From the scratches on George’s boots to the height of the doors, the setting of the novel was smoothly translated from the book to the stage. The words on the pages came physically to life on the platform of The Springer Opera House. They affectively set the 1930s near Soledad, California, in the Salinas Valley. The costumes, props, lighting, and sounds enhanced the scene of a small, southern ranch during grueling times. The costume of each individual not only revealed their social status but their character as well. Unlike the ranch hands, Curley’s boots and clothes were nicer to make it clear that he is of a higher class. His wife wore heels, fancy dresses, a pearl necklace, makeup, and tights intending to impress the workers, indicating that she is dangerous. To exaggerate Lennie’s size, Lennie wore a thick, …show more content…
For instance, country music was played at the beginning and throughout the play. At night, the lighting got dimmer, cricket sound effects were played, and a full moon glowed white in the dark background. During tense moments, such as the death of Lennie and the death of Curley’s wife, the lighting died to a soft, yellow glow. On the other hand, the lighting got brighter in the day and at times of elation. Lighting and sound effects are an important part of staging a play. They indicate changes in mood, action, and location. Without pre-reading the book, the audience could have predicted that the novel took place on a ranch, in a southern state during the times of great depression. The cowboy costumes hinted the location of the novel; likewise, the props indicated the time period. Lighting and sounds contributed to alterations in atmosphere as well as time. As a whole, the costumes, props, lighting, and sounds created the setting of a 1930s ranch in Soledad, California. The difference between a good play and an outstanding play is the details in the
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
Mark Lambeck uses the drama’s setting to relate Intervention to the audience. Specifically, he uses a vague yet understandable modern time. An audience can relate knowing they could experience the same thing on any given day. The location of the play is also a place an audience could easily find themselves. It is vague place that could represent almost anywhere, perhaps in where the audience is. In the current world, one could easily find themselves walking down the street on their cell phone. The characters are constant...
The lighting along with the music becomes dim and depressing when Doris reminisces because they also need to reflect her mood. There is also a great use of blackouts in the play. The blackouts represent a
John Steinbeck, an American novelist, is well-known for his familiar themes of depression and loneliness. He uses these themes throughout a majority of his novels. These themes come from his childhood and growing up during the stock market crash. A reader can see his depiction of his childhood era. In Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck shows the prominent themes of loneliness, the need for relationships, and the loss of dreams in the 1930s through the novels’ character.
...r say anything. So she is stuck at a ranch where all the members there avoid her because she is trouble and can’t even run away because of her being a female in the early 1900’s made it almost impossible to survive on her own. She dresses a certain way to live out the American Dream the only way she can. She doesn’t dress that way to show off her body, she wants to feel like she is living her dream. She realizes that she is good looking and she uses that to her advantage to talk to some of the people at the ranch like Lennie. The only way she got to talk to Lennie was by letting him touch her hair. Steinbeck let Curley’s Wife die in such a peaceful way; I didn’t even realize she was dead until I read over the section multiple times. He left her there in the barn describing her beauty, showing the reader through Curley’s Wife that even the worst of us have humanity.
The quote that inspired John Steinbeck was the best laid schemes often go off track can be seen in the novel of Mice and Men. When Curley's wife met a man in her childhood that offered her to be an actress but the chance went away and she later died. Then Curley wanted to be a professional boxer but the dream never happened and he became a farmer then got his hand broken for trying to be tough. George and Lennie were going to buy a farm to live off the fat of the land then Lennie had to get in trouble and George had to give up the dream and kill Lennie for what he had done.
Curley’s wife’s femininity may be seen as her greatest weakness or flaw to most, but she rapidly discovers that it is also her only weapon on the ranch and learns to use it to her advantage. Therefore, she puts up an alluring and sultry front in an attempt to receive attention, because she is aware that none of the men on the farm respect her because of her position as a woman. The men's blatant lack of respect for her belittles the miniscule amount of power she has acquired
In "Constant Star", lighting told much about the play as soon as it began. Low, yellowish lighting and a bit of fog spread by ceiling fans filled the stage as the play started. This gave the stage the look of an old photograph, so the audience immediatly gathered that the show was taking place in the past. The mood was often set by lighting as well. Red lighting gave the audience a sense of foreboding while yellow indicated happy times. Also, lighting could substitute for props. During scenes involving the train, lights would flash on and off, making the stage look as if it was actually moving. This effectively created the illusion that the cast was on a train. Also, lighting was innovatively used to create a "jail" in one of the scenes by creating vertical bars on the stage around the convicts.
