Play Reviews

Okay, so I'm way late on these, I'm not sure if they'll count for anything gradewise or not, but I suppose at least they will help me collect my thoughts on performance.

For some reason "reviewing" (even though I recognize the point here is not a review but a reflection on plays from a playwriting perspective) is always like pulling teeth for me. So apologies for that. Indeed I saw many more than three plays this semester, but I have yet to write on any of them, so here for what its worth are three capsule reviews.

Anything Goes

Alright, confession: I love this play. The music and lyrics are great sure, but I especially love the book. The actual plot and action of the play are farcical to the point of nihilism. The constant coupling and uncoupling that occurs suggests the meaninglessness of all the characters relationships, the leading male's adoption of the persona of Snake Eyes Johnson that results in totally unintended consequences. The overall effect of this farce I think, is to turn any sort of moral system on its ear. So indeed, Anything Goes. Which is quite awesome really, especially since it is done in the context of sunny and smiling musical theater. Which unfortunately means I think that what I see as the point of the play gets lost on most people (Which is probably a good sign that I am wrong in my interpretation). However, I would still like to write a farce that does exactly what it seems to me that Anything Goes does.

As far as UPS's transcription of the play goes, there is little to note. The actress playing Reno Sweeney had a lovely voice but was unfortunately almost inaudible when competing with the chorus line. But this seems to be unavoidable in amateur musical theater, and I knew the lyrics anyway so there was sort of a weird gap between what was going on in my head and what I was actually perceiving. As a playwright I suppose the only way to play with this idea is through adaptation. (Which gives me an idea: a play about Abraham wherein he really does kill Isaac. Could be interesting and dramatic onstage, could blatantly mime and depart from both the Bible and Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling, would produce that same effect of the things onstage blatantly departing from where the audience's mind is going).

Also, in the staff production at UPS, unlike every other production of Anything Goes I have seen, the ship is not actually represented onstage. Which really didn't seem to detract from the play in any way for me. They have lines talking about how they're on a boat, why bother with an actual boat on stage that doesn't move or play an important part in the action in any way. While this production or directorial decision doesn't seem to subtract anything from the play, it doesn't seem to add anything either, it becomes more of a celebration of the work of the original creative team rather than an important work from the director or cast. Which I guess from a playwriting perspective it's cool to know that rather pure productions are possible, but also it seems like the collaborative aspect of theater is downplayed, which is kind of a bummer. Partially what has me attached to playwriting at the moment is that each play can be an experiment to see just what the director and actors make of your words. Of course other media is open to interpretation: take for instance the novel. But in the novel it's difficult to *see* how a reader is interpreting the work, whereas with a play, as a playwright one literally gets to see in a very physical way how the words are interpreted.

Terra Nova

I've never seen or read this play before its production for the senior theater festival, but I was very pleased both with the play itself and its transcription.

I'm not sure how the play was originally produced, but it worked beautifully in the round. As a play in the round, the tension of the justified vs. the unjustifiable in the expedition is emphasized wonderfully. In the initial monologue Scott is literally pacing around, pitching his expedition to the audience. Then for the course of the play we as the audience are seemingly implicit in this crazy journey, we have supported it somehow, his physical intimacy unavoidable. The question on our minds is, was this trip justifiable? Also effective is that as a play in the round, we the audience were literally perched on a map of Antarctica, we are connected to the action in a way that I don't think I would have been had I been sitting in the house.

These notes however are all for this particular production, which was excellent. Ted Tally's actual staging directions call for an almost black box stage but with gritty realism in the camping stove and costuming. He also calls for an abstraction of a tent, not a real one. I'm having trouble fathoming exactly why he would call for realism in the costuming and some props, but abstraction in all else. All I know is that it worked. From my perspective the realism of the costume and stove were somehow just enough historical details for me to ponder the actual technology and hardships of the 1911 Antarctic expedition, while maintaining enough abstraction in order to get my imagination to represent the unstageable Antarctic. Brilliant.

Fences

To start with, it's worth noting that I enjoyed reading this play more than I enjoyed watching it. I'm not sure whose fault this is. August Wilson's? Seattle Rep's? Mine?

