Top Girls

This play show the things women have to do to succeed in a man’s world of business. Every woman in this at has their own story. The lead character in the story and the most successful is Marlene she gave up everything in her life even her child to become a successful working women. Then you have a character like Pope Joan she was a women how pretended to be a man and got picked to be the pope. She forgot being women in order to succeed. Patient Griselda and Lady Nijo are similar in many way they both got married early to men which I do not think they really loved just to please their families. Lady Nijo was raised to be married though since birth she was promised to the emperor. So I believe that the way they got by was to except there was no other way for them. Isabella Bird and Dull Gret took on the heads on approach. They did want men thought women could not do. Isabella traveled and made many books on non woman like traveling (ex. Rock Climbing, Horseback Riding). All these women had different experiences and that is what made the play interesting.

The Good Woman of Setzuan

Can there be good with out evil. In this play it seems not. Shen te the main character in the story is a good example of this. She is a balance between both the dark and the light side in a person. Shen te seems like a very nice and kind women to the people even though they take adavantage of her. She lets them stay in her place and they miss use her kindness for their own selfish intentions. But then there is a dark side that balances out Shen te in her “cousin” Shui ta which we find out later in the play that is Shen te in costume pretends to be this ruthless and almost cold man to try and save her business and get the free loaders out of there. I believe that even though she is a good person on the inside there had to be that ruthless and dark person to make her the person she was.

A Doll's House (Act 2&3) " the confession and reaction"

Torvald’s reaction to Nora’s confession is as I expected. After everything that he said about liars being poison to their families and home. He gets angry after hearing that Nora lied to him and borrowed money knowing that he never wanted that to happen. What I did not expect to happen was what happened after Nora got the second letter. I think after everything Torvald said to her even though she had lied so did he. He lied about loving her and that is worse than what she did. She leaves him and their children to go out in the world and “find herself”. After she plans to leave Torvald seems to have a change of heart he forgives her and he wants her to stay, also to work things out. But it is too late she wants no she needs to leave so she can become a better person for her and her family. I was surprised by that I did not expect her to leave. I think it was a good way to end the play. Torvald wants a miracle to happen that she will come back to him someday and they can be together as a family.

A Doll House ( Act 1)

This play is different than the plays we have been reading so far. The characters are different in many ways from others. Out of all the characters Nora stands out of course. Nora seems to be the most interesting character in this play. She seems ditzy and airheaded but I believe that it is all just an act. Though everyone believes her to be just a child of some sort of trophy I believe there is more to here than that. She saved her husband and has been keeping a secret from him all these years they have been married. She borrowed money knowing her husband did not want her to, but she did it to save his life because she loved him. Torvald her husband seems to be controlling and demanding. He does not want her to spend money and is always criticizing her about it and he does not want certain things in the house life candy or sewing things (act 2 or 3). Mrs. Linde seems like a nice and good person. She has been through a lot in her past, but it made her a good person with values. Dr. Rank not really heard from in the first act is portrayed to be a nice man. Krogstad on the other hand is a Jerk. He is trying to blackmail Nora with the information that she took out a loan. I really like this play so far.

A Solid Home (Un Hogar Solido)

We are all born to die. That is the only truth in life and in this play. Everyone in this play is dead. They range from a young girl Katie who died at five to an older woman Mama Jessie who died at eighty. There are about eight people in this family crypt at the end of this play one being a new addition named Lydia. It seems most of them wanted something from life they could not get and it still stays with them even in death. Lydia, Muni and Eve wanted a home. Though their interpretation of home is different it is all what they wanted. Katie the youngest wanted to experience life because she never got to. But it seems in this play that there is more after death. In the play they talk about being the wind or being a blind fish and other things.

Death and The Kings Horseman

Duty.... what is it really. In japan in the time of the samurai duty was everything. In this play duty means a lot. It is life and death in the context of this play. The father ( Elesin) has a duty to die and take his king to the afterlife. His son's (Olunde) duty was to become the next kings horseman after his father did his duty. But i do not go the way it was supposed to go. Duty and tradition is broken. The father does not die because he wanted to live. His son feels he has to take on the responsibility and restore the order of things by killing himself to lead the king on his way. Elesin ends up killing himself because he feels guilty because he did not fulfill his duty. Duty is everything and it takes to lives at the end.

