Prompt 8 on Buried Child

Fun play again, huh? Well, I mean "fun" not so much in a "ha-ha" sense as a "WTF?" sense, right?

Story time: Buried Child was one of the first plays Dr. Fletcher ever taught to students. Indeed, way back in the early 00's, back when Dr. Fletcher was not yet "Dr." Fletcher, I was a Section Instructor for several semesters of Intro to Theatre class at the University of Minnesota. Now, at the U of MN, Intro to Theatre was a course for both majors and non-majors. All theatre majors had to start their coursework with Intro. It was also a "writing-intensive" course, meaning that one of the major assignments was an analytic essay (with first draft, feedback, and revisions) on a play.

Most often, the choice of plays for students to write about consisted of Joe Turner's Come and Gone (a great play by August Wilson) and Buried Child. Oddly enough, the students read Buried Child in conjunction with the textbook's section on theatrical realism.

This conjunction--realism and Buried Child--didn't really work. Students kept trying to read and write about the play as a piece of theatrical realism, and they kept running up against little bits of the play that just didn't fit.

Why do you think so?

I mean, in many ways, Buried Child is fairly realistic (again, we're talking "theatrical realism," aka "illusionism" here--not "real" as in "honest/true"). There's a fourth-wall convention. The dialogue is more or less slice-of-life (i.e., it's not in blank verse, rhymed couplets, or song). The setting seems fairly what-you-see-is-what-you-get. No characters have their "inner selves" literally hovering behind them, hissing instructions or commands into their ears.

So: realism, right? Shepard presents a plot via an illusion-of-everyday-life accumulation of surface details.

Your prompt, then: suggest some element or elements in the play that seem to run counter to the kind of presentational conventions of illusionistic realism. What makes the world of planet Buried Child so fundamentally different from the worlds of planet Trifles, planet Glass of Water, or planet Noises Off? Is what we see what we get in Buried Child? If not, where/how/to what end? (Hint: if you're confused, start with trying to find instances of irony, ambiguity, or complexity in the script. Is this a play of black-and-white, truth-and-deception realities, like a well-made play? Or is it something else?)

JF

Prompt 7 on Noises Off

Fun play, huh?

Unfortunately, that fun factor is part of what makes this play challenging for a class like this. Over and beyond the play's length and complexity (a play within a play!), the sheer force of this script's entertainment value makes it difficult for us to look beyond the main gimmick and the fast-paced jokes to see its dramaturgical structure.

Many people mount this play--and other farces like it--with no other plan than simply to have everything go quickly and smoothly. They traffic direct in order to "just do the script as written"--and that's it. To be sure, no production of Noises Off can dare go without an extra-long rehearsal period and/or a super-experienced cast (to say nothing of the requisite army of prop/set people). I mean, imagine what happens if even one prop gets misplaced or broken!

But--and you'll have to trust me on this, dear ones--even a tight and funny script like this needs something more than a cast capable of mouthing Frayn's lines and going through the script's motions energetically. I've seen such "we'll just do the play as written" productions of farces before. They're deadly. Sure, there's a laugh now and then. But there's also gaping, agonizing stretches of laugh-less, directionless, going-through-the-paces floundering. It's like a bad horror movie where the only good scenes are the monster parts or a bad action movie where the only good parts are the fight/chase scenes.

Even a play like this--especially a play like this--needs some dramaturgical analysis. All things being equal (i.e., a competent cast/crew, sufficient rehearsal time), the difference between a great production of Noises Off and a weary slog through Noises Off is whether the production team has done their homework to find out how and why this script ticks. Just to get your mental juices flowing, think on these questions for a bit:

• Where does the tempo fluctuate? It's easy to see the high-energy, level-10 moments in the script. But where are the level-1 moments? Are there points in the play that are intentionally low-tempo or even standstill? 
• In terms of rhythm, what's at stake in this script? What generates tension? Are the high-tension moments always the same as the high-tempo moments?
• Thinking about duration, consider what gets a surprising amount of stage time here. Bypass the easy answers of "the script!" or "the play within a play!" What kind of actions, scenes, conversations, or moments aside from the play the characters are rehearsing get stage time?
• In terms of choice, what does Frayn show us? What does he keep hidden? Do we see more of the story as the script goes on or less?
• Note where Frayn goes beyond the standard farce/well-made play reliance on dramatic irony (though there's lots of that here) and dabbles in outright ambiguity. When don't we know what's going on? How does ambiguity (deliberate mystery) play with or play against irony (clear contrast between appearance and reality)?

