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- Reading responses must be AT LEAST 200 words.
- Include your full name at the end of your comments. Unnamed comments will be deleted.
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- Reading responses are due Thursdays at midnight, no exceptions.
I can say that Sure Thing by David Ives is my favorite of the readings. The bell makes it feel like a Monty Python skit whenever Bill says the wrong thing to continue the conversation or maybe because this play is relatable on so many levels to a numerous range of readers and viewers. Trying to Find Chinatown was a thought provoking piece by David Henry Hwang. It surprises the reader on how much Benjamin knows of a culture that is his, not by blood, and brings in the thought of self-identity through race and if it is what really makes us the person that we are. I really enjoyed reading the monologue that Hwang wrote for Benjamin near the end of the play. The figurative language helps the reader picture the activity in the scene and the feeling of how proud Benjamin was of his roots that he is dedicated to following. The Divine Fallacy to me felt like it really didn’t go anywhere and I don’t know why the stigmata was such a big deal to Victor. Trash Anthem was interesting after I realized the voice of the boots came from somewhere else and not the torn flap at the front of the boots, mimicking a mouth. It symbolizes how the personal belongings of someone we loved carry on their spirit, no matter where they are.
ReplyDelete-Michael Lucio
After reading Dan Dietz’s, “Trash Anthem”, I felt that I didn’t know what I was reading just by analyzing the surface of the play itself. For example, a woman is singing then thrusts her hands into the boots then the scene starts over. Second time around, the woman shifts the boots around the personified boots reacted in pain then the scene starts over again (pg. 305 – 306). At this moment, I was wondering why they are starting the scene over and my understanding started to be confused by these scenes. Then, the woman starts to sing a different and longer song. She then thrusts them into boot and pulls out soil and the boots react in pain once again. After some dialogue that developed the characters, it’s revealed that her husband had a homosexual affair with the neighbor. Later, I saw that the boots were a personification of her husband which I found slightly odd, in my opinion. Adding to the confusion, the ending, where the boots and the woman were screaming then suddenly singing and dancing in a peculiar way with the woman on all fours with the boots in her hands. Overall, I didn’t comprehend the purpose of that moment and the purpose of the song itself. Also, the subtly in the context was too much for me that it left me confused throughout the entire ten minute play.
ReplyDeleteLastly, in this unit of playwriting, I’m eager to trying this genre out, seeing that it’s like screenwriting even though it states that a play isn’t a screenplay (pg. 237), which had a significant amount of discouragement toward me, since I’m experiencing this for the first time.
Jose Contreras | 278 Words
I thought Trash Anthem was a cute back and forth exchange between the woman and the boots, and I could see it being played out! I bet it's much better in person to witness, my favorite part is when the woman is struggling to quiet the Boots from revealing to the audience, she's pleading & asking for the behavior of Boots to be discreet and silent. As soon as she lets go of the 'lips' of Boots, immediately Boots says "The neighbor was a man." It cracked me up! Because there is obviously a more serious twist being revealed at the end about how she killed her husband but there's also these cute funny cues. Also reminds me how in Trying to Find Chinatown, the character Ronnie is my absolute favorite with his jibing remarks to everything Benjamin says, yet there's this serious tone that is constant about what they're talking about. What does ethnicity really mean? What really defines someone's culture? Ronnie says something that I loved too. "And Ponty, he showed us how the modern violin man can accompany the shadow of his own lead lines, which cascade, one over another, into some netherworld beyond the range of human hearing." "What can I say if the banging of a gong or the clinking of a pickax on the Transcontinental Railroad fails to move me even as much as one note, played through the violin MIDI controller of the Micheal Urbaniak?" I think Ronnie brings up the good point that white skin can never be another skin color, so Benjamin stating he's a Chinese-American doesn't really make much logical sense, and yet also proves Benjamin's point of culture being something more than skin color, it's what you're raised with, what you value as traditions. But their points also cross with what exactly can be a generalized concept of ethnicity and what isn't. Ronnie tells Benjamin that just because he's into Asian traditions doesn't exactly mean he himself will relate to Ronnie on a personal level. I loved that along with the play called Sure Thing by David Ives because it shows me that many of us in real life wish connecting with people can be instantaneously gratifying, we want the best scenario possible yet know it is unlikely. Our small social interactions are just that. Small. They barely touch the surface. In this play we get to see many scenarios form, the bell signifying a new encounter was something I enjoyed too because it makes you think of how it would look on a stage and it's almost as if you could scroll through and choose the best one you wish could be the scenario.
