The Merchant of Venice

An interesting point I found in watching The Merchant of Venice was the appearance of a reoccurring theme throughout the semester; prejudices. The prejudice focused on in Merchant was differing religions. Shylock disliked everyone else in the play because they were all Christians. And reversely everyone else in the play disliked Shylock because he was Jewish! This theme never gets old, I can plays based off of prejudices a million times over and it still will interest me (as long as I'm not reading the same play a million times over, I'm talking about reading different plays which total up to a million plays!). I mean think about it, there is some form of prejudice feelings between characters in ALL the plays we read (except maybe Art, unless you consider the idea that the friends are prejudice against the forms of art the others like). Also think of this, Shakespeare wrote this play in the late 1500's, M Butterfly was written in the late 1900's. And both can be related to society today. I just thought it was interesting that no matter what type of play you read or watch there is always going to be a point of prejudice somewhere in the plot.

M Butterfly or "The Art of Spinning Amadeus, Joe Turner, all my sons, and Mother Courage into Doubt about thier buried child"

In class Professor Newby asked us how "M Butterfly" was similar to the other plays we watched. I decided to start from the beginning:

Art: The elements of theatricality in both the plays adds to their meaning. In both plays characters stop in the middle of a conversation turn to the audience and speak to them. This adds to the story because you get the first hand feelings of the characters.

Spinning into Butter: Both Spinning into Butter and M Butterfly have another story that is prevalent within the main story. In Spinning into Butter the story of the Little Samba was an older story that had a plot similar to that of what happened in Spinning into Butter. In M Butterfly the story of Madame Butterfly is brought up.

Amadeus: This one is simple, and we talked about it in class, the simple fact that both stories start with the main character talking to the audience then tell their story of how that got to where they were at the start of the play. Also both end with the main character attempting to kill themselves, the difference is that in M Butterfly Rene succeeds.

Joe Turner's Come and Gone: This one is a little more difficult to draw a relation unless you think of the idea of coming and going. In Asia there was a lot of coming and going from Europeans and Americans. One of the ideas is that Rene gets his higher up position because of the movement of people and if he fails he to will be moved back to France.

All My Sons: Both plays have the idea that during non-peace time you need to do whatever is possible to survive, whether moral or not. This is what both Joe and Song have to do, it doesn't matter who it hurts as long as they survive.

Mother Courage: This one is the same as All My Sons.

Doubt: Now I had to absolute hardest time with this one; Just like Sister Aloysius, Chin questions how Song is going about doing her job.

Did I miss any ideas? Or can you think of linking ideas that are better then the ones I came up with?

The Lullaby

The song I decided to take a look at was the Lullaby sung by Mother Courage at the end of the play. She is singing this song to her dead daughter Kattrin. The irony of the song is that she is singing about how wonderful Kattrin's life is, as if she were still alive and just a crying baby. The second line is: "The neighbor's kids cry but mine are gay". I think that Brecht put this line in there to show that Mother Courage thoroughly believes that she did the best thing in carrying her kids through the war, despite the fact that she lost all three of her kids. This song shows the strength of a women in her darkest hour. It made me feel sad for her, when I wouldn't have because I kind of think she deserves it.

Lullaby:
"Lullaby, baby, what's that in the hay?
The neighbor's kids cry but mine are gay.
The neighbor's kids are dressed in dirt:
Your silks were cut from an angel's skirt.
They are all starving: you have pie.
If it's to stale, you need only cry.
Lullaby, baby, what's that in the hay?
One lad fell in Poland. The other, who can say?"

Does any find anything else in here that I missed?

Buried Child

Okay, between the way Sam Shepard was presented and people who had read the play were talking about it in class I was once again not happy to have to read this play. The only difference was I had no clue what the play was about, so I read the back of the script and still had no clue what the play was about. Then I read the play and still had no clue what the play was about. Here's the strange thing about this all, despite the fact that I had and still have no clue what happened I liked that play. I feel like with this play Professor Newby said it all in her comment that Sam Shepard's plays are all about the "experience of the play."

I really would like to see this play done on stage because I feel like the majority of it is lost in reading. Like the scene where Tilden covers Dodge with the corn husks, in reading it you're thinking about how long and ridiculous this section of stage directions is. But, I think that if you're to see this action the feeling would be different, I'd probably laugh because I wouldn't know what else to do; I mean if you think about it, it is a kind of ridiculous thing to do. This script had a LOT more stage directions then anything else we've read which means a lot of the experience of the play is in watching the characters and their movements on the stage.

The play doesn't really make sense but I don't think that matters, does anyone else feel like it doesn't matter that there is no rhyme or reason to this play?

All My Sons

One thing that we discussed in class that really grabbed my attention was the neighbors and why Miller might of put them in this play.

