How I Learned to Drive

Reading Paula Vogel’s play How I Learned to Drive was an interesting experience and at many times disturbing. Although, I did not enjoy the non-linear structure of Top Girls I enjoyed it in this play. It was somewhat startling to begin the play with Uncle Peck molesting Li’L Bit, but I enjoyed the piece meal memory flashbacks. It was interesting to piece together Li’L Bit’s relationship with Uncle Peck and throughout the majority of the play I was wondering if they were going to reveal the first time he molested her.

I found the relationship between Uncle Peck and Li’L Bit to be extremely confusing. After watching my fair share of Law and Order: SVU I have seen how many children who have been molested act towards their attacker or how it shapes the rest of their life. But I have never seen any story line where a victim has acted the way Li’L Bit has. She clearly was uncomfortable the first time Uncle Peck touched her in the car ride back from the beach, but then she welcomed the touching and inappropriate relationship until she left for college. She never understood how wrong it was until she went away to school. However, on multiple occasions she acknowledged that he was married and that perhaps it was mean to her Aunt, but she never felt it was wrong for any other reason. I also found this case of pedophilia to be out of the ordinary because other than the first time Uncle Peck molested Li’L Bit he never really forced himself upon her, and even in the scene they say good-bye he doesn’t try to have sex with her.

Top Girls

Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls was a play unlike any other I have read or seen. It was a unique way of portraying the hardships women encounter in the working world. While reading the preface to the play I anticipated that I was really going to enjoy it. Unfortunately, after completing the play I found myself disappointed. There were a few reasons I didn’t enjoy the show.

First I thought the non-linear structure of the play was very confusing. After reading two acts that took place one right after another it was difficult to remember that Act 3 took place a year before. I had to continuously remind myself that it took place before the other two acts. Perhaps it would have been easier to remember this if I were to see the show rather than read it.

I also found Churchill’s writing technique to be unusual and make it difficult to follow the plot. The constant interruption and overlapping dialogue was very distracting. I kept focusing on if I had understood the symbols to follow the order of the dialogue rather than focusing on what the characters were saying.

However, I did find the first Act of the show intriguing. I thought it was interesting how different “top girls” from different time periods came to Marlene’s celebration dinner for her promotion. It was interesting to see the similarities between the women’s stories and accounts even though they came from different time periods and walks of life.

Krapp's Last Tape

Samuel Beckett definitely did not make it easy for his audience to understand his work. I was very lost and bored while reading his play Krapp’s Last Tape. Because it was so short I read it a few times through to see if I was missing a bigger message or theme, but did not seem to get much more out of it other than Krapp dwelling on his failures. I can’t imagine going to see a play where the majority of the time nothing is taking place. It was sad that he had to move backwards and forwards on the tape to find memories that he connected with. Even when his memories did help him to travel back to his 39^th year he focused on his failures and referred to his younger self as stupid. I can’t imagine looking back on my life and only seeing failure.

I found the comparison between sporting events and Beckett’s plays that Kristen discussed in lecture to be quite intriguing. I would have never thought to compare the two from reading Krapp’s Last Tape. Sporting events are fun and exciting, I never know what’s going to happen, where as the play came across as slow and dull to me. However, when looking at the structure of sporting events and Beckett’s plays I understood the comparison Kristen was making. There is a lot of down time in football due to time outs and commercial breaks, which is similar to the lack of action in the play and then short segments of action. I grew up watching football so I always understood the game and knew what to expect when showing up at the stadium, but to someone unfamiliar to the rules it would be hard to understand. If I knew the type of work Beckett produced before reading the play I may have had a different perspective on it.

The Cherry Orchard

After reading the play The Cherry Orchard its subtitle A Comedy in Four Acts did not seem fitting to me. At no point during the play did I find myself laughing or finding any of the situations comical. However, I recalled how I didn’t seem to think that The Importance of Being Earnest was funny until I analyzed it more closely and ultimately saw a clip of it in lecture. Therefore, I looked back at some of the features of comedy we had discussed last week in class to see if they applied to this play. I found that quick development and inversions were both present in the script.

