SHOW AND TELL BLOG 1

          This play is called The Illuminati in Drama Libre by Alice Gerstenberg. It was written in 1921. This play was originally published in "Ten One-Act Plays. Alice Gerstenberg. New York: Brentano's, 1921." It is now a public domain work and may be performed without royalties. I found this play on this website: http://www.theatrehistory.com/plays/illuminati.html. This play has performed on many small stages. It was hard to find specifics of where this was performed, I found a few websites that were small theatres in various cities in the USA that performed this play. It is not staged often and it is not one of Alice Gerstenberg's most popular works.

          There are two characters in this play, he and she. They whirl into sight on the stage. They began to talk in short fragments. First flirtatiously, then in despair, then angrily, then in horror, then dramatically, then in agony, then inspirationally, then emotionally, then passionately. You're not 100% sure what their talking about. It seems as though they are in love, their is a conflict, they don't know how to resolve that conflict, they fight, they struggle and then at the end SHE isn't getting what she wants and SHE yells colors. HE is overcome by the sound of these colors. SHE yells, HE is overcome and then they disappear off stage.

          Gerstenberg chose to only have two characters, to not give them names and to have them wear shapes and colors on their faces. This is was fascinating because we knew so little about the characters based on their names and outfits. We could draw few conclusions. Gerstenberg also chose to have them talk in fragmented sentences which created an interesting dynamic on the stage. There was this quick back and forth back and forth happening that you don't frequently see in plays. It was super poetic and unique for what is common in the theatre. Especially for the time in which she lived, she was a pioneer for doing things differently and approaching social issues in the theatre. 

4000 Miles

A motif in 4000 miles is the poor communication between Vera and Joe. They often talk over one another but never actually hear the other. This is seen by the back slashes in the text indicating they are talking over one another. Also, their poor communication is highlighted in such scenes like when Joe opens up to his grandma and then she reveals to us at the end that she doesn't have her hearing aid  in.

JUDITH

What is the Major Dramatic Question in Judith? I think that the MDQ is, "Will Judith be loved?" Another possible MDQ is, "will Judith get the respect/power she thinks she deserves?" I think it could be either one of these questions because they are both yes/no questions. And also, this would explain Judith's actions after the general is dead. It would explain why she attempts to have sex with a corpse and then why she makes her servant worship her. I think the answer to both of these questions is yes because we see the servant worship her for "what she will be" and there is a foreshadowing that she will mean something great to Israel.

Night, Mother

I think the MDQ (Major Dramatic Question) is not simply, "will Jessie kill herself?" but more something along the lines of, "will Mama come to terms with Jessie killing herself?" The entirety of the play is spent talking about Jessie killing herself and why and then Jessie tells Mama she wants her to do a few things when she is gone. And Mama begs her not to and tries to persuade her otherwise so the major dramatic question could be, "will Mama succeed in dissuading Jessie from killing herself?" but I don't think it is quite as simple as that either because if that was the MDQ, the play would've ended the moment Jessie killed herself. But the play does not end the moment Jessie kills herself. The play continues to Mama grabbing the hot chocolate pan and the phone and dialing Loretta's number and asking to speak to Dawson. That is why I said, "will Mama comes to terms with Jessie killing herself?" Not like you could ever understand why your daughter would end her own life in your house after telling you about it. That is why the question wasn't, "will Mama understand?" it was, "will Mama come to terms with?" And I think 'coming to terms with' is more like, "will Mama do the things Jessie asked her to when she dies?" Mama threatens Jessie at one point saying that when she died, she wouldn't do any of the things Jessie asked of her. But we see, at the end of the play that this is not true. Mama does everything Jessie told her to, exactly like she told her to do it. So the answer to that question would be, yes. Because it has a yes or no answer, my question, "will Mama come to terms with Jessie killing herself?" functions properly as a MDQ.

Trifles

I think the play Trifles was especially intriguing because of the dynamics of the women and the men. Trifles being another semi-feminist drama, critiquing societies ideas of gender roles. The men disrespected and disregarded anything Minnie did as important even though they were considering Minnie as their prime suspect. The women, minding their own business and collecting things to bring Minnie, happen upon the pieces of the puzzle that solve the murder.
Then, the women choose to conceal the evidence (the dead bird) that would convict Minnie. The men, trumping around upstairs, never find any evidence that could convict Minnie. Had they not allowed the ideology that women are unimportant to cloud their judgment, they would've looked about Minnie's "womanly things" and located the evidence to convict her of the crime they were attempting to pin on her.

Overtones

I found the play Overtones fascinating because of the issues of gender roles that it addressed. It was interesting to see Maggie and Hetty representing the inner thoughts and primitive nature of Margaret and Harriet, these two women oppressed by their society. For the time that this play was written, this was a scandalous choice of content because women didn’t talk about how they felt. The first wave of the feminist movement didn’t even start until the late 50’s so Gerstenberg was way ahead of her time. Even though this play didn’t kick off the feminist movement or start a fire, I think it is cool that it began a very important dialogue about gender roles and gender oppression. I think that is the point of the theatre; theatre is a living and active method of story telling that engages the audience. I think it should begin a dialogue and if it can begin a dialogue about important societal issues, then why not?