Onstage many actions suddenly became bizarre. Hitting the ball attached to the tree was farcical, and seemingly pointless. Were I to see that in real life I would lose a good deal of respect for the rationale of whoever was swinging the bat. And maybe that is August Wilson's point. However, the rest of the play was full of bizarre physicality issues. Because many of the speeches in the play are so long, whenever there was physical contact between people onstage it generally followed the formula of 1) Long line 2) Pensive Contact 3) separation 4) more long dialogue. Again, this might be the fault of the play, or the actors of Seattle Rep, or maybe just my own hang-ups about what counts as "natural" action. Not that I by any means require natural action onstage, just that it took me out of the action a bit. Though perhaps this was infact an aesthetic decision to in someway highlight the disconnect between this band of people due to their situation in life. Which now that I think about it might be kind of brilliant.

Revision

In his preface to Amadeus Peter Shaffer discusses changing the end of Amadeus from something of "high melodrama" to an area "akin to tragedy." For me this really highlighted the importance of continuing "play" even during the revision process. Mentally I've been having trouble revising my plays because the initial writing of them was a creative and exciting process usually fraught with experimentation and giggling. Revision on the other hand seems like an impenetrably different beast––marked by plodding examination of each word. Or at least that's my mindset to it. I think though, that it not need be so. Shaffer here revises in broad swaths, obliterating and performing endings sometimes five different times a week. He even considers genre shifts an important part of the revision process. And indeed, it seems rather pretentious of me to believe my work worthy of word-by-word editing in the first draft, doing so implies that my piece is already thematically perfect. I am now inclined to take even "micro-editing" with a more playful bent. One can playfully add single lines that can dramatically change the whole play. What if we find out that the likable antagonist kicks puppies? Little things can change the audience's whole relationship to the play, but one need not change more than a second of what happens on-stage.

This can also serve to "bring-out" themes. Shaffer refers to any themes exposed by editing as bringing out existing themes, but I'm not so sure he's right about that. It seems as though themes of works can have a progression, not just an exposure. By making certain aspects of Amadeus more blatant, Shaffer notices other things in the play that he could draw out. But I wonder if what is really happening here is that by making aspects of the play more blatant, he is actually uncovering his intentions or own beliefs about what the play ought to be. Essentially, if we take it that when an artist intentionally puts a theme in his work he is leaving something intentionally unspoken for the audience to analyze/find/walk away believing, why not state that explicitly and then see what the piece really becomes about? As if it is left intentionally buried the artist perhaps is not rigorously examining the piece (Though I hate to say that because it's dangerously close to beginning to view creative writing as a spiritual or religious process with actions and changes the artist is required to undertake).

Lastly I'm glad to not be the only one who finds it necessary to add and not cut in my revisions. For some reason my initial creative process can sometimes prove obnoxiously concise. I am of the group that needs to be adding. My first drafts inevitably skeletal, seemingly especially in playwriting, where the writing is essentially economy – just dialogue and a few essential stage directions, but not needing anything else. Now, I don't think there's anything wrong with being concise, in fact I value it, but pacing is important, and I've probably rushed everything all semester. Shaffer decided that the last scene of Amadeus needed to be longer, because it contained all of Salieri's dynamicism.

Comedy

Aimee – I'm not sure I fully understand what's going on here. While reading it it came across as a really surface level political diatribe against the patriot act/ American anti-French sentiment. Which, I mean is cool and all, I'm as anti-patriot act/pro-French as the next liberal arts student, but it seems kind of trite here, maybe it wasn't in 2003. I recognize that on a deeper level this is about love, but that doesn't come out until halfway through the play. I don't know how easy it is for an audience to forgive even five minutes of triteness, even if it is clever. I guess though that if you want to play with that, ten minute plays are the place to do it.

