Language Follows Evolution of Jackson and Trewe Relationship Paralleling the Colonization to Post-Colonial Movement in Pantomime
The play opens on the edge of a cliff; anything can happen. Derek Walcott, a playwright from the Caribbean, lives his own life on the edge of a cliff. Walcott’s family placed strong emphasis on education and ancestry. His inherent duality, European and African, mirrors that of post-colonialism (Gilbert 131). It is this duality that Walcott tries to reconcile in his work, drawing on his experiences in the theatre and in the Caribbean (King 260). In Pantomime, Walcott employs the versatility of language to describe the evolving relationship between main characters Harry Trewe and Jackson Philip paralleling the colonization to post-colonial movement and comes to a tentative reconciliation.
Walcott sets the stage for numerous parallelisms by naming his play Pantomime. A pantomime is a traditional British Christmas entertainment that features stock characters in costume who sing, dance and perform skits. The tradition dates back to the 16th century, stemming from Commedia dell’ Arte, which included farce-like elements and masquerade. Ironically, the general premise of a pantomime, the characters speak the same language but do not seem to understand each other, echoes that of Walcott’s Pantomime. Trewe’s pantomime is based on wordless storytelling versus Jackson’s background as a Calypsonian, which deals with improvisation of words based on a given topic. Also, Elaine Savory suggests that Walcott may have chosen this form because the two men feel most comfortable exploring life from behind a mask, like those one might find in a pantomime (227). Already, their background hinders their communication and ...
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To an extent, the characters in the play represent aspects of the Australian identity and experience. However, Rayson's vivid grasp of speech patterns to evoke character, and her ability to manipulate the audience with humour and pathos move the text beyond mere polemic and stereotype. In an almost Brechtian way, she positions us to analyse as we are entertained and moved.
It is imperative to understand the significance of the profound effects these elements have on the audience’s response to the play. Without effective and accurate embodiments of the central themes, seeing a play becomes an aimless experience and the meaning of the message is lost. Forgiveness and redemption stand as the central themes of the message in The Spitfire Grill. Actors communicate character development through both nonverbal and verbal cues; their costumes serve as a visual representation of this development by reflecting the personal transformation of each character. In the case of The Spitfire Grill, set design is cut back to allow for the audience’s primary focus to be on the actors and their story. Different from set design, the use of sound and lights in The Spitfire Grill, establishes the mood for the play. In other words, every theatrical element in a play has a purpose; when befittingly manipulated, these elements become the director’s strongest means of expressing central themes, and therefore a means of achieving set objectives. Here again, The Spitfire Grill is no exception. With the support of these theatrical elements, the play’s themes of forgiveness and redemption shine as bright as the moon on
When Mary Zimmerman adapts a play from an ancient text her directing process and the way she engages with text are woven together, both dependent on the other. She writes these adaptations from nondramatic text, writing each evening while working through the pre-production rehearsals and improvisations during the day with the cast. The rehearsal process influences the text, and the text enriches the rehearsal process, so that one cannot exist without the other. Every rehearsal is structured the same but each production is unique because as Zimmerman states in “The Archaeology of Performance”, she is always “open to the possibilities”. The piece is open to everything happening in the world and to the people involved, so the possibilities are honest and endless.
Butler, Judith. "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory." Theatre Journal 40.4 (1988): 519-31. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Web. 11 May 2011.
Poverty and low wages have been a problem ever since money became the only thing that people began to care about. In Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich, she presents the question, “How does anyone live on the wages available to the unskilled?” This question is what started her experiment of living like a low wage worker in America. Ehrenreich ends up going to Key West, Portland, and Minneapolis to see how low wage work was dealt with in different states. With this experiment she developed her main argument which was that people working at low wages can’t live life in comfort because of how little they make monthly and that the economic system is to blame.
Montresor does not so much satisfy the necessity of clarifying his intention to Fortunato. Such a deed as Montresor's is mind boggling to him with the exception of as a few massive jokes; however, this trust is slaughtered by Montresor's joke. Whether Fortunato really comprehends the purpose for Montresor's awful revenge specifically, that he is constantly rebuffed for his arrogance and for insulting somebody who is equivalent or better than him—doesn't block an effective fulfillment of Montresor's plan.
In his theatrical work J.B., Archibald MacLeish hints to the postwar era of World War II through explicit and implicit references. J.B. is relevant to society and reflects the events that took place in the 1950s. For that reason, the play purposefully and effectively demonstrates that, despite the bitterness and calamities of the forties and fifties, people should remain optimistic and should have faith that there will be hope, instead of dwelling on the injustice in the world.
