BLOG #3 "EURYDICE"

the thing which most struck me about the format of this play was how much stage direction there was. and when i say stage direction i don't necessarily mean "move here or do that" i mean "feel this or express that." Most of Sarah Ruhls stage direction presents the daunting task for the actor of conveying a series of very complex internal emotions. for example when the father is "walking" his daughter down the aisle the stage direction states, "He is affectionate, then solemn, then glad, them solemn, then amused, then solemn. he looks at his imaginary daugher; he looks straight ahead; he acknowledges the guests at the wedding; he gets chocked up; he looks at his daughter and smiles an embarrassed smile for getting chocked up. He looks straight ahead, calm. He walks" This is a lot of information to present in text and internal emotion as opposed to dialogue! however, i fully support this extravagant use of stage notes. i for one use a lot of stage notes when i am trying to convey a thought or feeling in my writing which i don't necessarily want to explain through verbal dialogue. i feel that by writing a lot of stage notes you are able to convey the general mood of what you are trying to portray to the audience and that is what is most important. i think that the example of the fathers internal thoughts is the notion that the actor does not have to follow EXACTLY what the stage directions say because that would be next to impossible, however, the abundance of stage directions allow the actor to better UNDERSTAND what it is the character is feeling. i think that more is always better than less. it is essentially the actors choice if he wants to convey all of the stage directions in his performance, but it is nice to have the stage notes there to help the actor better mold his character if he so desires. i guess what im saying is that if i were acting i would much rather have the option of discarding stage directions in my performance as opposed to not having enough stage notes to go off of and in turn feeling lost in the script and in the character.
in terms of this play being an adaptation i would have to say that i really enjoyed it! i especially appreciate the fact that even though i never read the original play i can still fully enjoy this new version. i think it is a great idea when doing an adaptation to take the point of view from a character we did not hear enough out of in the original version. this adds a whole new amount of depth and understanding to the story as a whole and we as an audience are fascinated by this new perspective. something i noticed was that there was a considerable amount of foreshadowing in the play as well as little hints to the original version. For example, on the VERY FIRST PAGE Eurydice and Orpheus are playfully interacting with one another when she says to him "Dont look at me." HELLO?! that is totally a reference to the original version of this play when Orpheus is not supposed to look at Eurydice in order to lead her out of the underworld successfully! i always love when a play successfully uses repetition in a way that entices you and makes you connect different aspects of the story to one another. all in all i think this story was a fabulous adaptation because it was original enough to follow even if you didn't know the old story, yet it was linked to the first version well enough to be able to find both obvious and hidden connections.

Blog #2 Dialogue!

First off let me just say that i think it is much harder to write write dialogue as opposed to writing monologues because you don't get to just stand there and explain everything to the audience. instead you have to communicate information through the characters' relationship with each other. with dialogue your not just worrying about what one person is saying, but instead how they interact with other people.
When i think about writing dialogue the genre which seems hardest to me is comedy as opposed to drama. i think this is because with comedy not only do you have to worry about people coming across as real and believable but you also have to add in humor which fits with the characters and the plot. a lot of the time i feel that when writing comedy it is easy for it to come across as fake or "written" as opposed to naturally funny. even if the play is absurd the humor should still come across effortlessly and real even if the premises of the play is somewhat abstract. for example, "All in the Timing" is a play which is about a man and woman who have a series of first encounters at a cafe. anytime one of them says something either painfully awkward or psychopathic a bell goes off and the scene starts again from the beginning so that the characters have a chance to redeem themselves. this is a completely unrealistic scenario, however, the humor is hilarious because A: it fits with the tone of the play in the sense that it is over the top, and B: it is real in the sense that the humor is completely true to the characters.
i guess what im getting at is that when writing a comedic play one should focus on what the characters would actually say as opposed to just fitting in a joke. chances are that if a character delivers a line which is true to his or her personality the affect will be much funnier even if the line itself is not that funny out of context. in contrast, a completely hilarious one-liner could come across as flat onstage if it doesn't fit with the tone of the characters or the play. all in all, it is the CHARACTERS who are funny...not the lines themselves.

--caitie