Anything for You – A fun, quick ten minute play with witty dialogue and good realistic character confessions that are heartfelt but not overly dramatic. Stepping away from the playwriter role, I do have to say that I'm kind of bothered by the fact that if this was about a straight coupling, people probably wouldn't find it funny, or the play wouldn't work. The playwright very cleverly plays with this though, starting off with the "humorous" proposition that Lynette and Gail have an affair because it's sort of non-threatening to their husbands, and then ending with the reveal that, yes, for Gail it is serious, and lesbian relations can carry the same weight of straight relations. Very clever of the playwright to anticipate why the beginning of the play is objectionable. Again, this might be something that only works in 10 minute plays, because hey, they're only ten minutes, so you can give your audience something they find objectionable for 8 minutes, and then give them resolution and they're not likely to desert you.

Duet for Bear and Dog – I rather enjoy this one, largely because I've always believed in theater as something of marvelous imagination. Ladder as tree? Check. Actors playing a bear and a dog but talking like regular humans? Love it, I'm there. Interestingly enough, like the previous two plays it ends on a more serious note, but it's even more of quick turn here. I didn't get it till rereading the play, but it seems to be about this contrast and grayed line between the domestic and the wild, as Dog's final line is of wilderness but Bear's is of a sort of wild matronly domestication. I like the contrast. Seemingly the play would be incomplete without this last soliloquy. Which, I mean is weird given that this is a comedy, and a ten minute one at that. We admit that comedies don't need a point, but sometimes they're made better by them. Weird.

The Philadelphia – This is the only one of the ten minute plays that I would argue is comedic throughout. And yes, it's very David Ives, and therefore very witty/poignant/blah blah blah, but somehow in contrast to the other three it seems a little flatter for being more of a straight comedy. (Though I mean, the last line does leave us some philosophic gristle to chew on I guess) It seems like there's a difference between "sketch" and "10-minute comedy play" that's hard to pinpoint, though seemingly crucial.

Opinions

Alright, so I've never been exposed to ten minute plays before these readings, and already I'm super opinionated about them. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not. The positive aspect of me being opinionated is that I know which play of the four I want to emulate. The negative is that I'm nearly positive I'm not giving some of these the chance they deserve. Anyway, on to the judgment.

A Bowl Of Soup - Okay, so it's hard to get a sense for this one because it's clear that it's all about performance, after all one character is silent on stage for the entirety of the thing, and as readers we're not even given any stage directions for what he is doing. Is he sitting? Is he pacing? Is he riding a tricycle around Eddie in circles? Entirely up to the director. Of course, that's cool if you're primarily interested in performance, as it seems like an awesome play to think about staging/directing/acting in, but from the perspective of beginning playwrights it's not super useful as we're still getting a feel for how our own work will translate to stage. Also, while the ten minute play does in fact seem like a good platform to deliver a neatly wrapped philosophical point, the impermanence of ourselves and our memory seems to easy and to trite, even for ten minutes. (Even in context of the AIDS epidemic. While this was a theme in Angels and America, it was much richer and more complicated there). Though I like the idea. Perhaps something more unresolved and richer, like say a couple having a debate about determinism that's really a metaphor for their improprieties. In this play the point is really a punchline, and the rest of the play kind of builds to it, but a lot of it is kind of unrelated. Next!

That Midnight Rodeo - The approach here seems to be committed to being a "slice of life" or ten minutes in a couples life, trying to avoid the obvious artifice of being a play. We join an argument that it's hinted at that the couple has already had, and we leave without any sense of resolution. Also the play is full of vocabulary that may be foreign to the audience, furthering a sense of realism. I have one thing to say to all this: zzzzzzzz (although the ending is quite quite awesome and theatrical, and serves as a nice intersection between realism and theater). While I think realism onstage is an awesome and worthy thing to write, I really have little to no interest in it. In my mind it's a vegetarian cheetah, a creature unaware of its niche in a changing environment, and doomed to do worse than the better adapted giraffe. (Oh god biology metaphor. I'm sorry). In other words it seems like realism is already being done better by documentary, film, tv, etc. What theater does that I like is, well, theatrics and expansive imagined realities. Next.

