Honors

Theater Reviews
What makes a good play? That question captures everyone’s attention. Really there is no way of specifying what types of literary elements there can be in a play to make it successful. There is only one way of trying to crack down on what makes a good play. I have been reading articles in the New Yorker and they have been of a great resource to me. An example that I figured out from reading The Current Cinema: Academic Questions by Anthony Lane, was that not only plays are based on the same idea, but they are also driven from various conflicts that movies are trying to reenact today. This review was based entirely on the movie Bad Teacher which was released a while back. This movie had many literary elements that have worked throughout the script and surprising there was specific literary elements that were ideas pulled out from an original play and film called “Nasty Fish.” This idea of choosing the titles according to how great of a play they have written was mentioned most of the intro, which lead to me thinking that this would sound very interesting in how you could actually put time into the title of a play or film since it’s really important to capture the moment of what the whole story in the play would probably be about from the moment you read the play until you actually think about why they chose that title and how it all relates back into the central theme. Sometimes just by reading the title it gives you that urge of figuring out what the play might have in store for your once you watch it. I think that this will be a great element to explore and incorporate into our own play. I know that even though we are in our first stages of the play, it might be a good idea to start thinking about titles that attract the kind of audience that we want to come to our play. For example we could play around with the kind of theme that we want to stick with and show it once you read the title. In the theater article that I read, it also tried to combine foreshadowing words to a grade that it wasn’t so much exaggerated with what the play was going to be like because the whole point isn’t to spoil the play.
Another one of the literary elements that I found reading a theater review written by John Lahr called “Wild at Heart.” This was a very interesting play to read it had many visual ways of seeing characters personalities on and off stage. He talks about capturing the moments where the characters feel very vulnerable and delicate to the point where everything they desire and want becomes harder to reach once they get close to what they want. The sentence that caught my attention was when he mentioned that the characters are in the need to feel worthless so that it builds up throughout the story and becomes an element that can be analyzed while understanding the whole theme.
“Guares’s accomplishment is to capture the bright effervescence of his characters’ desires, as well as the punishing dark fact that everything they want seems to be worthless, making him feel worthless. “
What I mostly liked was how he explained his point and made it clear through character development and how each character became what the story made him. This is one of the basic themes that accomplish the way that the characters personalities flow and not become sudden strangers when a conflict appears and they start reacting in a totally different way than they are intended to, according to how their character is portrayed. I think that this could help make our play more visual and support how the play writers originally described the characters personalities and make people see their change or also how they kept being the way they were from beginning to end. For example, if we have Vincent being sweet and shy at the beginning and all of a sudden towards the middle for no reason he becomes angry at the world. This is something that we would most definitely change and we can try to fix it by making little conflicts that Vincent is involved in, so that when there comes a point where he can’t take it anymore, he just explodes with all this madness. My point being is that everything has to fit together so that change of character doesn’t lose its path and he/she goes with it.
Another literary element that I chose thinking that it could be a great support for a play, also being in the same article, was when John talks about the theme that a play has. He referred to a play called “The House of Blue Leaves.” Which I think is a very catchy play that makes various types of people connect with it. While reading what his opinions were on this play, I honestly agreed one hundred percent with everything he was saying. For example, when he talked about a main theme, that I think most famous people probably went through while trying to get fame, it was an interesting theme that catches your attention because it’s a story that relates to you.
“I’ll be too big for any of you.” Guars characters’ imaginations have been entirely overrun by the imperialism of the famous, whose success demeans and defines their every ordinary moment. “When famous people go to sleep at night, it’s us they dream of, Artie,” Bunny says. “The famous ones-they’re the real people.”
This signifies many things that we can focus more on in our play as well as making the characters be more believable and tell a story that they can actually pull off. Not everyone can be as determined as the people who assume a different personality to make the audience believe it and actually bring into thought that he’s a normal person living a life that the play gave him/her. I think that our theme in our play is very specific and detailed. It’s really clear and flows properly with how the characters personalities are. This literary element that I found has already been incorporated in our play since it’s based on a theme that revolves some peoples everyday lives, for example waking up and opening your local business, drinking a not so fresh cup of coffee, running late for a class etc. These are things that people catch upon and to