Smoke on the Mountain did an excellent job at utilizing each of the seven components of a play in the production of the show. The first two components are plot and characters. The plot is the actions in a show and the characters are the people who carry out the actions of the plot and they both require the other in order to be developed correctly. When Vera Sanders explains to the congregation why they are all similar to June bugs she is developing her character and in turn, developing the plot. She begins by telling a story when a June bug flew into her lemonade one evening while she was sitting on her porch. She was incredibly upset about this because that June bug contaminated her drink. Her emotions, thoughts, and actions about this ordeal were logical and believable to the audience which allows her character to be developed. She goes on to explain how, like the June bug that flew into her lemonade, we are all inadvertently flying into the drink of sin. This correlation between us and a June bug started out very strange and confusing but through logical steps and details given by Vera, we were able to make the connection and understand her reasoning. Believable actions and stories like this are what build the plot. This is why characters and plot go together. The next component Aristotle listed is the theme; the abstracted subtext (aka the hidden message) in a show. There were two themes in—overcoming tribulations and sin and becoming unified as a community through song. The vast amount of songs that were performed during the show made me believe that unity through song was the central theme. Just like the community in the play, when I was participating in this show, I felt the power of music through and found myself on the e...
... middle of paper ...
...e are virtuosity and magic. To have virtuosity, one must have great skill in knowing how to use your body and voice and well as its limitations. Magic is a bit more complicated. It cannot be defined. Everyone on stage had good virtuosity. They knew where their center was and they knew how to use their voice and body. This was not shocking considering that most of the actors were seniors in Musical Theatre. However, not all of them possessed that magical quality. The person I saw this the most in was Taylor Young who played the character of Vera Sanders in the show. I’m not sure what pulled me to her the most, but that is what magic is. I can’t define it; I just know that there was something special about her that I really enjoyed watching, especially when she told the story about the June bugs. That story really stuck with me. In fact, I thought about it all weekend.
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
the play. It looks at the person he is and the person he becomes. It
Literary theorist, Kenneth Burke, defined dramatistic explaination by the prescence of five key elements. This list of elements, now popularly known as Burke’s Pentad, can be used to asses human behavior as well as dicipher literary themes and motives. The five elements; agent, purpose, scene, act, and agency, have been found highly useful by performance study practitioners in translating texts into aesthetics. When systematically applying Burke’s Pentad to “Burn Your Maps,” a short story by Robyn Joy Leff published January 2002 of the Atlantic Monthly, the analyzer can realistically grasp the emotional and logical motivations and tones of the text. By doing so, the performer becomes an enlightened vessel for the message Leff wants to communicate. The Pentad can be described with simple questions like: Who? What? When? Where? How?, but asking the small questions should always lead to more in depth analysis of the element, and it should overall, explain the deeper question: Why?
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.
There are many different themes that are present throughout this play; however the two larger themes are slavery and Christian values. Throughout the play these two themes are present with every character and yet at the same time seem to be at odds with each other. When it comes to the idea of slavery, the fact that this book was written at the time to persuade the readers, especially the northerners that slavery is evil, un-Christian, and intolerable in society. Even with the idea of slavery, we can find that the play takes a great amount of time to show the fact that the slavery system does not follow the Christian values. These two themes seem to be forever intertwining with each other.
themes of love and hate are very important in the play as the plot is
The sound design and choreography intensified the overall musical. They created the time, place, and mood through rhythm and great energy. The actors had wireless, behind the ear mikes, that attached to the mike pack which amplified the sound, making it very clear. I could easily understand what they were talking about or singing.
Throughout the musical, the prowess of each individual performer was on display. Every performer, with the exception of Kristine, expressed a power and vibrato that was breathtaking; the highest notes lilting and the lowest notes thundering. I was in awe during a majority of the performances because of the commanding singing in each performer.
What makes a good play or musical? Ask this question to five people and it is likely to yield five very different answers. Different people resonate with different accepts of dramatic expression. The first person to create clear-cut guidelines for analyzing a work was the Greek philosopher Aristotle. He defined what a good drama entails and wrote an outline that clearly delineates which elements good playwright should pay more attention to and which elements should be secondary thoughts. Aristotle’s Poetics put each of these elements into 6 categories; Plot, Characterization, Theme, Diction, Melody, and Spectacle. No matter when a piece was written one should be able to determine how successful or not these elements were executed and included in the work.
The prominent theme that was exhibited throughout the novel was inhumanity. The quote "Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky." This quotation shows how a powerful authority had all the control to carry out disturbing actions and no common ma...
with what you feel are the main themes of the play that you want to
reach into the ideas and themes of the play so we will have a good
The elements of a play are setting, irony, plot, characters, and theme, which will be discussed in the essay.
...the betrayal and dishonesty that is omnipresent in the play. Not only do they simply embody this concept, but they also serve to conclude the events of the play, by being the ending to what started the beginning.
Some of the most important themes of the play are shown in Act 1 Scene