The Man Who Couldn't Dance - Money. I love it. This is the thing right here. Interestingly enough, the characters establish themselves, even on the page as there's no character descriptions accompanying this one. Yet I have an even firmer sense of who they are than any of the other plays, and as a director would feel even more locked in to a certain way of having Gail and Eric played. What really makes this play for me is it's completeness in 10 minutes. We're given the build up to the argument, the argument itself, confessions, and even some resolution. It's complete, it's beautiful, and I don't feel like I'm opening a window to some couple's life for a few minutes. It's a play. Though I must confess I also love it because of its relationship to something that's sort of been a theme in my plays this semester, and that's the theme of repressed sincerity. Eric confessing he can't dance is very moving, as is his dynamic character change of him beginning to dance on stage. For my ten minute play I'm going to aim for the same completeness on stage, including dynamic character change.

The Roads That Lead Here - The main hook of the play for me is interest in the brother's project. And I mean, making an audience fully interested in a play, even if it's just for ten minutes seems a feat to a playwright just starting out, so I'm not going to disparage using absurdness or weirdness in these ten minute plays. It seems like a good way to keep the audience engaged for such a short time. However I worry that it might feel gimicky on stage. Though, I mean, given my fear of writing drama I'm sure my first ten minute play will end up something like this.

Fences

One thing I thought Fences does particularly well that I have always had trouble with in my own fiction writing is aggressive characters. Aggression is both too easy and too difficult to write. It's easy to build a character to the point where he's shouting, but it's hard to make that shouting “real” or anything that adds to the character, often it can just be affecting for the audience––shocking and frightening for the audience because there's someone right there and they're aggressive. However, in Fences Troy's anger is more of the fascinating bent. Wilson nailed the character as someone who would draw people around him and into his life. Seemingly nothing about Troy's anger and behavior is written simply as an easy emotional out, or to be demonstrative, his anger is truly in his character and fits both metaphorically and neatly into the plot. Also, in terms of “giving the director leeway” as we discussed in class, this play has led me to the conclusion that all the director really needs for leeway are the lines, everything else can be clearly defined, but I thought of many ways in which Troy can be played. So in the future I am going to avoid any uncertain phrases like “Need not” in my stage directions.

Another thing the play does well that I thought I could learn from is the way the characters persuade each other. The play seems to be in constant power struggle, constant conflict, yet it's never easy, never melodramatic. Some of the most powerful persuasive moments come from Rose (Convinces Troy to give Lyons money, convinces Cory to come to the funeral), who is much subtler than Troy yet in a different way a force in her own right. Not even Rose is really passive character here, even though she is not confrontational the same way Troy is. I would like to write a play with no passive characters like this. Too often all my characters are passive.

Like in Eurydice, I'm again impressed by the use of symbols on stage. For instance, the fence. It seems symbolic of many things, prominently the new found stability of Black American communities. We see this literally in the play, when Bono talks about how Rose is trying to keep Troy in; this interpretation from the stage gives the symbol power, yet it never seems like artifice. Brilliant. It seems that grant symbolic meaning is another of the things a character's speech can do.

On a technical note, something that I know I'm going to have a hard time getting a sense of is timing. For instance, the action on the page of Act 2 Scene 1 seems to read way to quickly, yet because it has a lot of physical direction like sawing I'm sure it would stretch out on stage. How are beginning playwrights to get a sense of this?

Eurydice

Reading Eurydice (and the interview afterwards) was a revelatory experience. The first revelation I had came when the interview did not contain a question about the character of the Mom of the lord of the underworld, yet it did contain questions about other symbols such as the raining elevator. Clearly there's some sort of symbolic transformation when Orpheus fulfills the Old Woman's needs and the lord of the underworld is reborn tall; however I'm really at a loss for what this symbol could mean exactly. However the play was still powerful to me, despite my lack of understanding. This for me as a writer, was a revelation. Unfortunately, my tendencies as an English Lit major do not transfer well to my creative writing. Too often I imbue my short stories with too much symbolic meaning; instead of portraying character change the trajectory of the story is marked by symbol change. Which, if you're not you know living in my head, can be a hard thing to catch onto, and you're left with nothing to enjoy about the story. However the symbolic change here is both visceral and intellectual––on stage the transformation of the Lord of the Underworld contains its own menace, he literally gets taller, more threatening, just as Orpheus's seduction has visceral impact. The effect is hightened on stage, but the symbols were powerful reading too, due to what they also represent (rape/seduction etc). I would like to learn to write a symbol that is also viscerally impactful the way these are.