For this post (finally, Dr. Fletcher!), though, I want you to think about progression. Two tasks:

• First, relate to me a motif that you see in the play. Just to make it challenging, make this motif something more specific than the standard "miscommunications" or "miscues" that you'd find in any farce. Ideally, choose a motif that you think others might likely miss on a first read-through. Explain and justify this motif (give me a "for instance").
• Second, choose and justify for me a "tag line" for this play--a line from the script that encapsulates what you see as the driving force or unifying principle in this script. 

Of course, if you wanted to ruminate on some of the other questions I ask above as well, be my guest.

Best,

JF

Prompt 6 on Glass of Water

Whew! I'm back from the conference St. Louis, where doing things other than helping to run the St. Louis conference proved impossible. Thus, we're delaying reading/discussing Glass of Water. Since this posting prompt is going up only today, I'll be flexible with the due dates for your response prompts. Anything before this Saturday is fine. I'd encourage you, however, to post prior to Wednesday's class while the play is fresh in your mind.

Here's a simple-yet-complex question for this play: who is the protagonist? Whose struggles are most central to the plot? Whose conflicts and triumphs receive the most stage time? Whom does Scribe want us to root for the most? How do you know?

Or--maybe--is the who-is-the-protagonist question not really useful for this script? If that's the case, why? How do you know?


State your case. Defend your case. Persuade your readers.

JF

Prompt 5 on Hornby

Greetings, from Georgia, where Dr. Fletcher's cold seems worse and his smartphone doesn't seem to work. Odd, that.

So--hopefully you've had a chance to think and re-think (and perhaps even re-read) about the Hornby we started to discuss last time.

For your posting for Hornby, I'd like you to think about motif--a repeated line, image, or pattern of action in a play text--specifically in relation to the element of scripts that Hornby calls Progression. Recall that progression for Hornby involves lines, images, patterns that foreshadow future plot events, that recall past plot events, or mirror plot events elsewhere in the script.

I have two questions for your prompt:

First--for either How I Learned to Drive or The Conduct of Life, identify some motif in the script. Find something in the text that happens again and again: a line, a word, an image, a sound, an action, a pattern--something. Describe what that something is and explain how it repeats. Some questions to consider (you don't need to address each one of these exactly): Does the motif you identify work to foreshadow? Reflect? Mirror? Is the repetition a perfect copy or is there some revision or development to the motif as it recurs? How might that repeated something relate to themes or issues or other patterns in the script?

Second--identify and describe a motif in some dramatic production (theatre, TV, movie, web, etc.) that we don't read/study in this class. Write a little bit about how the author, director, designers, or even actors use this motif in the completed production. Consider: is motif in a fully realized production different than motif in a script? If so, how?

I'll give you all of the Mardi Gras holiday to post on this topic (i.e., a week from now). Remember, though, to use your no-class-on-Friday-the-8th wisely. The time you'd otherwise be in Dr. Fletcher's class would be an excellent occasion to create your special show-and-tell post prior to the first Blog Checkpoint (coming up soon! Check your syllabus on Moodle!).

As always, contact Dr. Fletcher if you have questions or concerns.

Best,

JF

Not a Posting Prompt--just a Guide for reading Hornby

OK, folks--it's the last non-play reading of the semester: a selection from Richard Hornby's Script into Performance. Like a lot of academic writing, it's not meant for casual encounters. You aren't supposed to read it in the same way you'd read a novel or a blog post. You may find you need to take notes. You may need to re-read parts of the text to get them. You may even want to mark passages that just seem nonsensical to you. Don't worry if there are sections you don't get. Skip those and move on. You'll get more than you think.

As with the Fuchs--put your own "what do I, personally, think of this writer?" on pause. It's most important to me, initially at least, that you get a solid grasp on Hornby's process of analysis. You can decide for yourself if you like it/him or not later.

In what follows, then, I'm going to give you some questions that can hopefully guide you as you read the Hornby chapters. You do not need to answer these questions in a post or paper or anything (though you are always welcome to post about it if you'd like). You should, however, keep track of the answers to them as you read. The reading quiz on Hornby we'll take on Wednesday deals with these issues.

Here's what to keep in mind while reading the text.