The language of a text helps to define the drama of a play, create suspense and provide subtle clues and similes to involve the reader in the sub-context of the play. In “Trifles”, Susan Glaspell uses language and simile with particular skill to define the major themes of the play: gender dominance and subjugation, confinement and
I thoroughly enjoyed the process of devising and developing our recontexualised version of Shakespeare’s play because of the various challenges it gave us such as the use of accents in the dialogue and being attentive to the original fluid language of Shakespeare. We chose to recontextualise the play in 1950s Britain because we wanted to play with the ethnical stereotypes and the strong enforcement of masculinity through media and social norms in that era such as the Malboro Man.
Pride and jealousy are the motivational forces that drive revenge. These forces lead to self-destruction. Both the characters seem to be proud and prosperous. Montresor is jealous of Fortunato and tries to make him foolish as he says, “The man wore motley. He had on a tight- fitting parti- striped dress and his head was surmounted by the conical cap and bells” (Poe 161). Montresor is aware that Fortunato considers himself a connoisseur of wine. Still he talks about Luchesi, another expert on confirming fino[true] Amontillado’s authenticity, as an alternative which urges Fortunato to keep moving towards the dark and nitre-f...
In the excerpt from Barbara Ehrenreich’s, “Nickel and Dimed”, Ehrenreich uses her own knowledge and scientific experience from a PhD in biology to further research the life of a low wage worker. She goes through her own low wage job experience with the corporate cleaning agency, “The Maids.” Ehrenreich offers a profound perception of the day-to-day challenges and sacrifices that low wage workers face to keep their jobs, support their families, and survive in a corporate driven society.
Teenage Depression. Everywhere you look these two words appear together as one, in newspapers and magazines, as well as in scholarly reports. Teenage depression is one of today's "hot topics" this among other teenage mental health problems, has been brought to the forefront of public consciousness in recent years after several incidents involving school shootings (CQ 595). The environment that teens grow up in today is less supportive and more demanding than it was twenty years ago. Not only are the numbers of depressed teens rising, but children are also being diagnosed at younger and younger ages. Studies have found that, "There is an estimated 1.5-3 million American children and adolescents who suffer from depression, a condition unrecognized in children until about 20 years ago" (CQR 595). This increase in depression is due to social factors that teenagers have to deal with everyday. A recent study found that, "About five percent of teenagers have major depression at any one time. Depression can be very impairing, not only for the affected teen, but also for his or her family-and too often, if not addressed, depression can lead to substance abuse or more tragic events" (NAMI.org). Gender roles and other societal factors including the pressures on girls to look and act a certain way, the pressures on boys to suppress their emotions and put on a tough front and the pressures on both sexes to do well in school and succeed, all contribute to depression in teens today. Depression is a growing problem which crosses gender lines and one that needs to be dealt with with more than just medication.
At one point in her career, Barbara Ehrenreich thought that it would be a good idea to get into the life of a person who works for the minimum wage and tries to live of it. As she went through her quest, Barbara met many people who were in fact, struggling. Unlike her, these people had to work multiple jobs, cut down their eating, live in terrible places, and just suffer all because of the lack of money and the need for as much of it as the could get. Some of these employees had others that they had to support, and some only needed to provide for themselves. Nonetheless, millions of people across the US are forced to work jobs where they are miserable in order to be able to give their families what they need, no matter what they have to give up in order to do so. Some of the people she meets are very similar to the characters in George Saunders’ story Pastoralia in the terms that they too work hard, don’t get the best treatment, and are only working because of their need to provide and sustain themselves and others. Saunders subtly depicts his characters as minimum wage workers, much like those in real life, who are struggling to give their loved ones what they need.
This play shows the importance of the staging, gestures, and props making the atmosphere of a play. Without the development of these things through directions from the author, the whole point of the play will be missed. The dialog in this play only complements the unspoken. Words definitely do not tell the whole story.
Postcolonial authors use their literature and poetry to solidify, through criticism and celebration, an emerging national identity, which they have taken on the responsibility of representing. Surely, the reevaluation of national identity is an eventual and essential result of a country gaining independence from a colonial power, or a country emerging from a fledgling settler colony. However, to claim to be representative of that entire identity is a huge undertaking for an author trying to convey a postcolonial message. Each nation, province, island, state, neighborhood and individual is its own unique amalgamation of history, culture, language and tradition. Only by understanding and embracing the idea of cultural hybridity when attempting to explore the concept of national identity can any one individual, or nation, truly hope to understand or communicate the lasting effects of the colonial process.