Extra Show and Tell Post: One Flea Spare

One Flea Spare

By Naomi Wallace

            Naomi Wallace is a playwright, screenwriter, and poet.  In October of 1995, One Flea Spare was first performed in the Bush Theatre in London.  It made its American premiere in February of 1996 at the Humana Festival of New American Plays.  The play has gone on to win awards, including:  the 1996 Fellowship of Southern Writers Drama Award, the OBIE 1997 best play award, and more.  I found this play using the LSU database, where it redirected me to the Twentieth Century North American Drama website.

                  One Flea Spare is about a group of people quarantined during the Great Plague in London in the 1600s.  Mr. and Mrs. Snelgrave are prepared to flee to an area safe from the plague when two people are found inside their home.  This discover forces everyone in the household into a 28-day quarantine.  The Snelgraves are then left with two intruders, Bunce and Morse, to spend these 28 days.  The four of them are visited every now and then by Kabe who gives them information on what is happening around them.  The play follows their struggles throughout these days.  Wallace focuses on death, disease, social classes, and social discrimination. 

            Wallace’s dramaturgical choice to set the play during the Great Plague was really interesting.  After reading the play, I determined that Wallace wanted to raise questions of class and social justice.  I liked the way she did this.  She did not put the play in today’s time to show this, she put it in the high stakes time of the Great Plague in London.  By setting the play during the plague and quarantining the characters, Wallace is imprisoning them literally and metaphorically.  They are locked up in a house, but they are also locked into their class.  Wallace plays with the idea of class and mixes up the relationships of the classes.  She depicts children’s views on class structure through her character Morse.  Since the characters are quarantined, they are forced to interact with each other.  They discover things about one another that they would have never known or cared to know in a normal situation.  It creates an interesting dynamic in the play.

            The dramaturgical choice to include the character of Kabe gives the audience a little something to remember what the world is really like.  Although the four characters quarantined have to interact with each other, they do learn about one another.  It seems as though they are breaking down social barriers.  But, Kabe, their connection to the outside world, is a constant reminder that the real world is out there and in the real world they are social classes.  In these social classes, Mr. Snelgrave and Mrs. Snelgrave would not socialize with Bunce or Morse.  If Wallace had left Kabe out, then the audience would not see the real problem.  The problem is the strict social order and how it can be unfair and Kabe reminds the audience of that.

            One Flea Spare is a play about social class, epidemic, and bending gender roles.  Wallace’s choices all emphasize these themes.  Her choice of setting and her choice for Kabe both add to the theme of social class and barriers.  Even though the play is set in the 1600s, I can see its themes being relevant in years to come, which I believe makes this play very intriguing.  Wallace’s choices led her to a bold play raising many questions for the audience or reader.

Wallace, Naomi. One Flea Spare. Electronic Edition by Alexander Street Press, L.L.C., 2013. Web. 6 Dec 2013.      

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Show and Tell Post: Wine in the Wilderness

Wine in the Wilderness

By Alice Childress

            Alice Childress is an American playwright, actor, and author.  Childress did not finish high school due to her grandmother’s death.  After she dropped out, she turned to the theater.  She wrote many plays, appeared in many productions, and even started an Off-Broadway union for actors.  In 1969, Wine in the Wilderness first appeared in Boston, Massachusetts on WGBH-TV as part of a series called ‘‘On Being Black.’’  I located this play by using the LSU database; it brought me to the Twentieth Century North American Drama website.

            Wine in the Wilderness focuses mainly on the characters Bill Jameson and Tomorrow-Marie, nicknamed Tomorrow.  The play takes place in Harlem during a race riot.  Bill is working on a triptych, which is a series of three paintings that come together to make one statement.  His statement is supposed to say something about “Black Womanhood”.  The first painting is of an innocent child, the second is of the perfect African woman, and the last one is planned to be of an ugly woman destroyed by today’s society.  Bill’s friend, Sonny-Man, and Sonny-Man’s wife, Cynthia, bring him a woman they believe will fit the last picture.  At first, Bill thinks the woman will be the perfect portrayal of the ugly woman.  As the night continues, Bill learns more and more about Tommy.  The next morning Tommy is made aware of why she is posing for the picture.  An argument breaks out.  Tommy says she is the perfect African woman, or the “Wine in the Wilderness”.  Bill discovers that his original statement is wrong.  He decides to instead focus on the beauty of black womanhood today and how the women are different, they are fighters, and they are independent.

            The dramaturgical choice to set the play in the middle of a race riot helped set the tone.  The play could have stood alone without including the race riot aspect.  Childress would have still been able to end the play with Bill discovering what true black womanhood was without the riot.  I think adding it into the play was a good choice though.  It helped to emphasize the issue of race, the struggle of the black woman, and the beauty of black strength.  The riot allowed the characters to be at their lowest of lows.  And this is good because it shows how even though things are still bad we can have the strength to get through it.  Tommy is enhanced by the riot.  Meaning that the riot allows her normal behavior to be a little amped up because of the recent race issues.  Childress’s choice to include the riot brought the play to another level, a level with a little more intensity, which made the play more interesting.

            The scene where Bill is discussing his “Wine in the Wilderness” painting to someone on the phone and Tommy is behind a screen changing is a strong dramaturgical choice to me.  Childress places the two characters in separate areas so they cannot see each other.  Tomorrow can hear Bill and she believes he is talking about her.  This creates dramatic irony.  We know that Bill is actually talking about the painting, but Tommy thinks he is talking about her.  This creates tension in the play and anticipation for the reader.  The reader is waiting to see when Tommy will find out the truth.  Using this dramatic irony, Childress sucks you into the play while you anxiously read on to see what happens next.  I thought this choice was strong because it shows the audience Tommy and Bill’s feelings in that moment.  We know that Tommy feels one way about Bill, but Bill currently does not feel that way about her. 