The play opens with Keller talking to the neighbors while sitting on his porch. As the reader you feel like this is a happy place where everyone is close and content with their lives. This contrasts how you feel when reading the scenes without the neighbors. Once Kate enters and starts yelling at Joe about the jail thing, you realize maybe everything's not okay and then you begin to wonder what could possibly be wrong.

I feel that if Miller didn't put the neighbors in the play then there would be no calm/comical moments. Instead the play would be full of tense moments, whether a upfront tense or a hidden tension between the characters. The neighbors are really important in making the tense scenes have more impact. If the whole play was tense the reader would get bored and not care anymore.

For those who didn't like the neighbors; how exactly did you feel the neighbors detracted from the play?

My Son is Crazy...but Promising

I went and saw this play on Saturday and I loved it. My first judgement of plays is always based off the same criteria, "Would I want to be in it?", and for this play the answer was "YES!" "My Son is Crazy...But Promising" was one of the greatest character plays I've ever watched. I'm the type of person who never wants to play the romantic lead, it's to boring, and always wants to play the villian or the crazy chorus person.

Then I thought; "Kate, you're in a Dramatic Liteature class and you have been taught how to analzye plays, now do it." So, on a second judgement of the play it was alright. It definitly was a play fit to be done in the college atmosphere. There was no substance to the plot and alot of what happened was downright unrealistic, and I'm not talking about the aliens. But since I'm on the topic of the aliens, I don't understand the point of having them peek into the scene's randomly. If they appeared before the end of the play that might of made more sense, but, since their offically made their enterance in the last second the peeking in through the front door made no sense to me.

So, on a first shallow analysis of this play it was wonderful. However on a second more indepth analysis of the play it wasn't as great as I thought it was. If I ever had the chance to perform in this play I would in a heartbeat but if I ever had the chance to watch this play again I don't think I would. Now, if anyone noticed something in the plot that I missed that would make the play make more sense to me please fill me in.

"Doubt A Parable"

Last year my High School English class went to see a local professional group do perform this play as one of the three plays we had to see that year and I thoroughly disliked it. So, when I heard that I had to read "Doubt" I wasn't all to excited about it. I understand the point that Shanley is trying to make in the play, that it is a statement about actions that have been taking place within the Church, and I think that he did a wonderful job in presenting that point. "Doubt" is wonderfully written and full of meaning but I just don't like it. After reading it I sat down and skimmed it over again in the hopes that I could figure out why I don't like the play. One of the reasons I came up with was the characters, none of which I liked. Father Flynn's character is just sketchy and I can see why Sister Aloysius had her doubts about him. Sister Aloysus just makes me angry with every word she says; she is a hot headed, hypocritical, mean person. Sister James is another person who just makes me angry with every word she says; she's simple and something about her makes me want to yell at her to open her eyes and stand up for herself. I don't even like Mrs. Muller, who's only in one scene. What kind of Mother tells the Principal of the school her kid is attending that it doesn't matter what Father James is doing to him as long as her son graduates from the school?

I did find however that I disliked it less when reading it then I did when I watched it being performed. I think that is because when watching it the physical gestures and physical statements of the characters intensified my dislike for them.

Did anyone feel completely turned off by this play? To the point where they stopped reading because they couldn't take it anymore?

"Joe Turner's Come and Gone"

The play "Joe Turner's Come and Gone", by August Wilson was one of my favorite plays we've read thus far. Wilson truly portrays society and the difficulties faced by many blacks during this time period. Being a history junkie I really enjoy reading plays and novels that are all about the culture of the time period. Wilson wrote his cycle of plays to do just that, depict the African American culture at different points throughout the nineteenth century. Without the deep infusion of the culture of this time period "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" would not have been as powerful as it was. It would have been a story about some people and a guy who has a magic spell that binds people. But, with the richness of culture the story is about this group of African Americans all at different points in their post-slavery life. You have Seth, a second generation freeman, Bynum, a former slave, Loomis, never in slavery but one of Joe Turner's men. The interaction between each of these people creates a wonderful dynamic on stage. Also a lot of the play is about how African Americans did a lot of coming and going during this time period. It's this coming and going that really pushes the plot to it's climax. So, I really enjoyed how much culture Wilson put into "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" and now want to read some of the other books from his cycle.

"Everyone's A Little Bit Racist"

While rereading Sarah's monologues all I could think of this the song "Every one's A Little Bit Racist" from the Broadway Musical "Avenue Q". So posted is a link to a video of the London cast performing this live. The sound is off but I think that everyone should take the time to listen to the lyrics (which are slightly different from the ones in the US version since they have inserted British humor) they really are insightful and relate to the theme of "Spinning into Butter" and the idea of always being PC. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9CSnlb-ymA&feature=related



The last verse of the song goes as follows:

"Every one's a little bit racist, it's true. But everyone is just about as racist as you! If we all could just admit that we are racist a little bit, and everyone stop being so PC, maybe we could live in harmony."



