"The Conduct of Life" by Fornes

If I only had The Conduct of Life as an example of Fornes’ work, I might conclude judging from the play that in addition to having pared—down sometimes even abrupt scenes that her dramaturgical style also includes a heavy use of monologues.  By this I mean that she uses them much more often than the average playwright does and frankly they are the majority of the play.  For example, scene 1 is a monologue by Orlando and directly after that in scene 2 there is another series of monologues by Leticia and Orlando and this trend continues through out the remainder of the play with some exceptions.  I think that Fornes choosing to do this has a very powerful effect.  For me, it was a direct look into the characters thoughts and feelings without having to go through a filter of dialogue to another character.  They were honest and true with themselves because they didn’t have to hide behind some sort of mask like they did when interacting with others.  They could just be their raw human selves with imperfections, desires, and passions and we got to see them through their eyes and from each character’s perspective.  I believe that the play is called The Conduct of Life because of the play is all about the events that happen in life and having a true response to those things and having to deal with them but also having that drive in the back of your mind that yes life happens and a lot of times it is so unfair and cruddy but life does go on and that we should use these things that happen to us as a growing experience.  In life we tend to forget that other people are people and I think Nena puts it best when she says “I should not blind myself with rage, but I should see them and receive them, since maybe they are in worse pain than me” and that is the way that we should conduct our lives, not be torn down by the adversity but build our selves up and rise stronger from it.    

Trifles by Glaspell "I want to focus in the words and emotions in this production."

I actually really like this idea of a “blank, "abstract," and minimalistic setting and design idea for this show and I would love to see it done  like this as opposed to a production of it with historically accurate costumes and an elaborate set and props.  A production like this, I believe would carry a stronger message because it would minimalize distractions and really make the audience focus on the characters facial expressions, reactions and dialogue.  They audience would be able to home in on what they characters were actually saying and exactly how they felt or perceived about an object that they encountered rather than the audience actually being able to see said object and making them focus on the object rather than the actual reactions to the object.  The reactions to the items found throughout the play are what make the play so enticing, not exactly what the objects look like.  The text itself is very meticulous in the way it describes things.  The dialogue creates a very vivid imagery in which it doesn’t leave the audience guessing as to what exactly the women found when they were rummaging through the house.  The audience can paint a picture in their minds primarily on the comments the women made about the quilt or the box or the bird.  There was a lot of attention to detail and frankly I think that physically having these elaborate props would be more distracting from the story than if they were present.  Even though I would prefer a minimalistic production, it would lose quite a bit.  I think that the costumes especially, if they were only in black clothing rather than historically accurate attire would take something away.  Even though, it is obvious as to the time period and the life style is sort of evident in the dialogue, it would be helpful to have the costumes to reinforce the idea of where women stood in this time and how insignificant men regarded their opinions and banter to be. The costumes would be a consistent reminder of the time period and allow the audience to more easily connect the female characters to their position in life.  In addition, I do feel like seeing the bird all mangled in the box would be really daunting for the audience to see and make it that much more of a tense moment rather than depending on the audience to e very focused and hung on every word and relying on them to be creative and imaginative.  I think having such a minimalized production would indeed be risky , but I think it would add to the rawness  of the show and really get to the heart of how these women felt about not only themselves, but how men saw them and in the end their sympathy and sense understanding they had for Minnie Foster. 

Overtones by Gerstenberg

           The conventions of Gerstenberg’s “Overtones,” are clearly written out in the stage directions, these conventions or rules consist of the cultured halves of Harriet and Margret and the primitive halves of them (Hattie and Maggie) can never come in actual physical contact with their counterparts, but it is imperative that they maintain a sort of mental connection between themselves.  Harriet and Margret never see Hattie and Maggie, therefore they never talk to their primitive parts, but talk to space when addressing them and their primitive parts do in fact talk directly to their cultured selves.  In addition, Harriet can only hear Hattie and Margaret and Margret can only hear Maggie and Harriet.  Harriet can never hear Maggie and Harriet can never hear Maggie. 

            We are aware of these conventions not only because the stage notes outline them for us but also the dialogue been them is proves this except for some exceptions.  An audience member would be able to follow along with the conventions from following the dialogue carefully and paying attention to whom the characters are directing their lines to and who each character shares dialogue with.         There are some moments through out the play that bend these pre-set rules though.  These rules tend to be broken at places of very high instability and emotion for the cultured counterparts.  For example, at one point when the phone is ringing and Harriet is emotionally upset that Hattie refuses to acknowledge that Charles is her husband as well and then suddenly the phone rings and Harriet apparently sees Hattie going to answer the phone, meaning that she must be physically observing her or she would not know that Hattie was walking towards the phone, and stops her by mentioning that it would be improper to let the telephone girl hear her real self so she (Harriet) regains authority of the situation and answers it.  I believe that the moments when the rules are broken have quite an effect on the way the audience views the characters because when the counterparts do seem to be able to actually see each other it is like the character counterparts are emerging in to one for that brief moment so this allows the audience to be able to visually see the mental connection between them and which will power is being more dominate in that moment.  This allows the audience to be able to make a distinction between what is truly an emotional pull on the characters thoughts and beliefs because we witness the “merge” between the two and when they are just being a bit melodramatic and self loathing or whining to each other because there isn’t a “merge” that is visible.  

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