The First Appearance of Rafe on Stage in Spring and Port Wine by Bill Naughton
The playwright Bill Naughton has written this play about a working
class family in the nineteen sixties. It is set on the life of the
Crompton family, who lived in Bolton, Lancashire. My coursework
focuses on the head of the family, Rafe Crompton and his first
appearance on the stage. The home of the Crompton family is unique. "Thehouse
is a comfortable, prosperous, working-class home. The furniture is
fairly modern; everything is polished and well cared for. There is
nothing cheap or vulgar", this tells us that the Crompton family likes
to take pride in their house. I will also comment on the structure of
the scene up to Rafe's entry and how the scene develops after the
arrival of one person to another.
Before the start of the play we see Rafe as an organised man, who
likes everything to be orderly, "likes everything just so." . Daisy
Crompton (wife of Rafe Crompton) enters. "Daisy Crompton enters from
the kitchen carrying six side plates which she lays deftly, humming to
the music, on the table, giving extra attention to Rafe's place at the
head.", this tells us that Daisy respects Rafe well and makes an extra
effort for him as he likes everything to be orderly. She also pays
most attention to him as he is the most important person of the
family. In the 1960's it was also evident that the most important
person of the family was the man, he had to be treated with respect
and everything had to be as he wanted.
The play opens with Daisy and daughter Florence (who is a teacher)
exchanging a dialogue. There is a relationship between the mother and
the daughter, when they are talking to each other about the house
keeping money. Daisy says,"Ee, and I haven't got my housekeeping book
balanced." Florence answers by saying, "You're on the last minute with
those accounts every Friday." This tells us that Daisy is abrupt and
doesn't plan her things out ahead.
The year was 1966 Frank Sinatra was at the peak of his career. There he stood on the stage in the Copa Room at the Sands Hotel and Casino in front of Count Basie and his Orchestra recording what is considered the best album of his career. The album “Sinatra at the Sands” would be his first album recorded live to be released and the album would achieve gold in sales. Sinatra was in his environment, a cozy salon style venue with an enthusiastic crowd in Las Vegas. The album was recorded by Reprise and the label engineer was Lowell Frank and produced by Sonny Burke. Reprise had formerly recorded two other albums: “Sinatra-Basie” and “It Might As Well Be Swing” with Sinatra and Count Basie, but it was their performance at the Sands Hotel that would promote both performers carriers beyond what either one of them were able to do on the own.
The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall. Dir. Nick Morris. Perf. Ramin Karimloo,
As much as people try to cover their emotions and feelings from society, in both Macbeth by William Shakespeare and Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand it gets revealed. Shakespeare uses Macbeth, a brave soldier and powerful man’s ambition causes him much trouble. As well as Lady Macbeth, Macbeth’s wife, after bloodsheds she falls victim to guilt and madness, worst than Macbeth. They both cause casualties and try to shelter their real selves. Rostand displays how Cyrano, the protagonist is a Renaissance man, brave and courageous yet he cannot reveal his emotions to the woman he loves, Roxane. He uses Christian, a handsome man whom Roxane falls in love with, to woo her with Cyrano’s poetry, which Christian does not have. Furthermore the characters in these two plays use nature as appearance to cover up their true selves, because of the natural aspects of the characters, it illuminates their personalities.
As popular author Nicole Yatsonsky says, “Your truest friends are the ones who will stand by you in your darkest moments – Because they're willing to brave the shadows with you – and in your greatest moments – because they're not afraid to let you shine.” Similarly, in the heroic, romantic comedy, Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand, Cyrano, a passionate and talented poet cursed with an exceedingly long nose, helps Christian, a handsome yet dim-witted man, win the love of Roxane, the girl both have pined after for years. Through a series of correspondences between Cyrano (posing as Christian), and Roxane, Roxane falls deeply in love with Christian. In turn, Cyrano falls for Roxane. Despite his feelings for Roxane, Cyrano backs off and allows, even helps, the two lovers get married. In Cyrano de Bergerac, playwright Edmond Rostand uses Cyrano’s relationship with Roxane as well as his friendship with Christian to prove the theme that loyalty forms a bond stronger than love.
