My proposal to the class is the play A Delicate Balance by Edward Albee. It is a psychologically based drama dealing with the issues and complexities of upper-middle-class suburb dwellers. There are six characters, including two men and four women. All of the characters are in an adult age range.
The plot of the play takes place in the living room of Agnes and Tobias, a middle-aged married couple as their life is disrupted by the coming and going of friends and family with many problems to face. The story opens with Agnes and her husband discussing madness and how easy it would be to go insane. Agnes suddenly finds the notion silly, remembering that she has her husband to take care of, so she cannot go mad. Agnes’ younger sister, Claire, lives with the couple permanently. She is an alcoholic. Drinking serves as a motif throughout the play, many of the characters holding drinks most of the time. In conversation, Claire predicts the ending of Agnes and Tobias’ troubled daughter, Julia’s fourth marriage.
Soon Agnes announces that Julia will be coming home because her marriage, in fact, has ended. Tobias then tells the story of a cat he once had that he had to put down because it no longer liked him. Following this, Harry and Edna arrive. They are Tobias and Agnes’ best friends. They ask if they can stay in the house for a while to escape some unnamed fear.
In act two, the scene begins with Agnes and Tobias discussing the fact that Harry and Edna will be occupying Julia’s old room. This upsets Julia, and she makes this known to Tobias. Tobias brings up all of Julia’s failed marriages. Julia’s brother, who died at a young age, is brought to light. Claire enters and nags Julia about her disordered life. Julia retorts about Cla...
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...t are relevant to everyone. They are universal— existing throughout humanity and throughout the ages. People could be touched, moved, and changed by this piece. I’m a total advocate for that. “Theatre is to disturb the comfort and comfort the disturbed,” right? I love that quote. This, I think, would cause a few comfortable people to call their own lives and sanity into question. It would also remind the insane that they are indeed not alone or really crazy at all. We all have issues. They are just not as good at hiding it as the rest of society. It may be a challenge, but I say we go for it. Maybe we’ll even be surprised.
The awards A Delicate Balance has won are as follows: 1967 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, 1996 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Revival of a Play, 1996 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play, and a nomination for the 1967 Tony Award for Best Play.
While she might think that her plans are working, they only lead her down a path of destruction. She lands in a boarding house, when child services find her, she goes to jail, becomes pregnant by a man who she believed was rich. Also she becomes sentenced to 15 years in prison, over a street fight with a former friend she double crossed. In the end, she is still serving time and was freed by the warden to go to her mother’s funeral. To only discover that her two sisters were adopted by the man she once loved, her sister is with the man who impregnated her, and the younger sister has become just like her. She wants to warn her sister, but she realizes if she is just like her there is no use in giving her advice. She just decides that her sister must figure it out by
The play begins with a grand celebration, in which the characters toast to the New Year. Agnes admits that she feels relatively safe living at Berlin at this time, and the group decides to make up a story together. They story is of a cold night and a watchman who tries to beat nature by fighting back and arming himself with a warm coat and scarf. At first he succeeds, but later finds that even his coat and scarf are
The children, Christina and Stella, believe that what the father did to their mother was "awful." Leaving the house not only affected the mother but affected them too, seeing as they were both so young. The father does not really understand that by divorcing their mother he did the same to them: "'When you're older, ...
They are already in a compromising situation in celebrating her eighteenth birthday at a gas station having coffee which was already established as being not the norm earlier with Marie recounting her own large party where her “mother made a large party” (154). There reality is broken when the teenagers arrive and “One of the girls went to the juke box and put money in” and they are forced to leave because of Carol condition which causes her to have a breakdown from the noise (157). The arrival of the kids forced them to come into contact with their own reality which can never coincide with the one they have fabricated. This small reminder of what the norm is supposed to be is often brought to their attention through others such as when they “could see, in the light shaft of light, a boy, two girls and a dog” (155). In this instance, they are walking on the way to their weekly picnic, which is in itself repetitive, when they are shown the norm of other having fun “the boy splashing in the water with the dog” while they are forced to go through the motions without much emotion. This depiction of the norm unsettles their reality and, even though they don’t stop trying to alter reality to shelter Carol, shows how dysfunctional their own situation is as it can be seen as a potential version of themselves without Carol’s
Starting as a journalist that does what she is told Julia breaks escapes the boundaries of her marriage: by no longer doing as Bertrand tells her to do, and no longer falls victim to his appearance by having sex after they fight. By doing this she feels free to to overcome society's rules, as many people are telling her to stop after she has written her article of the Vel d’Hiv, and starts to look for
The scenes, which cover thirty years of the characters’ lives from eight to thirty-eight, each revolve around an injury that Doug has acquired through his accident prone life. The play progresses in five year intervals, jumping backwards and forwards, in a nonlinear progression. As they travel and run into each other’s lives, the two characters face new injuries. As the play progresses every five years, a new injury is added to one or both characters. Their lives intersect through these injuries, leading them to compare their wounds, both physical (Doug) and emotional (Kayleen), and drawing them closer together. With each new scene, old injuries and problems may have gotten better or resolved, but some became permanent. Yet, through these experiences, they are bonded together through bloodstains, cuts, and bandages.
