http://chassitycurlean.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-drowsy-chaperone.html?showComment=1367716791013#c4778499593146748322
http://ckeith2130.blogspot.com/2013/05/fires-in-mirror.html?showComment=1367716987808#c343679325986446402
http://dontstopmemeow2130.blogspot.com/2013/05/drowsy-chaperone.html?showComment=1367717188562#c8104146888640379533
http://frequentingplays.blogspot.com/2013/05/viewing.html?showComment=1367717334577
http://dvibe2130.blogspot.com/2013/04/three-viewings.html?showComment=1367717558400#c1907993593849053802
Saturday, May 4, 2013
Show and Tell Post - Our Town
I chose to do my Show and Tell post on a play called Our Town. I read this when I was younger and fell in love with it! It has three acts and was written in 1938 by Thornton Wilder, an American playwright. Our Town was first performed in Princeton, New Jersey at the McCarter Theater on January 22, 1938. It later was produced on Broadway and won a Pulitzer Prize for drama. In 1989, it received the award of Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Revival and also a Tony Award for Best Revival. Obivously, this is a very well-known play and many people like it, as do I.
Our Town set in the thirties in a fictional town, Grover's Corners. The Stage Manager introduces the audience to this town. In Act 1, many people are introduced and tell about the history of this town. Then Emily and George are introduced as young students at school. Emily proceeds to ask her mom if she's pretty right after she had just finished talking to George. The Stage Manager then tells the audience about how a time capsule is being placed in the cornerstone of a bank. He says that a copy of this play will be placed in it. Towards the end of this Act, Emily exchanges answers to a test with George; Doc Gibbs teaches George a lesson about responsibility; some ladies talk about the drunkard choir teacher; and Rebecca talks about how she's scared the moon will hit the earth and cause a big explosion.
Act 2 rolls along and three years have passed. George and Emily are now getting ready to be married. The whole day is filled with complete stress: Howie is delivering milk in the rain, Si Crowell is telling George that his baseball talent will go to waste if he marries, and George visits his future in-laws and it's a bit awkward. The Stage Manager then interrupts and takes the audience back a year. It's so confusing when you keep going back and forth through years while reading a play. It's hard to keep up and that's one thing I don't really like about this play. Other than that, it's amazing! Anyways, it's George and Emily's junior year. They have an ice cream coke together and discuss their future with each other. Emily talks about George's pride. George tells her that he did want to go to college, but now he wants to take over his uncle's farm instead. The wedding follows and we see George telling his mom about how he's not so sure he's ready to marry anymore. After this, I keep reading so fast wanting to know what's going to happen next. This Act definitely kept me on my toes. So exhilarating!
In Act 3, it's been nine years since Act 2 and the Stage Manager begins with a long monologue about eternity and then we proceed to be in a cemetery. Many characters have died since: Mrs. Gibbs got pneumonia in her travels, Wally Webb, Emily's brother, had a burst appendix while camping and Emily wishes he wouldn't have gone, Mrs. Soames and Simon committed suicide by hanging themselves, and Emily died while giving birth to her second child. Emily doesn't want to be forgotten or forget her home town. She wants to live among everyone else. Emily decides to return and relive one day even though she was told not to. She realizes they were right because it's too painful to see everyone not appreciating life truly for what it is. She then returns to her grave and watches George cry at it. The Stage Manager then ends the play with talking about how life isn't really lived on earth and then tells the audience "good night".
The end is sort of depressing, but this play truly makes one think about life. It makes you think about whether you're living it while you can and telling everyone you love, that you do love them. I performed a monologue of this for an acting class last year and it completely moved me. Our Town is a must read!
Our Town set in the thirties in a fictional town, Grover's Corners. The Stage Manager introduces the audience to this town. In Act 1, many people are introduced and tell about the history of this town. Then Emily and George are introduced as young students at school. Emily proceeds to ask her mom if she's pretty right after she had just finished talking to George. The Stage Manager then tells the audience about how a time capsule is being placed in the cornerstone of a bank. He says that a copy of this play will be placed in it. Towards the end of this Act, Emily exchanges answers to a test with George; Doc Gibbs teaches George a lesson about responsibility; some ladies talk about the drunkard choir teacher; and Rebecca talks about how she's scared the moon will hit the earth and cause a big explosion.
