, but cutting down beautiful cherry trees to build summer vacation homes is a horrible tragedy! However, I think it is good that the family is accepting loosing the orchard and moving on with their lives. Chekhov ends his play on a sad note, which also helped contribute to the tragic feeling of the play. They leave Firs, their old butler, behind in the locked house to die. Having this be the final image of this play did not leave me in giggles like a comedy would. Rather, it left me horrified and sad.

The Importance of Being Earnest

I really enjoyed reading The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde. Out of all of the comedic elements that Wilde uses in this play, I loved the interactions and the relationships between the characters the most. The relationship I enjoyed the most throughout this play was the relationship between Jack and Algernon. During the entire play they act like brothers, even though they think they aren't. In the first act, Algernon questions Jack, who he thinks to be Ernest, about his intentions toward his cousin Gwendolen, his cigar case, and the inscription on it from Cecily.

During the second act, Algernon and Jack spend a lot of time fighting childishly with each other about several things. They first fight about whether or not Algernon should return to the city or not. For example, Algernon says that he cannot leave his "brother" when he is in morning. Jack replies with "Well, will you go if I change my clothes?" At the end of this act, Jack and Algernon argue about who should get to eat the muffins and about getting rechristened with the name Ernest. I found this part of the play extremely funny, because instead of going after the two girls they supposedly loved, they decide to sit, eat, and argue. In the end Jack and Algernon discover that they are actually brothers, they both are allowed to marry the women they love, and everyone is happy.

Othello

After reading Othello, I noticed many similarities between Medea and Iago. The first thing I noticed was their need for revenge. Medea wanted revenge because Jason was marrying Creon's daughter. Iago wanted revenge because Othello promoted Cassio instead of him and because he suspected Othello of sleeping with his wife, Emilia.

Medea and Iago are also very good at manipulating others to do what they want. Roderigo is easily manipulated by Iago into doing things such as telling Brabantio that Othello and Desdemona eloped and near the end of the play killing Cassio because he is in love with Desdemona. Iago knows this and convinces Roderigo that doing what he says will help him win over Desdemona. Othello is also manipulated by Iago. Iago convinces Othello that Desdemona and Cassio are having an affair. Othello is so convinced by Iago that he smothers Desdemona in their bed. These are what I think are the main examples of Iago's manipulation in Othello, but there are many more in the play. The fact that Iago has this power to manipulate everyone around him is what I think is the main driving factor of this play.

Poetics

Aristotle has a lot of interesting things to say about what a tragedy should and shouldn't have in Poetics. He has six elements that he feels are important to a tragedy. The first and most important element is the plot itself. This was a new thought to me. I have always thought that it is ultimately the characters that are the most important, because portray the actions and emotions of a play. However, Aristotle points out that the plot is the foundation of a play and the characters build off of it. I might have overlooked the plot as the most important element because all of the other elements of a play are built on top of it. Aristotle makes a good point that even if a play had the best actors, props, and scenery, but if the plot was not constructed correctly the play could not elicit the reactions of pity and fear from the audience.

Also, I liked Aristotle's comparison of history and poetry. This comparison is interesting, because I have thought the two to be the story of events that may or may not have happened. I like Aristotle's explanation of the poet's job as writing about what might happen if these events actually did occur. On the other hand history is just accounts of what happened. I suppose a poet or play writer is the person who gets to ask and answer the question "What if this happened?"

Medea

While I was reading Medea I was constantly wondering if was realistic for a woman that was so scorn to actually plot and execute revenge so extreme to taking the lives of others, including the lives of her own children. This made me think about what I would do in Medea's situation. What if I met a guy and moved to a different country for him and after years of marriage and having a few kids, he decides to leave me and our kids for a younger woman? I would probably be like Medea in the beginning of the play and cry and threaten revenge. Medea then goes on to poison King Creon and his daughter and then kill her two children to leave her husband, Jason, with nothing. My rational thought would be to take my kids and leave. I would want revenge in some way, but I cannot see myself killing to get that revenge. The idea that Medea would kill her own children perplexes me. I would think that it would prolong her suffering, but I have to remember that Medea is from a different time. Also, I am not a mother and a wife and can only empathize with her. In the end, I think it comes to one question. Have you ever been so crazy in love that you do irrational things?

Designing for the Theatre

One of the things that I feel an audience can neglect to think about is the planning and the great attention to detail that goes into creating everything that is seen on stage. Jo Mielziner's memoir about designing Death of a Salesman is an excellent example of the process of how a production is created. Jo's level of detail in his memoir really gave me a mental picture of how the stage, the props, and lighting might look for this production. I feel that minimizing props was a good decision, because it allows the audience to fill in the rest of the scene with their imaginations. The decision to get rid of the headstone was a good choice. I can imagine sitting in the audience and being distracted at the headstone coming out of nowhere and I know that I would miss some of the meaning of that final scene.

I definitely agree with Mielziner's opinion about lighting, that it has the opportunity to be flexible, yet expressive and creative. The use of leaf projections to symbolize the openness of the past I do not feel was the best option. I would have liked to see some sky blue incorporated, because I feel that trees can also act a lot like the buildings the Willy despised and cut off the house from the air and the sunlight.

Fires in the Mirror

In Fires in the Mirror, Smith uses 29 monologues from 26 different real life people to depict the crisis of the Crown Heights riots of August of 1991. A number of things in this play intrigued me. First is the concept of mirrors discussed by Aaron M. Bernstein. Bernstein talks about how mirrors relate to distortion and physics.

"if you wanna see the
stars
you make a big
reflecting mirror-
that's one of the ways-
you make a big telescope
so you can gather in a lot of light
and then it focuses at a point
and then there's always something called the circle of confusion."

According to Wikipedia, the circle of confusion is an optical spot caused by a cone of light rays from a lens not coming to a perfect focus when imaging a point source. I think that Bernstein uses this concept of mirrors as a metaphor. People are symbolized by light and since everyone has a different viewpoint there will always be some confusion about what actually happened at a certain event.

The second thing that intrigued me about this play, is that racial tensions were so high in the community of Crown Heights that a fatal car crash, even though it was just an accident resulted in days of riots, property being destroyed and stole, hundreds of injuries, and unprovoked murder. The Blacks of Crown Heights assumed that the decisions made by the police, medical response teams, and several other individuals were made showed favoritism toward the Jewish community. These assumptions, along with many others, helped increase the tension that was already building because of the number of Jewish people moving into the community.

I have read the syllabus and accept the terms of the course.