Abuse is a difficult and sensitive subject that can have long lasting effects. These traumatic emotional effects are often intensified if the abuse happens at a young age because children do not understand why the abuse is happening or how to deal with it. There are many abuse programs set up to counter the severe effects which abuse can have. Even more, poets and writers all over the world contribute works that express the saddening events and force the public to realize it is much more real than the informative articles we read about. One such poem is Theodore Roethke’s My Papa’s Waltz which looks carefully through the eyes of a young boy into the household of an abusive father. Robert Hayden’s Those Winter Sundays is a similar poem from the perspective of a young adult reflecting back on the childhood relationship with his father and the abuse his father inflicted. These poems are important because they deal with the complex issues surrounding the subject of abuse and also show the different ways which children react to it. My Papa’s Waltz and Those Winter Sundays are similar poems because they use tone, imagery, and sounds and rhythms to create tension between the negative aspects of abuse and the boys own love and understanding for their father.
William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew and Movie Ten Things I Hate About You
Sonny’s Blues is a short story written by James Baldwin. The story is written in the first person singular narrative style and it begins with the narrator who reads in the newspaper on his way to work about his younger brother Sonny, who has been caught in a heroine bust and jailed. The narrator becomes very disappointed in his brother that he does not write to him for a while but after his daughter Gracie, succumbs to polio, that is when he remembers his brother and writes a letter to him. The two brothers maintain contact through the letters till Sonny is released from jail. After his release, Sonny moves in with his brother and his family. During a family dinner, they flash back about their parents. The narrator describes their father as a drunk who died when sonny was fifteen. He liked his privacy just like sonny but they never used to get along. Sonny was a withdrawn and a quiet type while their father feigned to be big, loud-talking and tough. The narrator recalls the last time he saw their mother alive was before he left for war. He remembered his mother telling him to take care of his brother. The story talks of Sonny’s life in Harlem and how he tried to escape the stereotype of the community’s traditional social view. He tries to venture into jazz music which the narrator does not find suitable for him. Sonny gets lured into drugs in the attempt of escaping the darkness in his life and finds himself in jail. The narrator tries to help and understand his brother. When Sonny invites the narrator to Greenwich Village to watch him perform, the narrator is uncertain but accepts the invitation. As Sonny plays the piano, the narrator feels the magic in the music and can see how his brother’s emotions come alive and he is able to...
performed a small song and dance skit in a small theater in New York City. Thomas Dartmouth
The pursuit of power and constant struggle to maintain it leads to the deterioration of the mind. In the play Macbeth, Shakespeare demonstrates this concept through Macbeth’s struggle for power and his subsequent down fall. This is evident in his complete loss of honour and loyalty, his new found constitution of duplicity and his lack of value for life itself.
Lyons, Donald. "Lights, Camera, Shakespeare." Commentary. Feb. 1997.
William, Shakespeare Twelfth Night. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume B. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2006. 1079-1139.
### 2nd Part of Essay ### At the beginning of Act 1, Scene 7, we see a soliloquy from Macbeth expressing his doubts about killing King Duncan. When Lady Macbeth first enters the scene he attempts to assert his power over her, perhaps for the first time, by saying ‘We will proceed no further in this business’. This adverbial phrase is a definitive statement, which is utilized by Macbeth to reinstate his power over Lady Macbeth and regain control. His hesitancy over committing regicide is evidence of the fact that he is not an innately evil person, nevertheless his overriding ambition has the power to change the man into a merciless killing machine not far from the characteristics demonstrated by the Hawk in ‘Hawk Roosting’.
William, Shakespeare Twelfth Night. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume B. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2006. 1079-1139.
Barton, Anne. Introduction to Twelfth Night. The Riverside Shakespeare. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1974. 403-407.
Neher, Erick. "Movie Music At The Philharmonic." Hudson Review 64.4 (2012): 668-674. Academic Search Complete. Web. 3 Dec. 2013.