Pygmalion

First off, I have to say, the entire time I was reading this play, all I could imagine and hear in my head was the movie/musical My Fair Lady. If you haven’t seen it, it’s pretty much the Pygmalion story in a musical form, with a slightly different story line, and I highly recommend it if you had problems with Eliza’s accent. At any rate, I had all of the songs from My Fair Lady stuck in my head for the past 3 days. But, as annoying as it was, knowing the storyline in advance did help me to understand what was happening in the play, especially with Eliza’s accent. The vocal link Mrs. Pierce gave us to listen too was also helpful in understanding some of the strong dialect.

Before class today I didn’t realize how the play Pygmalion was connected to the ancient Greek and Roman myth. The likeness of the two stories is not as strong as in other adaption’s, but it is still there. Most modern adaptions would probably keep Galatea as a statue and Pygmalion as a sculptor; with maybe some name variation and change of venue and language. But the way Shaw uses the ancient story to adapt it to modern day is amazing. Thinking that Higgins was just using Eliza to sculpt a perfect member of society by his standards was pretty twisted. When comparing the play to My Fair Lady it’s interesting to see the difference in characters but the almost complete similarity in storyline. When watching My Fair Lady, you do not really get a sense of Higgins being a creepy old guy out to use Eliza for his own entertainment. While in the play, Pygmalion that is how I read his character.

Over the past few classes when we’ve focused on comparing the play with its film adaption, I’ve become more in tune with spotting the small differences between the two. So when I read Shaw’s play, I saw able to quickly compare our modern day musical adaption in my head and see how the directors of both may have changed some things around to use to their advantage. The moral story that each of the adaption’s tell, I think, is still similar. In each, once Higgins turns Eliza into a “sophisticated lady,” there is nowhere for her to go, physically and socially. She’s stuck between two classes that are both not going to easily except her.

Dr. Faustus

Dr. Faustus was another hard read. This Medieval stuff is really hard for me to read, and I’m not sure why. I love Shakespeare and it is not far from it in some of its style and conventions. Though I must say that this story was more interesting than some of our previous stories, so it was a lot easier to get through. I thought that Dr. Faustus was an interesting man. He gives up his soul to the devil as to gain magical powers, and uses these magical powers to impress people. You would think if you got magical powers you would use it to make yourself invincible, or make it so that you can fly, or that you’re the richest person in the world. But it seemed to me like Dr. Faustus just wanted everyone to find him interesting and to be liked by his colleagues and the upper class. I found this pretty different. Nowadays if someone received magical powers, they would most certainly use them more destructively; whether it is self destructive or dangerous to others. A modern day tale would more likely be Dr. Faustus wishing to be the richest person in the world, or to have superpowers. Another thing about Dr. Faustus that I found interesting, and I didn’t necessarily like, was his indecisiveness. He kept changing his mind about whether he should be doing what he was doing. I mean, his indecisiveness before selling his soul makes sense, but afterwards, there’s really nothing you can do. He keeps thinking that he should pray to God and hope that he can be saved, when instead he should be enjoying his powers. You’ve already sold your soul Faustus, stop whining! Although I do feel sorry for him because Mephistopheles does push him towards selling his soul, and he didn’t really get a good chance to make a decision on his own.

Also, I found the play that Mrs. Pierce had us watch pretty amazing. The fact that when the director read this play, he imagined that in his head, that’s pretty incredible, especially seeing the his final image come to life on stage. When most people think of plays they don’t imagine things like that. I certainly didn’t and neither did anyone else in the class. Seeing this play, in any form and produced by anyone, seems as though it would be much easier to follow that when simply reading it.