Every time the family comes to a confrontation someone retreats to the past and reflects on life as it was back then, not dealing with life as it is for them today. Tom, assuming the macho role of the man of the house, babies and shelters Laura from the outside world. His mother reminds him that he is to feel a responsibility for his sister. He carries this burden throughout the play. His mother knows if it were not for his sisters needs he would have been long gone. Laura must pickup on some of this, she is so sensitive she must sense Toms feeling of being trapped. Tom dreams of going away to learn of the world, Laura is aware of this and she is frightened of what may become of them if he were to leave.
Within Tennessee Williams's story about love and abuse within marriage and challenging familial ties, there lie three very different characters that all see the world in vastly different ways. These members of a family that operate completely outside of our generation’s norms, are constantly unsure of themselves and their station within the binary not only of their familial unit, but within the gender binary that is established for them to follow. Throughout the story of the strange family, each character goes through a different arch that changes them irrevocably whether it is able to be perceived or not by those around them. The only male, Stanley is initially the macho force in the home who controls everything without question. He has no consequences for his actions against his wife and is never held accountable for treating the people around him poorly; this lasts until Blanche arrives. Blanche is an outwardly demure, but spirited young woman who after experiencing untold misfortune breaks mentally and decides to no longer care what others may think of her. She lives her life lavishly and foolishly by having dalliances with younger or richer men who shower her with gifts and attention to get sex from her all too willing form. Her effect on Stanley is one of temptation and challenge; she continually tries to convince her sister that she is too good for the man and in turn fosters a resentment for her in him. Stella acts as the antithesis of Stanley and Blanche’s extreme personalities. She is innocence and purity where they are the darkness that threatens to overtake her life. Throughout, Stella is a pawn that they both try to use against the other to no real avail as she is determined to make the best choice for herself. In th...
Angered by a fight with her husband, Edna “[takes] off her wedding ring [and flings] it upon the carpet” in addition to pitching a vase at the hearth (76). This is immediately juxtaposed by Edna tranquilly “[slipping] it upon her finger” at the entering of a maid (76). Edna’s contrasting moods generate equality between her two states of activism and dormancy, the latter being one of regression to an existence of conformity by placing the ring back on. Edna later resides with Arobin while they “silently [look] into each other’s eyes” and lean forward to kiss (116). The sexual mood fortifies as Alcee holds his lips to hers (116). Contrary to her marriage, this is “the first kiss of her life” to which she frankly responds, eliciting “a flaming torch that [kindles] desire” (116). The very next line, Edna “[cries] a little” after Arobin leaves, antithetical to her preceding passion. She experiences a “dull pang of regret” from that kiss “which had inflamed her” seeing that it was not Robert’s (117). The ambivalence that Edna parades communicates her dissatisfaction to both Arobin and Robert’s love, as well as her husband’s. Additionally, Edna receives three letters: one from Robert, Alcee Arobin, and her husband. That exuberant morning “[is] full of sunlight and hope” (145). After examining these writings, she is very pleased with them; Edna also “[answers]
While being an undesirable resident at her Aunt Reed's house, Jane goes through instances that lead her to be very outspoken and intolerant for injustice. Jane gets treated like a repulsive cling on to the family and gets beat around by her cousin John. Jane first begins to show her resistance to injustice when John threw a book at Jane's head. Jane had enough of passive acceptance for the way she was being treated. Jane rushed at John, and after that she realized she is not a helpless little girl. However, she also realized that her deliberate nonconformity to the Reed's concept that Jane “ought to beg, and not live here with gentleman's children like us” will lead her to harsh consequences (12). After Jane's outburst towards John, her Aunt Reed locked her in the red room. The red room was the place that her uncle died in and was rarely occupied after. During her confinement, Jane had a nervous breakdown after seeing a “glowing orb” which was supposedly the spirit of her uncle (19). This incident, while she was still confined to the red room, led her to think intently on the injustices that are placed upon by her relatives. She goes on to remember, “all John Reed's violent tyrannies, all his sisters' proud indifference, all his mother's aversion, all the servants' partiality” (17). These events in he...
The theme of the play has to do with the way that life is an endless cycle. You're born, you have some happy times, you have some bad times, and then you die. As the years pass by, everything seems to change. But all in all there is little change. The sun always rises in the early morning, and sets in the evening. The seasons always rotate like they always have. The birds are always chirping. And there is always somebody that has life a little bit worse than your own.
changes as the play progresses. Early on in the play, she is full of ambition;
To conclude, the author portrays Blanche’s deteriorating mental state throughout the play and by the end it has disappeared, she is in such a mental state that doctors take her away. Even at this stage she is still completely un-aware of her surroundings and the state she is in herself.
As complex, troubled characters Blanche and Viola established a relationship with the audience, which leaves the audience feeling sympathetic toward them both. The nature of the sympathy felt by the audience varies between characters. Viola loses her brother, and is wash...
For thousands of years, people have been arguing that theatre is a dying art form. Many people think theatre is all just cheesy singing and dancing or just boring old Shakespeare, but there is much more to theatre than those two extremes. Theatre is important to our society because it teaches us more about real life than recorded media. Theatre has been around for thousands of years and began as a religious ceremony that evolved into an art form that teaches about the true essence of life. Theatre can incorporate profound, and provocative, observations of the human condition that can transcend time; lessons found in Greek plays can still be relevant to the modern world. People argue that the very essence of theatre is being snuffed out by modern