ReplyDeleteNaissa J. Acosta
DeleteThis new unit introducing us to the 10-minute play and what playwriting is all about has my interest. I liked how it mentioned that usually young people have a tendency to like the whole playwriting scene, though it differs from screenplay writing, I would not mind seeing what kind of situation I can come up with and see where it can take my characters. Now moving on to the plays that were provided, out of the four that were included, I’d say “Sure Thing” by David Ives was the most enjoyable because any time either Bill or Betty would say the wrong thing a bell would be signaled and suddenly the two would start over at a certain point in their conversation. It was like if someone was constantly refreshing the page or hitting the rewind button so that they’d have a chance of saying the right thing. I love the uniqueness of it and found it funny to imagine the situation if acted out. Henry David Hwang’s “Trying to Find Chinatown” took me by surprised by the turn of events that occurred in the play. Like Ronnie, I too had assumed nothing more to Benjamin once his description was mentioned as him being a Caucasian male and found it hilarious how he asked for directions to Chinatown from Ronnie who is Asian. Then when Benjamin began claiming he too was Asian I felt Ronnie’s anger and confusion, assuming Benjamin was one of those people who take these genetic tests to see what ancestry blood they may contain. Only to be taken back by what he reveals and all the knowledge he has about Asian heritage that even Ronnie knows little about, this play was probably the most thought provoking including with their arguments, which both made very good points about. “The Divine Fallacy” by Tina Howe and “Trash Anthem” by Dan Dietz were the plays I did not much like and left me a bit confused. For “The Divine Fallacy” I liked how it started off and found Dorothy’s character kind of endearing but towards the end I wasn’t sure exactly why Victor was so affected by her. “Trash Anthem” was also unique with the situation and the personification of the woman’s husband as the boots she loved, and while their conversation was interesting to say the least, the ending had me confused with the yelling and singing.
ReplyDeleteSavannah Lopez
After reading the plays, I know understand that every play has a character, setting and note. In the play: “Sure Thing”, it shows that Relationships often fail. They are fragile, unstable saplings when they first start out. Many couples won't make it very far. Even when they do, there seems to be never ending reasons for the pair to leave each other. Different backgrounds, tastes, and beliefs tear people apart before they get the chance to experience the sensation of love that is so desperately sought out. If two people cannot share these basic values, they may find it very difficult to continue dating. I did not understand why there was too much repetition in that play every time the bell ring.
ReplyDeleteAlso “Trying to Find Chinatown” is a very nice play. There are two viewpoints on modern Chinese American identity clash on a New York City corner when Benjamin, a Caucasian Asian American, and Ronnie, a fully assimilated street musician of Asian ancestry, debate ethnic identity. The charm of this two-person play is that each character is equally likable, their arguments, though oppositional, equally viable; and, in the end, no single viewpoint is privileged. Their debate about how best to represent oneself as an Asian American ends not in a victory but in a draw. I found it a bite boring. I did not like the setting of the “The Divine Fallacy”
Fatimata Traore
The pages assigned for this blog post have been an interesting medium to writing creatively. I will say, reading play scripts don’t happen to be my favorite. I can’t fully see the directors vision for the ten-minute play properly. I felt reading the scripts were jumpy in my part. The play, ‘Sure Thing’ was challenging to me because of the bell. I felt pure agony when reading this piece. I hated the cheesiness and I guess maybe that’s why plays in general are not my favorite to critique. The play made me anxious throughout reading it due to the scene starting over in a loop, which drove me insane to continue. Onward to, ‘Trash Anthem’ which was surprisingly my favorite out of the bunch. In the begging it didn’t dawn on me that the boots were personified. I was confused by the boots and what they were signifying. I felt this play had a sort of cheesy comedic route to it. This made it okay for me to read, but I still didn’t enjoy it like the way that I enjoyed the other sections. Since plays are supposed to be acted out, it is challenging to find these visually or mentally engaging. I guess this section helped me understand why I lack enthusiasm for it.
