Salim Naser
0916303
THEA 1331
February 20, 2016 (opening night)
Critique: Intimate Apparel This play covers issues relating to racial prejudice, cultural stereotypes, and gender roles. We are introduced to these issues through the trials and tribulations of Esther Mills, a highly talented African-American seamstress looking for love at the age of thirty five. The set, while very simple and had only a few props (bed, table, staircase, piano, and fabric store) was very dynamic and was easily changed in between scenes, sometimes all they did was change the comforter on the bed. The theatre setup was a multipurpose arrangement or “black box” (Wilson 87). This was the first production I have seen since middle school, at first, I was not following
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When she broke out of her humble state to seduce George Armstrong, she wore a beautiful handcrafted corset that highlighted her gifted chest that seemed to come out of nowhere. The scene where she does “break out of her shell” makes the viewer really hate George Armstrong in the end when he cheats her because she truly put in an honest effort in an attempt to save their marriage. We know it is an honest attempt because initially throughout the play she is always dressed modest and even when she is packing to leave Mrs. Dickson 's house, she claims her favorite dress is this dim navy blue number that had no distinct features. For her to try to be sexy by dressing up for a man she suspects is sleeping with another woman completely makes her look like a fool in the end. Gorge Armstrong’s costume changed with his personality in my opinion. At first when he was writing those sweet letters he was dressed wearing rugged boots, brown overalls, and rolled up sleeves. This image portrayed that he was an honest and hardworking man who was searching for love in America while slaving away digging …show more content…
“Lighting is one of the most versatile and potent visual resources in theatre” (Wilson 309). “It can be used to establish focus, to indicate mood, and to create special effects” (Wilson 309). Since the theatre setup was black box, the lighting was the only way to establish focus on which part of the set the audience was supposed to look at. Everything was pitch dark, but the light would focus on a certain section of the set where the scene would take place. Before George Armstrong came to America, we knew that he was overseas because he would walk in view upstairs where the fabric store was and recite his letters with a spotlight focused on him. The only thing that was upstairs was the fabric store, but obviously that is not where George was literally writing his letters. The scenes were titled by the some article of clothing or fabric name that was featured in the scene. When the scenes would change, everything would go pitch dark and there would be a spotlight on a black curtain with the name of the scene about to be
The play is set in the 1920s when women started to receive clerical jobs and were expected to complete certain milestones in life. For example, in the scene labeled “at home” young woman – the main character – tells her mom that she is going to get married, because everybody does it, but then says she will not because she does not love Mr. Jones (Machinal). Ultimately her choice was to not get married, but in the end she does because her mom needs and wants her to get married for financial stability and the young woman feels that her destiny was to care for her mother. However, in the scene titled “prohibited”, the young woman starts deciding her destiny and chooses to cheat on her husband, Mr. Jones (Machinal). This is the moment when she realizes she can control her own destiny. That she does not have to be the happy housewife that society says her fate has to be. But there was still one problem, society still appeared to be in control of her destiny because she hasn’t decided on what her exact destiny would
The sewing circle is a matrifocal space of political and social engagement that serves as Hopkins’ fictionalization of the black women’s club movement (Patterson 72). Here, the women of Contending Forces gather together to raise money, discuss political concerns, and forge social coalitions. A blackboard occupies a central space in the parlor of Ma Smith’s boardinghouse, and upon it each woman has contributed some news or raised a concern pertaining to the community. The gathering and discussion of these women makes the circle fertile ground for Hopkins’ linking of race, class, and gender concerns through the figure of the New Negro Woman. This space, filled with female voices and domestic tasks, features several versions of womanhood. And like other communal spaces, Hopkins argues for the collaboration of each woman figure and the value of all expressions of womanhood when united under the collective goal of racial uplift. Mrs. Willis and Mrs. Smith represent alternative approaches to motherhood—Ma Smith offers space but cedes the intellectual energy to the younger women, while Mrs. Willis figures more as a race mother that influences and directs the path of racial progress. Mrs. Willis is also a foil to Sappho in this scene as a
A Doll House, by Henrik Ibsen, and A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry, both have central themes of search of self-identity within a social system. This is demonstrated by women characters from both plays breaking away from the social standards of their times and acting on their own terms. In most situations women are to be less dominant than men in society. These two plays are surprisingly different from the views of women in society and of the times and settings that they take place in.
Hairspray, a John Waters’ musical, demonstrates progressive messages about the expansion of race-based civil rights in the 1960s . Although this is typically the lens through which Hairspray is viewed, this is not the only significant societal shift portrayed in the film. The stories of Edna Turnblad and Velma Von Tussle illustrate the progressive shift of women from “old” gender roles such as being excluded from the workplace to “new” gender roles where women begin taking managerial positions.
of it. The play deals with the social intolerance of gay men and unfit women.
In the play, “By the Way, Meet Vera Stark”, the two main characters, Vera Stark and Anna Mae play a significate role in the plays main theme of racial discrimination. The choice they made to decide to lie about their race came from the fact that racial discrimination was an issue and they knew they wouldn’t be looked at for a major role in a play. I found this to be very sad that they couldn’t be themselves and had to lie about who they truly are. This play also brings to light the issue that many people face in today’s society of conforming to society’s image of being the perfect American.