Also of note is the use of the Greek chorus. Naturally, as this play is based on other Greek plays, it seems only normal that it has a chorus. However, it's clear that the author is playing with the idea of Greek chorus. This play seems required to make a good play with a Greek chorus in it, in order to make the play interesting, as the form is so borrowed and so old. Notice that seemingly it's hard to identify these as just "choruses" almost everywhere, including the interview, these choruses are identified "greek," inseparable from their source and clearly borrowed. On some level I think that anytime a modern play includes a chorus the play becomes on some level about how it uses the idea of a Greek chorus (Depending on the audience sure). Which is fine if you're trying to make a statement about Greek Choruses, or you don't mind your audience thinking about them and their historical use even if that's extraneous to your point. What I think would be more interesting is ways to subvert this form that might still serve the same theatrical purpose. Characters who begin speaking different voices on stage? Stiffly and frozen to indicate they are speaking from a different source? Documentaries of the action on stage to give that greek chorus like back story? Documentarians on stage? Furthermore, Ruhl discusses how playwrites tend to borrow forms. Which seems to be true given the prevalence of choruses in modern theater, but this seems unnecessary given Ruhl's creativity.

Dialogues

It's interesting that all the excerpts picked by the class for this week's reading have involved just two characters interacting. Where the has been more than the two characters on stage at once (Henry IV, Closer, Angels in America), they have been paired off into couples, and we can compare the couplings to each other. It is by no means impossible to have more than two characters interacting at once, though after seeing these excerpts I wonder if you were to do some sort of mathematical analysis of all plays you would find that the majority of the time only two characters are interacting in this way (Leaving the monologue plays out of course. And the Greek ones, because strophing is an irrational number and would mess everything up). Or perhaps our generation just prefers scenes with only two people. Or perhaps the bias was generated because everyone was looking for exemplars of dialogue, and having only two characters on stage is almost closer to monologue than more action heavy scenes––the characters are allowed to ruminate and express themselves, and the lines stretch out.

Given the stories the class said go over well in plays, it makes sense that these intimate interactions were picked. We listed relationship stories, reflection, and the everyday amongst others. Truly, long scenes of just two people can tend to drag in film, but work incredibly well on stage (Or the page even, I was hanging off every word of the Closer excerpt). In film the camera trickery often involved in dialogue heavy two character scenes seems like it can prove ultra-unrealistic; the camera will switch back and forth from close up of face to face, often leaving the actors glued to the same position as to not cause disorientation. In contrast moment I found that worked incredibly well in Closer was a moment that would work best in the play medium; When Alice tells Dan to "At least have the guts to look at [her]" and he does. I believe strong outbursts like that line are best in live theater because we the audience get some of the same impact as if someone had actually said those things to us. The strength of the actor is almost irrelevant by virtue of those things actually being vocalized, live in person, whereas in film a more fine line must be tread between drama and melodrama––we the audience are more prone to judge the piece from more emotional remove. Also something that seems to work incredibly well in plays is the split scene as seen in Angels in America and Closer. Splitting the scene and putting two couples on stage at once allows them to be foils to each other and speeds up the pacing. While this is technique is totally achievable in film, the shortness of the scenes almost tends to make it irrelevent, the action moves to a new place before it would have a chance to return from the split scene.

One excerpt I found difficult was from Arcadia. I would very much like to see the play, because the excerpt was impenetrable in a way that suprisingly, none of the other plays removed from context were. This makes me wonder if the other plays aren't too emotionally simple in that I could pick up on everything I needed to given no back story and no context. In the Arcadia excerpt, the emotions seem to be far more reserved than in the other dialogues, though in many ways the dialogue was easier to believe, in that it sounded like a conversation that people have, when not at the climax of some particular plot arc. I would love to write a play that had this kind of reserve throughout yet somehow had emotional impact.