Love! Valour! Compassion! Response

A future historian looking at Love! Valour! Compassion! would not be able to pinpoint a capital-T Truth.  Throughout the years, capital-T Truth has evolved.  Long ago, Truth came from God, and then from human knowledge.  In this play, the Truth is unknown.  It is almost like there is a struggle between the Truth of God and the Truth of humans.  It is hard to find the Truth because it seems to sway between the two Truths.  Bobby discusses God on page 87, he says, “ I think we all believe in God in our own way.  Or want to.  Or need to.”  These statements show that there is no proof; Bobby is questioning the idea of God and its Truth.  But there is no real capital-T Truth when it comes to human perspective too.  In conclusion, I believe a future historian would have difficulties finding a Truth. 

            Unlike Glass of Water and The Children’s Hour, the well-made play structure is not apparent.  The only real factor in Love! Valour! Compassion! that translates to the well-made play structure is that it is in three acts.  It veers from the structure in almost every aspect.  The plot does not revolve around a secret and there is no obligatory scene.  The other plays we have read focus on plot, while this one focuses on the characters. 

            The capital-T Truth is up in the air.  Future historians would be unable to find one in this play.  They would have trouble even finding a type of structure to the play.   

The Children's Hour Response

Lillian Hellman follows a somewhat loose structure of the well-made play.  There are moments where Hellman veers away from the well-made play, which create very important dramaturgical choices.  The play adheres to the well-made play structure because it has three acts, suspense around a secret, rising climaxes in each act, secrets revealed, and dramatic irony.  The play revolves around one secret:  the truth about Karen and Martha.  The secret is finally revealed, not how it would normally in a well-made play, but it still counts.  It veers away from the well-made play structure because all of the loose ends are not tied up at the end, there are no just-in-time revelations, and no specific obligatory scene.  At the end of a well-made play, everything is tied up into a nice bow, but in The Children’s Hour, things seem to unravel.  Everything goes differently then what is expected:  Karen and Joe break-up, Martha kills herself, and Rosalyn does not get in trouble.  The revelations are too late.  By the time the truth comes out, Karen and Martha’s lives are already destroyed.  There is no specific obligatory scene that makes everything better.  The truth is revealed, but not in the way the audience is expecting.      

The Glass of Water Response

In The Glass of Water, there are a couple moments that do not conform to the structure of a well-made play.  This is so, because the translator had to add in some parts to the play to help the audiences understand what was going on.  Pinpointing these exact moments was quite hard, but I think I was able to pick out one potential moment.  The moment where Bolingbroke and the Duchess are conversing and then they kiss and slap each other.  It seemed a little out of nowhere.  I picked this moment because it does not advance the play; it instead adds “fluff” to the play.  Finding the second moment was even harder.  The second moment I picked was towards the very beginning when Masham and Bolingbroke are talking.  They are discussing war and politics.  I feel like this does not add as much to the play, since the focus is on everyone’s love.  I am not quite sure if this moment is one of them though.  It does explain a little bit of what is going on, but it still does not abide to the most important issue of the play.  Other than these moments, I feel that the play sticks to the well-made play structure.