Prompt 3: The Conduct of Life

A dramaturgical choice that stood out to me most was the ending of the play. Rather than give closure to the end of the play she leaves us with a cliff hanger. Now most of the time cliff hangers like this drive me crazy, but I really liked this ending because it made me wonder just what would have happened next. I came to two options. Either Nena is supposed to take blame for Orlando's death or Leticia is asking for Nena to take her life with the gun. Honestly, I can see this going either way and which way it truly is supposed to end, well only Maria Irene Fornes knows the answer to that, but she wouldn't have ended it the way she did without a specific reason.

The actions of the play are violent and cruel but are there for a reason. Maria Irene Fornes is showing us a world that is heavily influenced by violence and the effects it has on both men and women of this world. The violence of the world itself has conditioned men and women to be aggressive, destructive and victimized. Each character is enduring a form of pain and the only way they can get deal with the pain or get rid of it is to put pain onto someone else. 

Oh, and I think that this is called The Conduct of Life because Nena raises the question of how she should go about her life with all the horrific things she encountered. She says 'I want to conduct each day of my life in the best possible way.' She then later says, 'And if someone should treat me unkindly, I should not blind myself with rage, but I should see them and receive them, since maybe they are in worse pain than me.' Unlike the other characters of this play, Nena chooses to accept and see people rather than retaliate with rage and hatred like the world around her.

Prompt 2: Trifles

I believe that this ‘blank & abstract’ proposal for Trifles could possibly work. I realize that the goal is to focus on the actors and not the props, but I do feel that the props are an important part of this play. However, since there would be a lack of set and costumes this will be effective in achieving the goal of the production. The main focus of the play are of course the women. They sympathize with Minnie. The caged bird is usually used as a reference to women, in this case it’s referring to Minnie who used to sing before she was married then forced to stop by her husband. There is a difference here in emotions between the men and the women of this play. The men are too busy looking for cold hard evidence to see the truth that is right in front of them. 

The men of this production are much more cold towards Minnie as they look for their evidence to understand just who killed John Wright. While the women are going through Minnie’s ‘trifles’ and slowly begin to piece together from these items that she is in fact the killer. I think that by stripping down this production to something very bare will have the audience listening more carefully and will allow them to put the pieces of the puzzle together for themselves. There have been several times when I have gone to a show and people don’t understand what’s going on because they’re not listening. By stripping away all the extra flash such as the costumes and the setting, this will really have the audience mainly focused on the actors and what they are saying since there are limited items for distraction. So yes, I agree that a ‘black & abstract’ production of this show would be a very successful show.

Prompt One: Overtones Response

After reading the play and skimming it a second time, I was able to separate time when Hetty & Maggie see/talk to each other and when they do not. I put a word to each of these moments, several times they occur only in Maggie & Hetty. For example, when they are seeing/talking to each other they are in moments of disbelief/lies, confrontation, and fighting over the same person they love. For example, there is a moment where both women are talking about Turkey. Hetty believes that Maggie was never in Turkey and she shoots back to Hetty that it’s none of her business. This was a moment of confrontation between the two. The same thing happens between two people with issues between them. They’re looking for weaknesses in each other without giving it away. And when they didn’t see each other they were trying to make one another look better with impression, plotting to get what they want, or have an inner moment of confession about a fact. Many times they are unseen when scheming with their true selves or looking for a way to impress the other and them reveling in that satisfaction.

I believe what this play has done is bring what me may consider to be out inner selves and put them on stage as if they were outside our head influencing us. And it may be obvious in the play directions who is talking to who, but I think it would be easily conveyed on the stage based on the lines in the play along with the idea of Maggie & Hetty wearing chiffon veils to cover themselves. Looking at the rules and the findings that I’ve made from reading the play I believe that the rules set in place are consistent throughout the entire show. Each time the inner selves speak to each other or ignore each other they are following the moments that I’ve discovered in the play.