One example of quick development happened in Act I. While Anya and Liubov are just being reacquainted with their home, friends and family after a long time away the plot quickly turns when Lopakhin reveals they are going to lose their house. This information quickly turns the conversation from updates on who has passed away to how they should handle the situation. This sets up the underlying conflict of what they are going to do about the orchard throughout the first two acts. The comedic feature of inversion was present at the conclusion of the play. Lopakhin whose grandparents were owned by the Ranevesky family before freedom was given to the serfs and was a peasant growing up on the Ranevsky’s estate ended up buying the Cherry Orchard. And the rich Ranevesky family loses their home and goes off into the world with uncertainty at the end of the play. After looking at the presence of these features and rereading parts of the script I can see how this play can be considered a comedy.

The Importance of Being Earnest

It was refreshing to read a play that was lighthearted in contrast to the last few plays we have read in class. However, I found the superficiality of The Importance of Being Earnest quite off putting. It was unsettling to me that after all of Jack and Algernon’s lies and deception they still ended with what they desired. It was interesting the amount of important that was put on ones name and how fixated both Gwendolen and Cecily were on the name Earnest. In Act One Gwendolen says, “…and my ideal has always been to love some one of the name of Ernest. There is something in that name that inspires absolute confidence. The moment Algernon first mentioned to me that he had a friend called Ernest, I knew I was destined to love you.” Later in Act Two Cecily expresses her obsession with the name when she says, “you must not laugh at me, darling but it had always been a girlish dream of mine to love some one whose name was Ernest. There is something in that name that seems to inspire absolute confidence. I pity any poor married woman whose husband is not called Ernest.” Their infatuation with the name shows how shallow they are, which many of the other characters throughout the play can be described as.

I continued to think about the importance of a name after reading the play. It gives use our identity and characteristics are usually attached to certain names. Although, judgments are commonly made when hearing a person’s name for the first time, I believe it is also the people around you and your experiences that give life to your name or perhaps give life to nicknames that more appropriately suited for you.

Kent Thompson Interview

The interview with Kent Thompson was very interesting and really made me think about how many decisions go into making a play. Throughout the interview I was able to link many of his responses to one of the six basic element of theatrical production.For example, Thompson explains the usage of light in 3.3. Iago literally moves into the dark when he drops hints to Othello about Cassio, this emphasizes Iago’s dark side and manipulative ways. Thompson’s decision to use the octagon stage incorporates two of the elements, acting and spatial relationships. By having the characters closer to the audience it brings them to life and the audience cannot avoid the conflict and tragedy. The interview also goes into detail about specific props and costumes used and why Thompson made the decisions he did. Of course I knew a lot of work went into putting on a production, but it made me realize how each decision will affect the outcome of the play and what impression it had on the audience.

The connection between the O.J. Simpson story and Othello was thought provoking. It’s amazing that news and current events can affect the popularity of a show that has been around for so many years. As the Thompson said he believed that the audience came to see a similar story written 400 years earlier, which is a concept that saddens me. It shows that although we have made strides in civil rights, racism is still something that affects our culture and everyday life.

Othello

Reading Othello was somewhat difficult at first. The old English was hard to understand, but once I got into the story I really enjoyed it. It amazed me how manipulative and conniving Iago was. He was truly a puppet master controlling the actions of everyone around him. The way he orchestrated his whole plan to get back at Cassio was quite impressive. It was frustrating to watch each character fall into his trap. They all had such trust in him and even if someone questioned what he was saying he always had a response prepared. Even the way he talked to each character was well executed. For example, he didn’t just tell Othello that his wife was cheating on him; Iago planted thoughts of jealousy into Othello’s head and had him come up with the idea of cheating on his own.

It annoyed me how Iago’s wife Emilia did not find out why he wanted the handkerchief. The placement of the handkerchief was the last piece of evidence Othello used to confirm that his wife was cheating on him. If Emilia had possibly spoken up that her husband had taken it then Desdemona may have not been killed. Reading the truth come out at the end of the play was saddening. The fact that one man’s words and actions created so much chaos and two deaths was very unfortunate and made me wish that they had thought twice before listening to Iago.

Tragedy

Growing up I learned about different genres of literature, but after reading Aristotle’s Poetics, and Arthur Miller’s Tragedy and the Common Man, I realized I only grazed the surface of what each genre entailed. To me a comedy was funny, a drama was exciting and emotional, and a tragedy was sad. According to these two writers there is specific criteria that makes a piece of literature a good tragedy. I thought it was interesting to see how each of these writers broke down the components of tragedies, and they changed the way I will read tragedies in the future.

