Not all plays are character-driven, in fact a great many are not. So if the characters are not what keep the audience intrigued, well then what does? There are many possible answers to this question. Paper Wheat uses the history of a group of people, a specific message commenting on a time period, spectacle elements such as song and dance, and the genre of comedy to keep its audience both engaged and entertained.
There are many elements to a play that can engage the minds of an audience. Paper Wheat uses the history of its audience to keep them captivated. Written around 1977, Paper Wheat focuses on a period in the early part of the 20th century when many migrants and immigrants were moving to Western Canada in search of a prosperous living. They heard that land was cheap, and they wanted to be wheat farmers. PaperWheat’s target audience is the retired farmers and their families who are now looking back on the hardships and struggles they endured. It is an historical reflection of their lives.
Paper Wheat is a collective creation by 25th Street House Theatre, and opened in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. The decision to open in the mid-west indicates the target audience. What is so engaging to the audience is looking back on the history of their lives and seeing themselves and their neighbors in the action portrayed onstage.
The many themes contained within the play are additional evidence that the play was constructed for a specific group of people who would find it entertaining. The role of cooperation and the formation of co-op’s in the mid-west are two of the central themes to Paper Wheat. In a scene entitled The Report in Act II, the audience listens to a monologue given by Ed Partridge in whi...
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...tants”, as this is the worst thing he can think of to call them!
There are many different elements that can be used to engage an audience’s interest. The overall success of Paper Wheat proves that really getting to know and identify with the characters themselves is not really necessary for an audience to remain interested. In the case of Paper Wheat, the audience is able to identify with the plot, they are able to see a historical reflection of their lives. They are also able to relate to the message of the play. These can be just as powerful and interesting as identifying with the characters themselves. When you add spectacle elements and a comedic backdrop to the story, you have a delightful play that the audience can both learn from and enjoy, and this is what we have in Paper Wheat.
Works Cited
25th Street House Theatre. Paper Wheat. Copyright 1977.
In conclusion I think that the stage directions and dramatic irony are significant to the play, and without them there would be no need for a lot of the events that happen in the play.
Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is a comedy that has been interpreted in different ways, enabling one to receive multiple experiences of the same story. Due to the content and themes of the play, it can be creatively challenging to producers and their casting strategies. Instead of being a hindrance, I find the ability for one to experiment exciting as people try to discover strategies that best represent entertainment for the audience, as well as the best ways to interpret Shakespeare’s work.
The play focusses on three generations of Women, Nan Dear, Gladys and Dolly and where they felt as though they belonged. Nan Dear knew where she belonged and that was the humpy in the flats with her daughter and granddaughter. Nan Dear knows that she won't be accepted into white society just because she is an Aboriginal and those of a different colour or foreign country weren't accepted. Gladys and Dolly both wanted to be accepted into white society, they wanted to feel as though they belonged there.
The play is set two years before World War I, in 1912, and in the year
The play Sisters, by Wendy Lill, is set in 20th century Nova Scotia at an Indian Residential School. The play focuses on a hopeful 17-year-old farm girl named Mary who was dating Louis at the time. Along with the present Mary who is currently in interrogation with, the duty counsel, Stein. She has been accused of torching down the Residential School, the place where she worked for fifteen years. There are various factors contributing to the impulsive reasoning behind Sister Mary’s act of burning down the Residential School such as, the actual truth to why she committed the sin, the contrast relationships with others that reflected upon her actions, and the overall punishment she should receive.
Miller uses similarities between Abigail and Procter and real people from the McCarthy era, relations with characters Danforth, Hathorne and Hale with organizations from the McCarthy era and the method of choosing a controversial topic similar to communism to show allegory. The strategies Miller used to craft this play included using literary terms and features, setting, plot events and characters to convey his overall criticism of the time period. The McCarthy era greatly contributed to Arthur Millers development of the plot of this play and the ability to connect with the audience and make them relate what they saw to their own lives.
Now that the play, “Post-its (Notes on a Marriage),” could make the audience react to feel distanced and questionable of the actions of the characters, how can that relate to everyday life? traits of the play Post-its (Notes on a Marriage) through staging and conversation,
One reason that this play is well known is because many of the characters are identifiable with ourselves. Willy is a burnt-out businessman with no special talents or qualities. Linda is a kind and dedicated housewife, but she has not accomplished anything noteworthy. Biff has a habit of theft and a number of pent-up frustrations. Happy tries to smooth out the tensions in the family, but he is also unsatisfied. The only “successful” major character in the play is Bernard, but even he was considered “liked, but not well-liked” by the Lomans when he was young. There are not any heroes or bad guys in the play. The characters are all very human, and very flawed.
In the play we get to read about the white superior boy Hally and their two helpers who are Sam and Willy, who in many instances engage in debates or dialogue with the young boy. They relates their topic by referring to certain events or historic happenings that took place and are consider to have shaped the world in a positive sense or could be used to help everyday life to be lived better by all people.
reach into the ideas and themes of the play so we will have a good
funny parts of the play by creating confusion within characters and lowering the intensity of the
The tragedy of love, grief, despair, and betrayal created this significant play. As you can see from this paper, read the play with female trauma perspective, with the "American Dream" as the background, we realized the tragic fate of the female character Linda in the play is the most tragedy character than male character Willy.
In brief, it is apparent that Willy’s own actions led to not only his own demise, but his children’s as well. The salesman tragically misinterpreted the American Dream for only the superficial qualities of beauty, likeability and prosperity. Perhaps if Willy had been more focused on the truth of a person’s character, rather than purely physical aspects, his family’s struggles and his own suicide could have been avoided. On the whole, Arthur Miller’s play is evidence that the search for any dream or goal is not as easy and the end result may seem. The only way to realize the objective without any despair is the opposite of Willy Loman’s methods: genuineness, perseverance and humility.
A Grain of Wheat, a novel that dealt with the Kenya people’s struggle for independence. But the very people about whom I was writing were never going to read the novel or have it read for them. I had carefully sealed their lives in a linguistic case. Thus, whether I was based in Kenya or outside, my opting for English had already marked me as a writer in exile. (Ngugi, Moving 107)
Shakespeare craftily uses music and poetry to guide the audience through the play and give them an inkling of what is to come, if the audience chooses to play close attention. However, it is not always clear what the song means and, depending on the character delivering the song or poem, comes off as more comedic than meaningful to the performance. By the end of the play, the audience has accepted that music and poetry are just as much themes in the play as disguise and love, but are blended so painstakingly that neither poetry or love overshadow anything in the performance.