Curley?s wife spent her whole life trying to grab attention. She was always labeled and ignored by everyone on the ranch, an example of this is when George tells Lennie that she was troubled and to stay away from her. Curley?s wife was ignored and used from early on, when she was given false intentions on being a movie star.
The character of Curley’s Wife is very hard to unravel, as throughout the book, Steinbeck’s representation of women through characters such as George and Candy, is very harsh. This is because the sociological opinion at that time was that they were either, mothers, sisters, or prostitutes, as the audience soon see, George and other ranch workers refer to her as “bitch” “loo loo” and “tramp”. There were also a growing number of prostitutes during the Great Depression period, as they would offload their services to those whom were able to pay and have some decent income during the Depression. Other aspects that may make Curley’s Wife seem like a tart, is Curley’s “Glove Fulla’ Vaseline”. Curley literally keeps a glove full of Vaseline, in order to keep his hand soft, possibly for a sexual act. Curley boasts to Candy that the hand is for his wife, which tells us that she gives him consent to do these acts to her, and also, Curley’s nerve to inform fellow workers about his glove shows that he believes that his own wife is a tart, which is very controversial today, but back then, women were seen as nothing more than possessions, yours to do what you will. George informs Lennie to avoid Curley’s Wife at all costs, and not to talk to her, because of her promiscuous behaviour, he believes t...
The lighting was also very effectively used to show the coming and going of cars on the set. The reflection of lights on the front door of the house were used resemble those of an automobile. Even the final scene had just enough absence of light that the shadows of the characters could be seen sitting around the dinner table and praying by candlelight. At the very end of the performance the candles were extinguished consuming the set in blackness in turn signifying the end of the production.
The lights helped the audience determine who was speaking, by putting a spotlight over the actor and dimming the rest of the lights. Also, the color of the lights changed according to each scene and the mood for that particular scene. For instance, a musical number about a character’s tragic past would include soft, golden lighting while a scene about dancing in dance class might include purple lights to show the overall mood of the scene. In addition, the costumes used in the musical added even more life to the musical by providing a visual representation of each character and his or her personality. The costumes allowed the audience to determine the character traits of each character while also deciding the type of homes the characters came from. For instance, one of the characters was dressed in pants and a shirt that would normally be seen worn by an older man or a father. This lead the audience to believe that the character might be an older person who has a family of his own. Later, it was revealed that the character actually had a wife and two kids, proving the audience
The scripted gives every detail of what the house is to look like and states that the house should be more, “…comfortable than messy.” By having the set look like a comfortable home gives an atmosphere of what many, in the audience, would consider a homely feeling. (Norman, pg. 1) With guidance from Marsha Norman, the author of the play, she displays how she envisions the play being acted out and brought into the lives of the audience...
The production attempt of displaying things in familiar way that is accurate to life. Costumes give a visual appealing sense of how people were likely to wear. Each character’s costume needs to match their class standing in the society that the people could have worn. Actions that done by the characters as a response because of something that has happened or due to the fact that they have a motive, is important to the play but have to be done in an understandable or reasonable way. Dialogue has to close to what someone say as if they are having a real life conversation. In the production that was so important to showcasing any play is portraying it something with as much accuracy to where it becomes hard to distinguish what could happen versus what is not really likely to happen. The more a production pays attention to details such as costumes, actions, and dialogue and the more the actors can succeed in performing a truthful
...neously on many aspects of an audience’s sensibilities. With elements of supernatural music, dance, sound effects and movement in every scene of the play, the audience would never forget that the island is set apart from reality.