Aristotle listed six elements that are a necessity to tragedies, which are, plot, characters, verbal expression, thought, visual adornment, and song composition. When I think about literature I always just assumed characters were a necessity therefore, I thought it was interesting when I read, “a tragedy cannot exist without a plot, but it can without characters.” After thinking about this statement it made sense because without a plot no message or outcome will be presented to the reader. As he said a tragedy is meant to portray a life, an action, which can be done through the plot and strategic structuring of incidents.

Miller’s comment that stated that it was a misconception that tragedy is associated with pessimism stood out to me. As I stated before I believed this misconception. His explanation as to how tragedies are optimistic is interesting and completely makes sense. The tragic hero’s refusal to stay passive to regain his status or dignity is honorable and optimistic. The next time I read a tragedy I am going to look for the optimism in the literature.

Medea

The play Medea was full of conniving and vicious, acts and thoughts. I couldn’t believe what great lengths Medea would go to seek revenge on her husband. Her plotting and scheming scared me. At the start of the play I was thinking about how separation and remarriage has been apart of our society for centuries. I find it interesting that this tragedy’s initial conflict is based on a husband leaving his wife, and many of today’s movies, books and plays are based on a similar plot. While reading I thought to myself that the words Medea was speaking seemed awfully familiar to me and then I realized it reminded me of the movie The First Wives Club. Similar to Medea, the women in this movie were left by their husbands for younger women and sought revenge for the pain and humiliation their men had caused. One of the women even used her daughter to find out information about her husband, which seemed comparable to Medea using her children to get on Jason’s good side.

The comparison stopped in my mind as soon as I read that Medea was willing to kill her own children to induce pain on her husband. This idea seemed insane to me. I thought it was interesting to see how Medea was willing to kill her children to get what she wanted whereas Creon was willing to die for his daughter because he was so upset she was killed.

Death of a Salesman

Throughout the play I found the relationship between Biff and Willy to be very interesting. Right from the start you know there is tension in their relationship and get a sense of how Willy views Biff. I began to wonder what led them to reach this point in their relationship. After hearing how Willy perceived Biff it was interesting to see how they interacted when Biff was still in high school. It was evident that Biff was Willy’s favorite and really took great interest in him. Willy really built up Biff’s confidence and had great dreams and aspirations as to what Biff would do after high school.

The moment that changed this father son relationship was not revealed until near the end of the play. Biff unintentionally interrupted Willy and his mistress on a business trip, which leads Biff to view his father differently forever. He no longer believes in all the encouragement his father supplied him with throughout high school and feels deceived. After reading about this encounter the animosity between these two made sense. This scene helped me grasp how Willy and Biff think differently. Willy has a warped perception of the world and doesn’t always accept the truth, whereas Biff has a much better sense of reality.

I admired Biff in the last scene of the play. It probably took a lot of courage to finally tell his father how he felt, and reveal his secrets and lies. He knew that even though his brother and father had led a life that was padded with lies, that he would be better off just starting over fresh with everything out in the open.

Fires in the Mirror

I found the play "Fires in the Mirror" to be extremely thought provoking and gave me a new perspective on the Crown Heights crisis. It took me awhile to really get into the play, but overall it was enjoyable. The use of interviews for this show I believe was genius. It truly shows exactly how each person felt and perceived the situation. It was as if I was seeing the same event happen through many different peoples eyes. I found the structure of the play to be very interesting, but at times confusing. For example, at the start of the play I was extremely confused as to what was going on and who exactly was being interviewed. At certain points I felt as if I had grasped what the play writer was trying to convey, but then found myself lost again. The headings gave me some guidance, but it really all came together when I began to read the monologues following the “Crown Heights, Brooklyn, August 1991” heading. While reading, I wondered why the writer ordered the play in this way, and if there was another message I was missing that was expressed through the sequence of these interviews. After concluding the play I had a greater understanding of the relevance of the interviews in the beginning, and how they contributed to the overall message. They set the tone of who lived in this neighborhood, how they identified themselves and the rising tension that would eventually explode into a crisis.

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