The second of a pair of Williams plays I read recently. "Cat" takes place in the bed/sitting room of Brick and Maggie Pollitt in the plantation home of "Big Daddy" Pollitt, Brick's father. Big Daddy is a rich man, owner of a huge plantation; the occasion that takes place in the play is the celebration of Big Daddy's birthday and his (supposed) clean bill of health from recent medical tests. All the family members (except Big Daddy and his wife, Big Mama) know that the medical tests actually came back positive for cancer, and they plan to gently break this news to Big Daddy.
The play chiefly deals with Brick's relationships with Maggy, Big Daddy, and Brick's brother, "Gooper" (Cooper). Brick and Maggie haven't slept in the same bed for quite some time, partly because of Brick's worsening alcoholism. Big Daddy wants Brick to overcome his alcoholism and general indifference to the world so that he can take over the running of the plantation, while Gooper and his wife try to get the plantation for themselves by making Brick look bad in front of Big Daddy and Big Mama. A subplot of the play is Maggie's questioning of Brick's relationship with his best friend, Skipper, who recently committed suicide; Maggie wondered if Brick and Skipper were homosexual lovers, and slept with Skipper to challenge their relationship. Her confrontation with Skipper is what resulted in his suicide, and the suicide is what has caused Brick's heavy drinking and general apathy.
Williams' handling of the interactions of this "Old South" family, his willingness to deal with topics like alcoholism, cancer and sexuality at such an early date, and the sometimes autobiographical nature of the story make this an interesting and entertaining read.
Showing posts with label drama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drama. Show all posts
Thursday, July 14, 2011
A Streetcar Named Desire/Tennessee Williams/142 pp.
This is the first in a pair of Williams' plays that I read. Blanche DuBois comes to stay with her sister, Stella, and Stella's husband, Stanley, in a run-down neighborhood in New Orleans. Written in 1947, the play documents the changing relationships among Blanche, Stella and Stanley, while showing the clash between Blanche, a member of the "genteel" Old South, and Stanley, a member of the new industrial working class. Stanley resents Blanche, who represents (to him) Stella's past and the "finer things" that Stella left to marry him. The action culminates in a surprising confrontation between Blanche and Stanley, ending with Stella siding with Stanley and having Blanche committed to a nursing home.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Equus/Peter Shaffer/109 pp.
Shaffer writes in his introduction that he was inspired to write this play after hearing from a friend about an incident where a young man had blinded some horses in a small English town. Shaffer's friend died before revealing any further details of the incident, and Shaffer wrote Equus partly as a way of explaining what may have caused the young man's actions. In the play, teenager Alan Strang is committed to a mental institution after blinding six horses with a metal spike. Psychiatrist Martin Dysart tries to discover what would have caused Alan to do such a thing. It is revealed that Alan views horses as a sort-of god/slave figure, to be worshiped and, at the same time, to be tamed. Alan's highly religious mother and equally-highly anti-religious father help round out the main characters of the play, along with the actors who play the horses.
Ah yes... the horses. The style of Shaffer's play is very minimalist, with plain wooden benches doing duty as psychiatrist's couch, cinema seating, and horse stables. The "horses" in the play are actors in plain brown clothes, wearing no costume except hooves with metal horseshoes on their feet, and stylized horse-head masks of metal and leather. When Alan "rides" one of the horses, he simply climbs on the actor's shoulders. The simplicity and starkness of the costumes and set, and the absence of any scenery, help focus the reader's (and, I assume, the audience's) attention on the powerful words being spoken by the characters.
Reading this play was a very draining experience for me. The underlying religious and semi-sexual reasons for Alan's actions emerge, bit by bit, through Martin's skillful (and sometimes devious) methods. As Alan described the events leading up to the blinding of the horses, I could picture these events clearly in my mind. Reading this work definitely made me want to see a live production of the play.