Everyman

Everyman was a great moral tale, and had a wonderful underlying theme. But the story itself was very repetitive and boring. I didn’t want to upset anyone in class by saying this, but I’m not a very religious person at all. I may be one of the least religious people in the class, so the story was hard for me to read because of the way it was being told. I was bothered by Everyman having to appease god for doing all his wrongs before he could move on, and how he was no followed by his friends because of the fact he betrayed god. Don’t get me wrong, it was a great story and I do believe you must take responsibility for your “sins” so that you can pass on happily, but the fact that it was based on God and Jesus made it hard for me to read.

I do love allegorical stories, and the allegory used to tell this story was one of the best I’ve read, but again, I didn’t agree with the basis of the story. Also, I didn’t agree necessarily with the order that everyone left Everyman. To me, it would probably be Fellowship, Cousins, Kindred, Goods, Five-wits, Strength, Beauty, Knowledge and Discretion. Of course, because I am not religious I’m sure that this changes the way I look at myself and the world, as well as death.

One thing I do not understand about the story was the point of the Doctor at the end. I understand that he was there to sort of give a summary of the stories events, but I believe that the Angel could have just as well given us a summary. Everyman could have also given us a summary of his feelings and realizations.

The other thing that bothered me about this was the language. I’ve read Dante’s Inferno, Paradise Lost, and almost all of Shakespeare’s plays, but this play really gave me trouble. I had to read all of the foot notes at least twice and then read the lines very slowly so that I could comprehend what was happened. But I still ended up pretty confused as to what was going one near the end. The language in The York Crucifixion was much more complicated but I liked that story better. It was light hearted and the tone helped me to follow what was going on.

Atsumori

This story was pretty interesting, and it wasn’t hard to follow for me. The part that made the reading difficult was the fact that there were so many stage directions I was trying to keep track of and all the characters switching back on forth between lines. This style of writing made sense for the culture and time period, but isn’t very effective now.

When we learned about the Noh theatre traditions, the play’s unique style and structure made much more sense. And when we watched the video and I was actually able to see the effect all of the stage directions had on the actual performance. Performing in the Noh theatre looked like it might be very difficult. Having to remember all of the specifics of the movements as well as your lines seem like a lot to have to remember. The audience had to be well informed as well, and also very intelligent to be able to follow along with the story and use the actor’s body movements to tell what was going on.

When we were in class and Ms. Pierce started explaining what was happening at the end of the play I got really lost. I had no idea what was happening at the end because of the multitude of stage directions and the fact that the Shite was changing between characters. When she explained what was actually going on with the Shite’s line it made so much more sense to the story.

Another thing I found interesting about the theatre of the Noh area is the similarities between the Japanese theatre and the Chinese theatre. The singing element of the plays seems like a very asian feature. We in America would think of these as musicals, but they use the singing as a dramatic effect to add emotion to the play as well as to tell the story.

Snow in Midsummer - Chinese Theatre

The structure of this poem was what really caught my interest at first. The way there are stanzas’s and then paragraphs, it made the play flow very strangely, until I knew that it was mostly to be sung. Then the structure made more sense to me. The repetition of every detail of the story in every characters line’s was very frustrating because I felt like the author was just doing it to fill in space. It was helpful at some points in the play because it did get confusing when characters began threatening each other and gold was being exchanged and everyone was strangling each other.

This play seemed a very different form then the Greek drama’s we’ve been reading. This was not completely centered around mythology or religion, but was in fact focused and driven by one factor which was the Chinese belief of the 7 virtues. Dou E. had to follow the virtues so that her family name and honor would be upheld; the same is true for the Greek drama’s, the people had to uphold their family name and honor but instead of following virtues they had to follow and appease the rules of the gods. The presence of a tragic hero isn’t so much present in the Chinese drama but there is a sense of a flaw in the characters. The characters in these drama’s also are not royal members, but instead merely peasants or common people.

