Joe Dennison's Play Aquarium

Aquarium

Aquarium was a group of four one act plays written by Joe Dennison and directed by Mike Moran. The first play was split in half. The actors did one half of it as a prologue and the second half as an epilogue. The actors eliminated the fourth wall and made it quite clear they knew the audience was there, and interacting with them. The two characters James Edward Lee and Bruce Godfrey are actors who are trying to perform a two man version of the play "Waiting for Godot".

The second play entitled Goon was a satirical comedy about a prison system of the future. The two characters, Mo and Vic, are in a maximum security co-ed prison that seems more like a summer camp than a prison. In the prison's attempt to rehabilitate the prisoners they make the roommates choose everything together. All of their choices have to be the same, they have to eat the same meals and watch the same television programs. Vic and Mo are totally different so this comes as a challenge to them, they reveal what got them into the prison in the first place. The play was full of satirical jokes such as the prison was co-own by Disney, the prisoners were called "guests"instead of inmates and instead of bright orange jump suites they wore khakis and polo tops with hello my name is... name tags, which makes them look more like camp counselor or sales people at the Limited.

The third play was entitled Smile. It is a play where two characters, Larry and Sidney meet in a locked and windowless hospital room. Larry has amnesia and can't remember anything about who he was and what he was like. He then decides to find a new identity. Sidney tells him that he had fallen on her and she ultimately tells him that they are dead.

The last play was called Time. It was about a mother, and a daughter's, Fay and Kit, shaky relationship. The details of their past are made pretty vague in the play. The daughter is in an institution and her mother comes to visit her for their annual reunion and they get in a fight about the past and what has happened to Kit to put her in an institution.

The playlet I am going to do a script analysis on is my personal favorite of the four Goon.