The Phantom Lady
Themes, social implications and play characteristics have always been the three main concerns that theatre critics have when analyzing or criticizing a play. In this case, The Phantom Lady is an intriguing story of a young woman, Angela, who is forced by her brothers to mourn in isolation, later begging for the aid of Don Manuel, who saves her. This fascinating play conveys a wide array of different themes that the author, Calderon de La Barca advocates, among these, we find nobility, courtesy, love and jealousy, no other themes were largely displayed, and the biggest one displayed was that of nobility along with courteous actions. To demonstrate these themes, the play needs to use a stage, dialogue, costumes and stage effects such as lighting; interaction with the audience was vital to tell the story to the public, along with the stage and its effects. Finally, were we to compare the implications this story would have in its current time period, compared with the modern day, we would find this story could never really happen presently, as many of the values held before have disappeared as times and beliefs change.
Writing plays is usually associated with feelings and beliefs. In this case, Calderon de La Barca wanted to advocate some themes in his play, The Phantom Lady, while his central thesis was most probably that of courtesy. The play conveys the message of courtesy very clearly, first, with the fact that Don Manuel accepted to defend an unknown woman, from Don Luis, the brother of this “unknown” women who the audience knows as Angela. Also, the theme of courtesy is clearly portrayed when Don Luis spares Don Manuel, and also when the former allows Don Luis to go and look for a new sword, after disarming hi...
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...o do plays, all these aspects form part of telling a story in a play, and they also form part of delivering a message to the audience, and such are things in which critics have focused their efforts on in order to evaluate plays. In The Phantom Lady, we can see themes advocated such as nobility, love and courtesy, we see brilliant stage effects such as lighting, costumes, setting and dialogue that aid in telling the story, and last but not least, we analyze the implications a story like this has on past times and can compare it to what would happen in modern times. Plays are made up of many different aspects such as these, and every aspect is vital to the performance and conveying of the play, because they are not as simple as people believe them to be, they are complex and intriguing to many people who are open minded.
Fundamental to our understanding of El Médico de su Honra, and of any other play is the notion that it was for performance and not intended for reading. Therefore, the action, text and spectacle all work together in producing an overall effect upon the audience. Calderón is described as a `craftsman' of drama and is famous for the dramatic devices which appeal to the various senses in order to convey the play's message with greater profundity. However, the seventeenth century playwright was limited by the facilities available to him. The rudimentary nature of their theatres affected the way in which a play was staged and therefore its interpretation. Public theatres were situated in courtyards, or `corrales', surrounded on three sides by private dwellings. A basic, but nevertheless important point is that theatres were generally exposed to the elements. By necessity, plays were performed during daylight hours and inevitably this would affect the presentation of the play. Atmosphere and mood were of paramount importance in a play, and this is of particular significance in El Médico de su Honra, where darkness is crucial both to the plot and the underlying themes.
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
...athustra is described as ‘abichado’, with ‘la cara de tocina rancio’ and ‘la bufanda de verde serpiente’ and she is mostly importantly, alluded to a ‘fantoche’. Moreover, Max Estrella shrinks throughout the play and becomes a puppet figure, which is shown in his directionless and aimless wandering throughout the streets of Madrid, emphasizing the absurdity of his life and of the Spanish society. This puppetry of the characters in the play is a source of farce, thus provoking laughter as the audience’s sudden realization of the absurdity of the string of events incites their amusement, showing the dark humour of Valle’s play. Therefore, this way of presenting his characters as helpless puppets and grotesques is Valle’s way of telling his audience that this is what the society has made humanity into, living with the lack of purpose and full of absurdity and futility.
"The House of Bernarda Alba" is set in Spain in the 1940's. It is definitely a very dramatic and very tragic play. Bernarda Alba is the tyrannical mother of five girls: Angustias, Magdalena, Amelia, Martitio, and Adela. At the opening of the play, we find out that Bernarda's husband has died, and the family is supposed to be in mourning for eight years. The trouble is that only Magdalena actually loved her father. The main focus of this play is to show just how unfair and unjust life was for Women in Spain during this time. Of the five daughters there is only one man who fit the bill according to Bernarda. His name is Pepe el Romano. He is supposed to marry Angustias, simply because she is the oldest and that's the way things are supposed to be. She is also the one to inherit her father's money. Pepe would come to the house and meet with Angustias, but we soon find out that he had something going on with another sister. He would meet with Angustias for a little while and then go and spend time with Adela, the youngest and most attractive of the sisters. This comes out when the other sisters say they hear Pepe leave at four in the morning, but Angustias insists that she only talked with him unt...