When it comes to the visual sense of the Chinese dramas, they are very similar to the Greek dramas. The presence of masks does exist in both cultures and the Skene doors are replaced by a simple indented wall for the exit and entrances of the actors. Both forms of theatre are preformed outside for the most part, and involve similar use of props such as masks and scenery. Both the Greek and Chinese theatre use masks to represent the characters, as well as using little to no scenery, instead they both use props and body movement to represent what is going on in the play in place of the scenery. These plays types are very similar in nature and it makes you wonder if they either have influences from each other or from a similar outside source. Certainly they are not very similar to today’s plays and dramas, which are pretty much the same all over the world.

Medea - The Witch of Corinth

In this Greek play written by Euripedes, Jason, a prince by blood, is married to a witch of sorts named Medea. Medea helped Jason to milk the fire breathing ox, defeat the undead army which sprang from the ground and to slip past the dragon to reach the Golden Fleece. After this Medea fled with Jason, being disowned by her family and married him. The play begins, en medius res, we see Medea is mourning because Jason has decided to marry Creon’s young daughter Creusa, so that he may gain power over the land of Corinth. Jason claims that his purpose in this is to make sure that his sons, whom he has with Medea, will have a chance to become royalty when they grow older.

When reading the play, you get a sense of simplicity to the set and characters. There isn’t much of a set that would be needed because the stage directions simply call for people entering and exiting. Plays nowadays are so complex, with multiple levels and machines, moving buildings and things to make people fly, it would be amazing to see where theatre would be now if there weren’t all of these inventions to make theatre more entertaining. When reading the play, there are only a few characters that are the main speakers: Medea, Jason and the Chorus. In modern plays we have much more complex character systems. But when we compare Euripedes play to that of Sophocles, we see a much larger character base. The chorus in this play seems to be a force that pushes Medea’s character development, not a huge character in itself like it was in Oedipus. Medea gets more hateful towards people as the chorus tells her to calm down, and that they love her and only want to help her.

One thing that I believe both the play and the film were missing was the character of Creusa. She is the entire reason that Medea has lost Jason and does all of these terrible sins. It is understandable to not have her in the play as written originally, but in the film adaption it would have made more sense. It would have been nice to see some sort of action between Medea and Creusa. This would have been very useful in the fall of Medea into madness, to see her anger towards Creusa, although she continually says that her true hate is towards Jason, she ends up killing Creusa which means she must really hate her just as much.

Oedipus the King-Sophocles

This story was pretty interesting. Being part of a trilogy, just reading this one part didn’t give me much of a sense of what the characters were like. I could tell that Jocasta really loved Oedipus and him the same to her, but that was the only character elements I could really grasp. Oedipus is definitely one of the most interesting drama characters, and the story of Oedipus and the Sphinx is one of my all time favorites. The one thing that I got out of this story about Oedipus’ character was his tragic flaw. It seemed to me like he was very proud of where he came from, but also very scared. He was proud that he solved the riddle of the Sphinx and came to power as the king but he ignored all of the signs that pointed to his demise. His cowardliness was also a big flaw. He ran from all of these situations that a prophet predicted would come true, instead of facing all of them head on. It also seems like he was focusing on one event to hold him in power, the riddle of the Sphinx. He mentions it so much in this short time span that it made me think that maybe he was insecure about being the king so suddenly that he had to make it known that he deserved the title because he saved the people from the Sphinx.

This was the first drama I have read where there was a chorus. It seems like we have replaced the role the chorus played with extras in our modern shows. The extras will say little side comments to help the audience catch on or let them know what their reactions should be. The chorus seems like a strange concept; in this drama they acted all as the town’s people and also almost as an audience. To think of them singing all of these lines together also makes the concept even stranger. I was actually trying to sing the lines in my head at one point to see how it would sound and it was kind of weird.

Lastly, the structure of this piece is very simplistic. There are only a few characters, and mainly one person does all the talking. I felt like the whole drama was just one long monologue from Oedipus and the Chorus. To think of one person playing multiple characters would also make this an interesting show to see, or even perform. I continued to think throughout the reading how difficult it must have been for these actors to memorize all these lines along with changing characters. I definitely wouldn’t have been able to do that.