I think this relates to the play in that one of the driving forces of the play is the need to be PC. But, when you think about it being PC sometimes can be a bigger problem then just stating your mind, as exemplified in "Spinning into Butter." So, if everyone stopped being PC would we live in harmony or would racism be worse?

"Spinning Into Butter"

The other day in class we discussed the idea of why Simon was not written into the play. As a class we came up with many theatrical and artistic reasons as to why Simon had no "stage time." We thought that the author did this to keep the focus on Sarah, make him more then a character, allow you to draw your own conclusions, or to give us the factor of hearing what is said when Simon's not there.

Then Professor Newby asked the class, "What if I told you Simon wasn't written into the play because Gilman didn't want to write in a black character?", and some of us just stared. So then we talked about how that's kind of a cope out answer to the question of "Where's Simon". But, I think that maybe it's not a cope out answer but the truth and maybe Sarah's monologue is from Gilman. Maybe Gilman's the racist and she wrote the play, just like Sarah wrote the list, to get all out. Mo'e said how the feelings in the play had to come from someone with that experience, but Mo'e was talking about how Gilman could have talked to some black people to be able to write them. Taking that to heart, could the source of Sarah's monologue be Gilman?

"Art"

I feel that "Art" was a in depth portrayal of human nature done in a way that was insightful and entertaining at the same time. The whole time I was reading this I kept comparing it back to the playground scene in elementary school. Now, where I went to school we didn't have a playground so we held recess in a parking lot thus a lot of "he said, she said" and kid like arguments took place. I mean what else are kids to do when we can't even play with balls since they could roll into the road. In order to have fun at recess kids would sometimes bring in their "cool" toy to show everyone. It is the antics that always followed when a toy was brought in that I related to Serge showing Marc his new painting. What ensued was Marc made fun of Serge then ran and told Ivan about it. Ivan then ran to Serge and was nice about the painting. Then Serge told Marc what Ivan said and Marc told Serge what Ivan said. Then, both got mad a Ivan for saying different things. To me that seems like some playground antics to me. But, the genius behind it was that Yasmina Reza took a simple scenario you could watch any given day at your local playground and applied it to a group of adults. Adults who are supposed to be more mature and grown-up then Elementary students...I guess there's a little kid left in us all now isn't there?

Here's a link to a clip of two little kids fighting over toys...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRxLm4afZXw

... Think about how the baby further from the camera has Elmo first (Serge buys a painting), so the Baby that appears closest to the camera feels the need to demean the others toy (Marc making fun of Serge for buying the painting). I know this is a weak link between the two, all the videos on YouTube were of course violent ones, but the link is still there for analysis.

Why? (DL)

The question I will be addressing in this blog is "Why, in a world where we value new technology, in a world where we can watch TV and movies on handheld devices, would someone go to the theatre? Why keep doing it?" Simply put I think that people still go to the theatre and watch shows because it is a completely different experience then watching the TV or a movie.

These three things are all very different concepts that have different aspects and purposes in society. On TV you can watch shows that range from a half an hour to an hour, and now even five minute shows in between the longer ones. When you watch movies they range from a little over an hour to six hours spread over three disks. The similar thing between these two mediums of entertainment is that they're not "live", you, the viewer, are staring at a screen as people you don't know act out a story for you. This is not "candid" (with the exception of the rising popularity of reality television shows) the director can stop and re shoot a scene as many times as he/she wants to until he/she thinks it is perfect.

One the other hand Theatre is a whole other form of entertainment in and of it-self. When watching a show being performed on stage it is a one-hundred percent different experience. You see the actors, you are part of the show, it's more "real". When watching a play it is as if you really are glimpsing into a different time and place and spying on those who live there. When an actor cries on stage you can physically see their tears fall, for me theatre is much more believable and entrancing then TV or movies are.

Also there's something special about theatre that TV and movies don't have and that is the audience. Yes, some TV shows are "filmed in front of a live audience" but that doesn't mean when they mess up they have to improv their way through it, they still get to stop shooting and re shoot the scene. I my-self am an actress and have been since I was a little kid, and nothing is more exhilarating then going on stage and seeing all the faces in the audience looking at you and your fellow actors and actresses just waiting to be let into the World you're about to show them. When someone messes up on stage there's no stopping and restarting you just have to keep going. Sometimes its these little slip ups that makes each show unique and an experience unlike any other.

TV and movies have their pros; you can watch them over and over, you can pause, rewind, even stop and take a break. You can't do these things in Theatre. Although TV, movies, and theatre all serve the some purpose, to entertain, they are almost so different they're incomparable. But, it's these differences that makes each one of then special in their own right and makes it so that all three can exist without one becoming a "lost" art form.