• In the first chapter I'm having you read, Richard Hornby (the author) takes Aristotle's Poetics as his starting point. Specifically, he writes about Aristotle's six elements of tragedy. You remember those, right?
• Hornby says these six elements are great, but he says Aristotle's method is incomplete. How so?
• Hornby then offers six dramatic elements of his own. These six are essential for you to know. Mark them well, take notes on them, get a grasp on what he means by each of them. They're the core of the approach to script analysis we're using through the rest of the semester. 
• Actually, I would suggest that you think of Hornby's six elements as a question you ask about play scripts. For example, his element sequence essentially asks the question, "What effect does the playwright's ordering of events in the plot have?" For yourself, I recommend you come up with a question 
• In what way are Hornby's six elements different than Aristotle's?

In the next Hornby chapter, he goes into his process for analyzing plays using his six elements. (Again, we're still in the guide-for-reading; you don't need to write out the answers to these on a blog or anything.)

• Hornby starts by talking about his process as a heuristic. What does he mean?
• Hornby argues that criticism (analysis) is a creative process. How is it creative?
• What are the steps in his "meta-method" of analysis?
• Suppose you encounter a detail or element of the play script that doesn't seem to fit. What does Hornby say you should do with such an element?
• What does Hornby mean by a "unifying principle"? 
• At what point should you (the analyst) come up with a unifying principle for a text?
• What should you do after you come up with a unifying principle for a text?

 OK. That's the guide.

I'll create a Prompt for a posting on Hornby for you to do on Friday on your own.

For now, just come to class with the Hornby text and with any notes you take on this text.

Best,

JF

Prompt 4 on Vogel

Here's a prediction: more people in class will take a liking to this play, at least at first, than to Conduct of Life.

As I mentioned in class, How I Learned to Drive is more of a general-audiences (general adult audiences) crowd-pleaser than just about anything Fornes has written. That's not to say, though, that Vogel's play is just good old-fashioned naturalism. You'll note pretty quickly that Vogel establishes a number of dramaturgical conventions--a Greek chorus, for example--that make her play especially, well, theatrical.

I have two tasks for you in this post. 

First, and pretty simply: why the whole Greek chorus thing? I mean, what effect or effects flow from the choice to have a small chorus (which isn't all that Greek, FYI) portray every character but Lil' Bit and Peck? Think again of what we talked about in class: the medium is the message. The question isn't only about what Vogel protrays; it's how she chooses to portray it.What effect does the Greek chorus choice have on the story she presents?

Second: relate something else in the play--a convention Vogel adopts (something besides the chorus), a moment she stages (or doesn't stage), a dramaturgical choice she makes--that at least at first doesn't make much sense to you. Describe the "something" and make a guess or two about what function it serves. Or, if you're really stuck about what this choice means, pose it to your fellow classmates and ask for their help. See if they can help you figure out what this something is in the play for.

Best,

JF

Prompt 3 on Fornes

And now for something completely different, amirite?

Alice Gerstenberg lays out characters' every inner thought and desire in Overtones. Susan Glaspell fills her stage with surface details. In their own ways, these two plays each paint a complete picture of their world. One is a complete psychological picture; one is a complete physical picture.

Maria Irene Fornes, however, is famous for denying audiences such complete psychological and physical portraits. In fact, her signature style involves whittling down stories, characters, and images into intense, rich moments.

An early review of a production of Conduct of Life notes this tendency:

"The play conjures a lot of tension, mostly by keeping the scenes tight and disciplined and unsettlingly short. The dialogue and staging seem almost to have been cropped too close at the top or bottom, like those paintings by Philip Pearlstein [nsfw!] where the nude's head or leg has been cropped off the edge. Sometimes the cropping pares away everything but the musing of a single voice, and these monologues are the most effective aspect of all." (Paul Berman. Review of The Conduct of Life and Coming of Age in Soho. The Nation April 6, 1985: 412-413).

Instead of stuffing a stage or characters with detail, Fornes cuts details away. Remember, she could have provided full back-stories and answered all character/setting/plot questions. She chooses not to.



For this post: suppose that you had only this play as an example of a Maria Irene Fornes play. You might conclude, judging from this play, that her dramaturgical style involves pared-down, sometimes even abrupt scenes.

What other dramaturgical choices in Conduct of Life stand out to you? Choose one and discuss it. Give us a quick explanation of what you mean and a quick example of where we can see that choice in action. Finally, venture a guess about what effect this choice has on the story, the characters, and/or the themes in the play. Remember, I'm looking mainly for dramaturgical choices--not "what story is she telling" but "how does she choose to stage that story"?

EXTRA SPECIAL BONUS QUESTION ("bonus" as in "additional," not as in "extra points"): Why's the play called The Conduct of Life? Any guesses?

Do your best to post by Thursday evening

JF