Act 2 rolls along and three years have passed. George and Emily are now getting ready to be married. The whole day is filled with complete stress: Howie is delivering milk in the rain, Si Crowell is telling George that his baseball talent will go to waste if he marries, and George visits his future in-laws and it's a bit awkward. The Stage Manager then interrupts and takes the audience back a year. It's so confusing when you keep going back and forth through years while reading a play. It's hard to keep up and that's one thing I don't really like about this play. Other than that, it's amazing! Anyways, it's George and Emily's junior year. They have an ice cream coke together and discuss their future with each other. Emily talks about George's pride. George tells her that he did want to go to college, but now he wants to take over his uncle's farm instead. The wedding follows and we see George telling his mom about how he's not so sure he's ready to marry anymore. After this, I keep reading so fast wanting to know what's going to happen next. This Act definitely kept me on my toes. So exhilarating!
In Act 3, it's been nine years since Act 2 and the Stage Manager begins with a long monologue about eternity and then we proceed to be in a cemetery. Many characters have died since: Mrs. Gibbs got pneumonia in her travels, Wally Webb, Emily's brother, had a burst appendix while camping and Emily wishes he wouldn't have gone, Mrs. Soames and Simon committed suicide by hanging themselves, and Emily died while giving birth to her second child. Emily doesn't want to be forgotten or forget her home town. She wants to live among everyone else. Emily decides to return and relive one day even though she was told not to. She realizes they were right because it's too painful to see everyone not appreciating life truly for what it is. She then returns to her grave and watches George cry at it. The Stage Manager then ends the play with talking about how life isn't really lived on earth and then tells the audience "good night".
The end is sort of depressing, but this play truly makes one think about life. It makes you think about whether you're living it while you can and telling everyone you love, that you do love them. I performed a monologue of this for an acting class last year and it completely moved me. Our Town is a must read!
Drowsy Chaperone
If I were talking about the as-is meta-show The Drowsy Chaperone, with duration I would say that the author gave the Man the most time on stage. The Man spoke quite a bit, but it's not that he talked so much. It's the fact that he was on stage for the entire show. He never left and was always there to comment and help us along with the show or question things we didn't think about before. Then, at the end of the play he joins the characters in the show-within-the-show The Drowsy Chaperone in their dialogue and songs. In the show-within-the-show, the duration of the man being on stage is incredibly short and only at the end. Also, the character, Trix, appears only at the beginning and end of the play. Her duration of stage time is very short.
Another Hornby element I looked at is irony. There was dramatic irony when Kitty and the gangsters knew about Feldzieg's attempting to ruin the wedding but no one else had a clue. There's also some irony in the fact that Tottingale and her slave, Underling, get married at the end. A slave and his "master" getting married is completely ironic.
Another Hornby element I looked at is irony. There was dramatic irony when Kitty and the gangsters knew about Feldzieg's attempting to ruin the wedding but no one else had a clue. There's also some irony in the fact that Tottingale and her slave, Underling, get married at the end. A slave and his "master" getting married is completely ironic.
On The Verge
If I were asked to design a poster or series of posters, I'd make about ten huge posters with every single confusing word that is crossed in this play. I see them each a different font and color just to be sort of distracting as they are in the play to have to go look the meanings up. I wouldn't necessarily define the words because I feel this is a play you should definitely read before and define the words yourself, every single word you don't know. I mean, that's what I did and it helped so much. Or maybe I would have the people pick a word they really want to know off the posters and then we'd somehow define it for them. Also on about the fifth/sixth poster, I'd put the tag line: A Jumbled Mess. First of all, the words are incredibly tangled up and confuse the reader from the beginning. It makes reading the play a big mess because looking up the word takes time, then applying it to the text and reading it over and figuring out what it's saying is just a "mess". Also, there are a bunch of weird interactions between characters and I think that makes it a jumbles mess in itself.
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