Prompt 11: Fires in the Mirror

So, it has come to my attention that there's a large part of the play that our artistic director wants to cut out, but let me tell you why this isn't in the best interest of the show. Although the included interviews are not related to the events surrounding the Crown Heights incident they are more an examination of ones self and where their beliefs/morals lie. The words in the monologues also contain background information that set up for the actual incident. Without these monologues of exposition it won't make any sense as to why the riot broke out in the first place. This information is needed to set up what is about to come when the play moves into the actual events of the riot. 

What good is experiencing event without first examining ourselves and our beliefs to decide where we stand on the matter. In order to be affected by the incidents that will later be explained in the monologues it must be show where people stand on race, religion, etc and how this event affects those beliefs.

Comment Links

Here is where I have posted.

http://dvibe2130.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-glass-of-water.html?showComment=1365642356316#c8275165854424705810

http://korn2130.blogspot.com/2013/04/buried-child.html?showComment=1365642875602#c1048169425749308451

http://dorapereli2130.blogspot.com/2013/04/water-by-spoonful-response.html?showComment=1365643503459#c7693743387575253119

http://2130coryvincent.blogspot.com/2013/04/detroit-detroit.html?showComment=1365798097877#c3078654923102995747

http://dvibe2130.blogspot.com/2013/04/water-by-spoonful.html?showComment=1365798967340#c6786107650897882560

Prompt 10: Detroit

Detroit was once a city that was thriving and creating jobs for the working man. To have a job making money and a family was an American dream that many wanted to achieve in their lifetime. However within the last several years the city has been on a decline. Many of factors there that once provided thousands of jobs have now closed and remain abandoned. Even though the play doesn't take place in Detroit, this idea of having a dream, or the American Dream, is still heavy in our time. In any city it is possible to achieve this dream or at least work towards it. That's why D'Amour didn't set it in just Detroit. Detroit isn't the only place that the American Dream can be achieved or lost. Portland, Oregon is currently experiencing the same thing. Many people who have worked hard in their job, have a family and home are being laid off from work. Suddenly they are struggling to put food on the table and pay for electricity. This can happen anywhere.

I also highly recommend the HBO Documentary Film American Winter which focuses on five families in Portland who are struggling with poverty.

Prompt 9: Water By The Spoonful

So the moment that I chose is scene 8 in the play particularly the later half where Yaz and Elliot go into Odessa's house to get her computer to pawn it. So basically in this scene Yaz and Elliot show up at Odessa's home to pawn her computer for money for the funeral. When they get there Elliot logs onto Odessa's website using her username and password. He goes into the chatroom as Haikumom where he starts questioning Orangutan about cocaine. She however realizes that it's not actually Odessa and Yaz reveals that it's actually her son. Organgutan knows him from his Colgate ad and from a story that Odessa shared online about him. Elliot gets angered by the fact this story has been shared with the world and rips out the computer and keyboard. 

What is interesting about this moment is perspective of the real world taking in the online world. Like how we talked in class today about how a message can have different meanings since you can't hear the inflections in peoples voices so you don't know if they're being sincere or sarcastic. Elliot is asking seriously about how crack feels to a person since he's well aware of Odessa's problem, but Orangutan takes it as a joke. When Elliot persists about it she gets freaked out and wants him to leave. This is a moment of how words can be misjudged, as I just explained. The play centers around characters recovering from an addiction, whether it's pain medication or cocaine; Addiction and recovery are often misunderstood just how the conversations between the real world and online world can become jumbled. Hudes wants to show that relationships different between online and reality which is why she has these intersecting moments of the two realities.

Dang. It's hard to do that without going towards the audience or saying 'I think' or something like that. Hope this made sense!

Prompt 8: Buried Child

So, I'm not quite sure how to respond to this prompt but I shall try my best. I don't think this play is so much about deception as it is more about denying the truth and pushing away their true identity. Every character in some form or another is crippled: Dodge is old and an alcoholic, Bradley is missing a leg, Halie is severely depressed, Tilden is not mentally capable of caring for his parents, Vince doesn't know his own identity/roots, Father Dewis is immoral and a coward, and Shelley is the outsider to this not-normal world Vince is part of. These defects as I'll call them have affected everyone severely that it blinds them from seeing the truth of the event or who they are. To me it seems so different from the plays listed is because of the secret of the buried child. It has affected every character to an extreme degree that it seems hard to believe that a human being could live that way denying such a dark memory/event. Shelley is the outsider in all this mess since she represents what an audience would see and even she finds it hard to believe how this family can function in their dysfunction. Uh, not sure if that answered the question but it's how I think this play is made differently if it made any sense.

Prompt 7: Noises Off

So although miscommunication and miscues are a big thing in this play, the one image that I can't stop thinking about is the idea of the sardines. One it's used in the play as a prop and talked about all the time, but also it's a metaphor for the characters performing in the play. Of course people know to be sardines as little oily fish in cans, but the idea of these fish being packed into the can is where I'm going with this. Usually the term is used when people are packed on a bus or subway train. The characters who are performing in the play are doing this show for a long period of time and must be together, packed in like sardines.  The idea of sardines kept popping up everywhere and it was driving me crazy so I knew that somehow these were important other than just being a prop in the show. That’s why the characters of the play are considered the sardines being packed together for the duration of the show.

For my tag line it would have to be containing chaos. Going back to my motif, sardines are packed tightly together and don’t get out of hand. However, these ‘sardines’ of the play have been packed together so long that eventually things start to get uncomfortable between them and chaos ensues. It doesn’t help either that there are several love affairs going on between cast and crew members of the show. Poppy, Lloyd, and Brooke are part of a love triangle and Poppy is eventually pregnant by Lloyd. Garry and Dotty have issues in the second act of the play. Overtime this tension slowly builds and eventually explodes from trying to be contained for so long.

Prompt 6: Glass of Water

It would appear in The Glass of Water that there is no main protagonist nor is there no main antagonist. Every character wants something for themselves but finds obstacles in their way. The way this play is set up is very much based on cause and effect. Every action that happens to one character affects another. For example, Masham has a secret protector that moves him up in rank and forbids him to be married. This affects Abigail since she’s in love with him and the idea of getting married is something that they hopefully want to achieve, which does happen by the end of the play, but not before the reader finds out that Masham’s protector is the Duchess who is also Abigail’s cousin and that the Queen is also in love with him. Masham’s main enemy, the finger snapping man, turns out to be Bolingbroke’s brother but finds this out only after killing him in a duel. There is an endless circle of characters interacting with each other and each of their actions affecting or influencing one another. Bolingbroke appears to be a main force in the play, but he’s not central enough to be considered the protagonist. He does have interaction with every character and gets what he wants by means through them. He gets certain papers signed by Masham, Abigail is an informant to him in the court, and the Duchess is a rival that he’s looking to beat at her own game. There is so much gossip and going behind people’s back to get what people want that it can almost get a little overwhelming if one isn’t paying close enough attention. Based on everyone’s dependence of each it leads me to believe that there is no main protagonist in The Glass of Water.