Death and The Kings Horseman

My first impression on this play is that it is boring. The first couple of pages were hard to get through and i did not feel as if i was getting anything from reading this play. Then i read it a second time and i became more interested in the story of the tradition of the sacrificing one’s self for duty and tradition. Though in sometimes i found this story to drag on at first it became easier to read. I found some parts sort of poetic in the way her wrote this play. One part that stood out to me as poetic is when the women say “For a while we truly feared our hands had wrenched the world adrift in emptiness". I feel to get this play it must to read more than once.

Tri Jean and His Brothers

Tricksters when these words were spoken in class about this play the first thing I thought about was something evil. When you usually hear of tricksters in folklore or religion it is something or someone who plays tricks or disobeys normal rules or conventional behavior. I think of Loki who was malicious and  the trickster in the television show supernatural. He causes chaos and he kills people when causes urban legends to come to life.  So I could not first understand that the trickster can also be the good person.  But I can see now how Ti-Jean can be considered a trickster he does not play by normal rules and makes different clever ways to complete and defeat The Devil.

Ti-Jean and His Brothers - "The Devil"

The devil in this play is both the old man and the planter. The devil in this play is very smart to me he know exactly how to play both Gros-Jean and Mi-Jean so he can win. In this play the devil wants to eat Ti-Jean and His brothers. He gets over Gros-Jean by vexing him over his Strength which he was overly proud and relied on his strength only. The Devil then wins Mi-Jean by questioning his intelligence. He has two brothers when he then meets up with Ti-Jean he is outsmarted by Ti-Jean and he gets angry and loses his own game. He even tries to make a last attempt to make Ti-Jean angry by throwing salt in the wound about Ti-Jean mother dying. Ti-Jean then has to sing in order to win because the devils choose not to play fair. When Ti-Jean wins he brings back the devil’s helper the bolom back to life essentially replacing the brothers and mother that Ti-jean lost.

Kanjincho

Kanjincho a Japanese play. I was glad we read something from japan I think japan has great theater like Kabuki and Noh theater. This play is about a prince who wants to escape from the tyranny of his older brother and gets his protector Benkei to help him escape. But they are caught fleeing and the prince is taken by Togashi. Benkei then deceives Togashi and gets Prince Yoshitsune back. What got me was when Benkei beats the prince and even threatens to kill him. Though he was only trying to help his master. I know that it must have been hard to do that because that is a very big breech of decorum in japan. Then at the then of the play Benkei and Togashi are drinking and Benkei does a dance and the play ends. It was an interesting way to end this play with no words but a dance.

The Qing Ding Pearl

This play is very interesting it is about revenge and defeating evil in some way. The small "weak" fisherman kills the bad guys in this play which are Ting Wai and his henchmen. This play is very different from the other plays that we have read. One major and obvious difference is that this play is Chinese and is different in performance wise than any other play. This play is performed with dance and mask unlike other plays that we have read so far. Another difference that this play has to a play like hamlet is that in this play Hsiao En does not wait on contemplate about revenge he just does and he does not get killed after his revenge unlike Hamlet. This is a very good play and I really liked the ending where the “good” prevails “evil”.

Master Harold and The Boys Part Two

This play is set in South Africa in the time of Apartheid. In this play we begin with two of the three main characters Willie and Sam. Willie is trying to practice the fox trot and is asking Sam how he is doing. They get into a discussion about the right way to dance the fox trot and they speak about Willie’s life with his dance partner(s) and other things. After this conversation happened Master Harold comes into the room. He complements Sam on his dance but then belittles dance itself. They get into a discussion where Harold uses his Education to try and demine dance calling it animalistic. Harold almost sees the light when his mother calls and they have and argument about his father coming home from the hospital. You learn that Harold’s father is an alcoholic and is presumed to be abusive by the way they speak of him. After the conversation with his mother Harold seems different angry. He and Sam get into an argument and He pulls his (I’m your master) card on Sam. After this happened their relationship doesn’t seem to be the same anymore.