            Childress chooses to emphasize the power and beauty of black womanhood.  I think her choices directly enforce her theme in the play while keeping the audience hooked.  Race riots, dramatic irony, and wine in the wilderness all bring us to an interesting play. 

Childress, Alice. Wine in The Wilderness. Electronic Edition by Alexander Street Press, L.L.C., 2013. Web. 4 Dec 2013.

Water by the Spoonful Response

I chose the moment where Elliot is talking to Orangutan to show the two realities crossing.  There are two main story lines, that of the actual world and then the online world.  Yaz and Elliot appear in the actual world story line, while Haikumom and Orangutan make up most of the online world’s story.  These two worlds intersect when Elliot logs onto his mother’s, Odessa’s, computer.  She is logged onto a site entitled “RecoverTogether”.  He begins talking to a person with the name of Orangutan.  Elliot reveals his identity to the other online user saying that he is not Haikumom, but instead her son.  Orangutan goes on to say she knows about his struggles with addiction, even though it is not the same as his mother’s.  Throughout their conversation, Yaz is reading over Elliot’s shoulder.  As they continue chatting, facts are revealed to Yaz about Elliot’s past.  She learns that he overdosed three times.  This throws the two into a heated talk.  Yaz learns so much about Elliot in such a small amount of time.  I think this interaction of the worlds brings focus to the problems the characters have.  They are recovering but they have troubles talking about.  Elliot cannot tell Yaz about what truly haunts him, but he has no problem with an unknown online person knowing about his life.  It is hard to let the people you really know in sometimes.  This interaction emphasizes that.  It also reveals important things to all characters in the scene.      

Next to Normal Response

            Next to Normal is unlike any musical I have listened to.  The elements put into the musical make it interesting and complex.  Brian Yorkey and Tom Kitt worked really well together to make choices.  I really enjoyed their production of the song “I’m Alive” sung by the character Gabe.  The lyrics and the music create a certain tone for Gabe.  It paints a picture in the reader’s mind of what Diana sees of her son.  She sees him as a healthy, lively grown boy, even though he died when he was an infant.  Yorkey and Kitt’s choices to make Gabe a livelier character is interesting.  The music for “I’m Alive” is upbeat and the lyrics are obviously stating that he is, well, alive.  I like that they chose not to make his character depressing, but instead happy.  And that is because Diana sees him and it makes her happier.  It adds to the play’s complexity, which I find is one of the most intriguing parts of the play. 

            I also liked the rhythm of the last song, “Light”.  It has a release of tension that is held up in the entire play.  Throughout the play, the tension levels pretty much stay even.  There is no happy resolution at the end of the play, but there is a hopeful song and that is “Light”.  So the rhythm of this song shows the release of tension and the hope that everyone has for the future.  The elements picked out by Yorkey and Kitt provided a complex play that leaves the audience hopeful.

Topdog/Underdog Response

           There are two mirrors in Topdog/Underdog:  the Lincoln/Booth mirror and the con-game mirror.  The Lincoln and Booth mirror is quite obvious.  The two main characters share names with two people from one of the most famous American assassinations.  The audience should be able to catch onto this mirror easily.  Parks even emphasizes the mirror by making Lincoln’s job be an Abraham Lincoln impersonator.  In the end, this mirror is the most apparent because Booth kills Lincoln.

            The con-game mirror is a little harder to pinpoint.  The game mirrors the fake President Lincoln assassination that Lincoln acts out for his job.  Both the game and the performance are supposed to seem like honest things, but they are both just tricks.  In Three-Card Monte, the dealer and his helper set up a strategy or a type of performance that tricks the audience into believing what they are doing is truthful.  This mirrors Lincoln’s job because he is tricking people into thinking they are actually killing him.  The customers know they aren’t really killing him, but it does not make his job honest.  These two things mirror each other because they are coming off as honest, even though they are just tricks in disguise.

            I think both of these mirrors are in the play to emphasize the idea of honesty.  Lincoln wants an honest job, while Booth wants to stick with games of trickery to earn money.  Parks is constantly drawing the audience back to that theme of honesty.  The mirrors play a big part in presenting that theme.      

'Tis Pity She's a Whore Response

            If I had to make a poster for ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore, I would start by picking out a color scheme.  I would use black, red, and white.  These colors together make a strong statement.  The black and white contrast each other very well, and the red symbolizes the violence that is constantly showing up in the play.  Three images that would spark interest on a poster could be a broken wine glass, a letter with blood drops on it, or a singular drop of blood.  A broken wine glass comes from the poisoned wine.  A letter with drops of blood on it would be Annabella’s letter to   Giovanni.  And lastly, the drop of blood would symbolize all of the bloodshed in the play.   I picked three quotes that I think would show a little bit about the play.  The first quote comes from Giovanni on page 668, he says, “After so many tears as we have wept, Let’s learn to court in smiles, to kiss, and sleep.”  I like this quote because it shows that the play deals with love and tragedy.  The only problem is that it makes the play seem hopeful, when in the end there is nothing to hope for.  The next quote comes from Soranzo on page 674, he says, “Love’s measure is extreme, the comfort, pain, the life unrest, and the reward disdain.”  The play is all about how love can drive people to do crazy things and I think this quote embodies that.  And lastly, I choose another quote from Soranzo that appears on page 676, he says, “You are past all rules of sense.”  This quote is probably my favorite for the poster because it describes how everyone is a little senseless.  Ultimately, I would give the poster a dark feel that still shows a little bit of the twisted love story it is trying to tell.