Ah yes... the horses. The style of Shaffer's play is very minimalist, with plain wooden benches doing duty as psychiatrist's couch, cinema seating, and horse stables. The "horses" in the play are actors in plain brown clothes, wearing no costume except hooves with metal horseshoes on their feet, and stylized horse-head masks of metal and leather. When Alan "rides" one of the horses, he simply climbs on the actor's shoulders. The simplicity and starkness of the costumes and set, and the absence of any scenery, help focus the reader's (and, I assume, the audience's) attention on the powerful words being spoken by the characters.
Reading this play was a very draining experience for me. The underlying religious and semi-sexual reasons for Alan's actions emerge, bit by bit, through Martin's skillful (and sometimes devious) methods. As Alan described the events leading up to the blinding of the horses, I could picture these events clearly in my mind. Reading this work definitely made me want to see a live production of the play.
Monday, February 7, 2011
No Exit and Three Other Plays/Jean-Paul Sartre/281 pp.
A friend saw that I was reading this book and asked, "Why are you reading Sartre? Life too pleasant for you right now?" I responded that I'd heard a lot about Sartre, but had never read any of his work and wanted to try him out. This volume left me with mixed feelings toward the author.
This collection consists of four plays written by Sartre: The first, No Exit is a conversation among three people who have recently died and found themselves in hell. However, instead of the whips and torture they expected, their punishment is to sit in a locked drawing room and talk with each other for eternity. The second play, The Flies, takes us to the ancient Greek city of Argos, where Orestes has returned to take his vengeance on his stepfather and mother for killing his father, Agamemnon. He meets his sister, Electra, the Furies, and even Zeus himself. The third play, Dirty Hands, takes place in a small Eastern European country during World War II; a member of the local Communist group is given the mission of assassinating a fellow party member. Finally, in the fourth piece, The Respectful Prostitute, a young woman in the 1940s American South is asked to testify that a black man tried to rape her. If she doesn't, she will be exposed as a prostitute and run out of town.
Of the four works, I enjoyed No Exit the most. All the action takes place in one room, as the three characters reveal the causes of their deaths, and the actions that have led them to their punishment in hell. The play that I least liked was The Flies; the concept that the residents of Argos are ritually punishing themselves for the murder of their king, and that Zeus and the Furies are feeding off of their self-loathing and depression, was disturbing to me. Also, the play assumes a familiarity with the Orestes/Electra story that I didn't already have.
Two of the works (The Flies and The Respectful Prostitute) mention specifically that they were translated by others; if Sartre himself translated the other two plays, or if he wrote them in English, both he and the other translators did a good job of putting them into language that fits well with the locale and personalities of the characters.
This collection consists of four plays written by Sartre: The first, No Exit is a conversation among three people who have recently died and found themselves in hell. However, instead of the whips and torture they expected, their punishment is to sit in a locked drawing room and talk with each other for eternity. The second play, The Flies, takes us to the ancient Greek city of Argos, where Orestes has returned to take his vengeance on his stepfather and mother for killing his father, Agamemnon. He meets his sister, Electra, the Furies, and even Zeus himself. The third play, Dirty Hands, takes place in a small Eastern European country during World War II; a member of the local Communist group is given the mission of assassinating a fellow party member. Finally, in the fourth piece, The Respectful Prostitute, a young woman in the 1940s American South is asked to testify that a black man tried to rape her. If she doesn't, she will be exposed as a prostitute and run out of town.
Of the four works, I enjoyed No Exit the most. All the action takes place in one room, as the three characters reveal the causes of their deaths, and the actions that have led them to their punishment in hell. The play that I least liked was The Flies; the concept that the residents of Argos are ritually punishing themselves for the murder of their king, and that Zeus and the Furies are feeding off of their self-loathing and depression, was disturbing to me. Also, the play assumes a familiarity with the Orestes/Electra story that I didn't already have.
Two of the works (The Flies and The Respectful Prostitute) mention specifically that they were translated by others; if Sartre himself translated the other two plays, or if he wrote them in English, both he and the other translators did a good job of putting them into language that fits well with the locale and personalities of the characters.
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