In the novel, the author proposes that the African American female slave’s need to overcome three obstacles was what unavoidably separated her from the rest of society; she was black, female, and a slave, in a white male dominating society. The novel “locates black women at the intersection of racial and sexual ideologies and politics (12).” White begins by illustrating the Europeans’ two major stereotypes o...
In the 19th Century, women had different roles and treated differently compared to today’s women in American society. In the past, men expected women to carry out the duties of a homemaker, which consisted of cleaning and cooking. In earlier years, men did not allow women to have opinions or carry on a job outside of the household. As today’s societies, women leave the house to carry on jobs that allow them to speak their minds and carry on roles that men carried out in earlier years. In the 19th Century, men stereotyped women to be insignificant, not think with their minds about issues outside of the kitchen or home. In the play Trifles, written by Susan Glaspell, the writer portrays how women in earlier years have no rights and men treat women like dirt. Trifles is based on real life events of a murder that Susan Glaspell covered during her work as a newspaper reporter in Des Moines and the play is based off of Susan Glaspell’s earlier writing, “A Jury of Her Peers”. The play is about a wife of a farmer that appears to be cold and filled with silence. After many years of the husband treating the wife terrible, the farmer’s wife snaps and murders her husband. In addition, the play portrays how men and women may stick together in same sex roles in certain situations. The men in the play are busy looking for evidence of proof to show Mrs. Wright murdered her husband. As for the women in the play, they stick together by hiding evidence to prove Mrs. Wright murdered her husband. Although men felt they were smarter than women in the earlier days, the play describes how women are expected of too much in their roles, which could cause a woman to emotionally snap, but leads to women banding together to prove that women can be...
I think this play is a lot about what does race mean, and to what extent do we perform race either onstage or in life:
As women's studies programs have proliferated throughout American universities, feminist "re-readings" of certain classic authors have provided us with the most nonsensical interpretations of these authors' texts. A case in point is that of Kathleen Margaret Lant's interpretation of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire in her essay entitled "A Streetcar Named Misogyny." Throughout the essay, she continually misreads Williams' intention, which of course causes her to misunderstand the play itself. Claiming that the play "has proved vexing to audiences, directors, actors, readers, and critics" (Lant 227), she fails to see that it is she herself who finds the play vexing, because it does not fit nicely into the warped feminist structure she would try to impose upon it.
Effiong, Philip U. In Search of a Model for African-American Drama: a Study of Selected Plays
Literature normally touches on traditional gender stereotypes and the role of the society in building those gender biases. From earlier centuries, gender stereotyping is closely intertwined with every aspect of the social fabric. The play, A Doll 's House by Henrik Ibsen presents a critical reflection of marital norms of the nineteenth-century. This three-act play revolves around the need of every individual, particularly women, to discover oneself, and how they have to strive to establish their identities. This aesthetically shaped play depicts traditional gender roles and the subsequent social struggles that every woman encounter in a stereotyped society. Though, Nora fits rightly to the nineteenth century social norm of submissive housewife
The old and new attitudes toward sexuality and the proper behavior of women is very apparent in the play called A Doll House. The play shows how each woman has sacrificed who they were for the men and the other people in their lives. The play also shows how men see women in general. Several characters give up who they thought they were meant to be, because of the social aspect in their lives. Society has always placed a burden on women as who they are supposed to be as wives, mothers, and as adult women. Women were seen as the inferior sex in the past and in the present. Things have changed over the years as women earn more and more freedom and rights that men have had for a very long time. The sacrifices that are made in this play speak to how things work for women in society. Women give up their right to happiness because they feel obligated to change who they are to help someone else.
The play, A Raisin in the Sun, has a very strong view of feminism in the 1960’s. The way that the females are portrayed and talked to in this play is not only an example of how the relationship between a man and a woman in society is unequal, but reflects a particular patriarchal ideology. Throughout this play, as the characters strive to achieve their dreams, the relationships that we see can be seen as feminist and as sexual stereotypes.
In 1979, Caryl Churchill wrote a feminist play entitled Cloud Nine. It was the result of a workshop for the Joint Stock Theatre Group and was intended to be about sexual politics. Within the writing she included a myriad of different themes ranging from homosexuality and homophobia to female objectification and oppression. “Churchill clearly intended to raise questions of gender, sexual orientation, and race as ideological issues; she accomplished this largely by cross-dressing and role-doubling the actors, thereby alienating them from the characters they play.” (Worthen, 807) The play takes part in two acts; in the first we see Clive, his family, friends, and servants in a Victorian British Colony in Africa; the second act takes place in 1979 London, but only twenty-five years have passed for the family. The choice to contrast the Victorian and Modern era becomes vitally important when analyzing this text from a materialist feminist view; materialist feminism relies heavily on history. Cloud Nine is a materialist feminist play; within it one can find examples that support all the tenets of materialist feminism as outlined in the Feminism handout (Bryant-Bertail, 1).