Master Harold and The Boys Part One

The relationship between the three main characters his that of master and servants towards the end of the play. Sam and Willie’s relationship different from any other in this play. They are very close they even talk about their personal lives with each other. Willie calls same brother it shows how familiar and close they are. Willie and Harold’s relationship is that of master and servant which differs from Sam and Harold a least in the beginning. Sam calls Harold (Hally) which shows that they are somewhat friends if he calls him by a nickname. They also have a history Sam Basically in my opinion shows Harold how to be a man.  After an argument with Sam and Harold that relationship changes. Harold tells Sam how he is his servant and nothing more. The relationship between these men is not fair but that is nothing that can be changed at this time in South Africa when apartheid is going on.

Hamlet Act I-III

Hamlet has to be one of my favorite Shakespeare play next to Macbeth. In the first three acts of the play a lot of things are happening. You find out the Hamlet comes home after his father died to his mother married to his uncle. Also Hamlet’s father’s ghost visits hamlet and tells him that he was murdered by his brother (Hamlet’s uncle) and Hamlet’s father wants Hamlet to kill his uncle Claudius. There are many Iconic speeches in the first act of the play. One being the most famous speeches in Shakespeare’s plays. Hamlet’s to be or not to be speech is a very important speech where hamlet is having a soliloquy and is deciding whether of not he should live and take on the responsibilities that come with that like killing his uncle or kill himself and leave all the pain behind. Another speech that is important is the Kings (Claudius) speech where he confesses that he kills his brother. This is after the part in the play where Hamlet’s puts on a play that is very much the same as what happened. Hamlet at this part of the play has a chance to kill Claudius but does not. He did not want to kill him because his unlce was in a chruch praying when he confessed. That is a stupid mistake that will cost him everything at the end of the play.

Trifles

            In the play trifles there are three women characters thought one is talked about and not heard   speaking in this play. I am speaking about Mrs. Minnie Foster. The other two women in the play are Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters. In the play Trifles Minnie is accused of killing her husband. While the men are examining the house and barn for clues Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale are inside talking about Minnie. Mrs. Hale describes Minnie as a person who used to be happy when she where younger and then she seen  change in her being quiet and she describes her as being somewhat like a bird sweet and pretty but timid and fluttery. Mrs. Peters doesn’t really Minnie very well to describe her with the knowledge of knowing her like Mrs. Hale. Though she does see the things she was going through kind of puts herself in Minnie’s shoes. Both women at first do not believe that Minnie could commit such a crime. The men in trifles describe Minnie as strange and they even commented on her house work saying she wasn’t much of a house keeper. I would describe Minnie as a woman who was quiet and kept everything she felt to herself. I think she was lonely and was pushed to the edge of sanity by her husband. Mrs. Hale can be described as a  women who took her house work very seriously she had gotten upset when the men criticized Minnie’s housekeeping skills and she voiced her opinion she seems like a women who would speak her mind. Mrs. Hale regretted not checking in on Minnie showing that she somewhat cared for the women.

Ritual

  The Dictionary defines the word ritual as any practice or pattern of behavior regularly performed in a set manner. Most people when they hear the word ritual they think of something for a religious manner (well more satanic then anything).That is kind of disapointing to hear.When i think of a ritual i do think of something i do often and do in a certain way.I have a ritual when i draw. First i can never draw in some place i feel is messy or dirty, so before i even set up to draw i have to clean the place i am in.Next i get everything i need to draw may it be charcoal or pencils and some sort of sketchbook.Then i decide what i want to draw and get to drawing it.Now lets speak about religious rituals i am not a christian or do i claim to be but i have been in a chruch i have seen some of their rituals.One religion that have rituals that intrigue me are those of Pagans/Wiccans.One that i have seen is a Pagan blessing of the dead ritual.It was after a relative of friend had passed away.We had went to her mothers home and her mother and grandmother where there and we getting ready to peform this ritual. They had gathered in the backyard and four women including my friends grandmother and mother where each of them holding something that represented one of the four elements.After standing in the direction that represented the element North=Earth, East=Air,West=Water,and South=Fire.Then my friends mother started to say somethings i can not really remember what her exact words were.After she finished speaking they took the deceased ashes and scattered them.After the whole thing we went inside and my friend explained the whole thing to me and to this day i can still remember that day.