Throughout the plays, the reader can visualize how men dismiss women as trivial and treat them like property, even though the lifestyles they are living in are very much in contrast. The playwrights, each in their own way, are addressing the issues that have negatively impacted the identity of women in society.
The first main area of art and reality colliding in the play is the existence of characters who are referred to as Characters. Pirandello stretches the bounds of meta-theater by having actors portray Characters who swear they are not actors, when faced with other actors playing actual actors and a Director. The layers of unraveling of reality are astounding. The Characters must try and convince not only the Actors and the Producer of their true nature, but also the audience. Pirandello must convey his beliefs about the essence of art through the mouths of Characters seemingly unattached to the actuality of the theater around them. In the play, the Producer acts on stage in place of the author, questioning the sincerity and the true nature of the Characters, who become his r...
Shakespeare’s plays show the complexity of human beings. Everyone is different in reactions, actions, and thought. Shakespeare explores various themes throughout his writing career. Each play is unique, and their themes are handled in a very distinct way as Shakespeare writes each work with great care. Two major themes are appearance versus reality and relationship between motive and will; Othello, Hamlet, and Henry IV, Part 1 all portray these two themes in similar and different ways.
The women in Othello are few. A grand total of three have lines, and only two are truly important characters. The females in the play, in accordance to Shakespeare’s time period’s own Elizabethan English ideologies and the gender norms of the society in which the play takes place, are put firmly ‘in their place’. They are meek, soft spoken, and submissive, treated like possessions by the dominating men and almost completely disregarded as individuals with their own thoughts and emotions. Bawdy jokes and cracks at women’s sexuality are rampant, and husbands get away with frequent misogynistic rants at their wives’ expense. The female character who plays the most dynamic role in Othello is Emilia. In the duration of the play, we observe her evolution from a simple handmaiden, to a loyal wife enduring her husband’s maltreat, to a complex woman of conflicted feelings and fluctuating emotions. In this way, Emilia disproves the total weakness of women in Othello, and rises as her own sort of minor tragic hero, a preliminary feminist champion.
When many people decided to sit down and read a book or a play it is because the title or summary entices them. As the story comes to an end it is decided whether or not the person related to or understood the point of the literature. Great authors and playwrights know this and set in place concepts. Many different concepts, to catch different audiences attention and to deepen the understanding of the literature. In order to understand Shakespeare’s play Othello, it is necessary to examine the emotions of jealousy, manipulation, being consumed by something, and gender.
Throughout A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare, there are multiple analyses that one can follow in order to reach a conclusion about the overall meaning of the play. These conclusions are reached through analyzing the play’s setting, characterization, and tone. However, when one watches the production A Midsummer Night’s Dream directed by Michael Hoffman, a completely different approach is taken on these aspects, leading to a vastly different analysis of the work. Though there are many similarities between the original written play A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare and the on-screen production of the aforementioned play which was directed by Michael Hoffman, there are differences in setting and
The spectacle of this play is limited which is why there is such weight put on the actors themselves. Their scene and ensembles never show signs of change yet they develop and grow. There is a huge stress on the statue, which whom the Learned Ladies bow
The elements of a play are setting, irony, plot, characters, and theme, which will be discussed in the essay.
In William Shakespeare’s tragic play Othello there are numerous instances of obvious sexism aimed at the three women in the drama -- Desdemona, Emilia and Bianca – and aimed at womankind generally. Let us delve into this subject in this paper.
Miranda’s character in the play represents the ideal woman of Elizabethan era. She is portrayed as a goddess among the men. “Most sure, the goddess/Oh whom these airs attend!”(1.2.425-426). Fer...
The Shakespearean classic work Othello enchants the readers mind through the tragic love story of the witty and cunning soldier Othello and the charming and powerful Desdemona. The continuous reinforcement of their tragedy is molded by the gender roles present in the play, particularly those of Bianca, Desdemona, and Emilia. Although the men are important within the outcome of the play, mainly Iago and Othello, the women take a more subtle, yet effective approach in manipulating the work through their personalities. Bianca is a woman of self-esteem and sexual power while Desdemona is the keeper of Othello’s heart and handkerchief, never once denouncing him, even her death. Emilia subtly represents that women are just as powerful, if not more,