My best guess as to why D’Amour
decided to name her play Detroit, but
never actually mentions Detroit or alludes to things that are solely found or
connected to Detroit is because the city of Detroit’s reputation. Detroit has a reputation of being run down
and rather dangerous with a lot of crime and a large drug circuit. It is also one of the least expensive places
to live in the United States.
Considering Detroit’s reputation it would be plausible to assume that
D’Amour connected the shambles and circumstances of the characters within her
play to a city that is also in shambles and has a lot of the same problems as
the characters. They are both poor,
prone to substance abuse, and run down.
The reality checks in this play
that shock characters out of some illusion are everywhere. I found the one when Ben admits that he
didn’t even have a website to be one of the most show stopping ones because it
completely takes the play in another direction that ultimately leads to he and
Mary’s house being burned down and it’s like it doesn’t even bother them. When all of these reality checks occurred it
was really fun to see how D’Amour made the characters react in very
unsuspecting ways.
As for the humdinger question, I
think that it is kind of unjustified to pick which of irony, ambiguity, or
reality is most central to the play.
They all interact equally and without any one of them, the play would
feel I guess less suspenseful or surprising at times and it would really make
the play not as empowering as I believe it to be. But I guess if I had to choose the most
important one, I would have to say the reality checks are the must
important. The reality checks are when I
saw the characters to be most alive and where I believe the story unfolded the
most.
Yvette, I agree with you about why D'Amour decided o name her play Detroit. It could have been named lots of other cities, but Detroit is the city you think of when talking about poverty and drug abuse. Poverty and drug abuse are huge topics in the script and are issues that each character revolves around. I totally agree that probably the biggest show stopping moment is when Ben reveals that he has not been building any website. D'Amour does an incredible job writing because I was convinced that Ben was being serious about his business, so I literally gasped when I found out it was all fake.
ReplyDeleteI would entirely agree that the reality checks are the most important parts of the play because many of those truths are kept hidden from the audience through most of the play. I’m not saying that this play is exactly Shyamalanian or anything, but the twists at the end aren’t clearly foreshadowed at all, so the reality checks are just as strong to the audience as they are to the characters. The ironies and ambiguities (which there aren’t really that many of at all…) are nowhere near as important to the development of the play as the twists.
ReplyDeleteI agree. There really isn't one thing in particular (irony, ambiguity, etc.) that really is more important than the others.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you when you state that the Detroit name evolved due to the city of Detroit’s reputation of being run down, dangerous, has plenty of crime has a well-known drug circuit, and is one of the least expensive places to live. I also believe that people associate the city of Detroit as being a typical American city as all of the above happens in cities across the United States, including New Orleans and Baton Rouge.
ReplyDelete