ReplyDelete-Valerie Valentin
Reading “Trash Anthem” by Dan Diaz was new. I had never read something like it before, the personification of boots was weird yet cool. The emotion the woman felt was so intents I could almost sense the anger and betrayal in my own body. Then the interaction she had with the boots and how they broke the fourth wall dropping a huge bomb (pg307) was interesting. There has always been and always will be stories about the man cheating on his lover then said lover gets revenge, but what separated this story from others is the fact that she is talking with boots and having a full conversation with them. “Sure thing” was different. How Betty and Bill interacted and then changing it to say the right thing when the bell was heard. The conversations could have gone wrong in many ways having different outcomes and that could be seen by the bell noises, if Bill said something wrong or Betty they would immediately change it so the final outcome was them going out to the movies. It shows how even the slightest thing that is said could change your whole life like the butterfly effect. A flap of a butterfly’s wing in one continent could make a tsunami.
ReplyDeleteKendra Lara
“Trash Anthem” is an amazing shift in tone from the majority of the pieces covered in this class. Humorous, dark, but not taking itself seriously, this story is truly good. The reality of the events in the drama are that the woman kills her husband after learning he slept with a man. The dialogue between the woman and the boot is obviously impossible, but the interactions are written cleverly, the boot itself understand that it cannot talk and isn’t real. The woman is delusional if we are expected to believe the story occurs in some reality, but even then, that reality does not seem to phase her. Her conversation with the boots of her dead husband are like an interrogation that could never have happened, some end of closure. The woman asks the boots questions, drawing out the answers which cleverly reveal exposition for the audience. The dialogue is believable, and quite humorous, the boots interrupting the woman’s questions are golden, as it dances around whatever cannon understanding the audience is supposed to have on the situation. The woman and the boot even understand their metaphysical state, that being a play, which they criticize for not being very original. The honesty of the characters towards the audience makes for an even funnier reading, it adds flavor to this story, already breaking expectations by having the characters speak to the audience. The symbolism of water was an interesting one that means to drown out the characters at the end, the woman lost in her own insanity. It makes a wacky, distorted ending that will leave the audience confused, but thoroughly entertained.
ReplyDelete-Kedrick Wyatt
Trash anthem is about a woman whose lover was cheating on her with another guy. That was something different. And then surprise surprise she ends up killing him. I mean I wouldn’t blame her. I was cheated on before and it made me want to kill something. But enough of that. She ends up talking to his boots. I liked that this was kind of revenge story. Like you (excuse my French) fucked with me, now I’m going to kill you. Almost like a kill bill, if bill end up cheating on the bride expect of almost killing her. So, it was an entertaining read. And then sure thing is about a man and woman in a coffee shop talking. But every time the bell will ring they will say something different, for a different outcome. Kind of reminded me of an rpg video game. Where whatever you say can cause a different outcome. Especially since they will say the wrong thing and then ring the bell. Which is basically you say the wrong the thing in a rpg video game you restart the last checkpoint and go on from there. So, in the end these were fun reads, and will recommended. I also find play writes alot easier to read for some reason. Maybe because it's almost all spoken rather than it being describe to you. So, i'm looking forward to reading more.
ReplyDeleteJuan Carlos Guerra
Reading “Trash Anthem” by Dan Dietz, was very different for me. See, I’ve read plays before but as a child or teenager. And if I read plays after, they were by Shakespeare and at that I age, I had no understanding of what was going on. This chapter made me think of how technical you must be to write a play. You need to concentrate on all kinds of stuff, rather then just your audience through a regular writing assignment. This play was very good in my opinion. I was a bit scared to read it, only because I felt I was going to be so closed minded and difficult to read and understand. But I gave it a shot and I really enjoyed it. Dietz really got my attention and emotions hooked onto the play. I can honestly say that he captured my imagination and got me feeling all kinds of ways. I was so into the reading that I can say I felt what the Woman in the play was feeling. I did find it interesting how the boots and the woman were communicating back and forth with each other. A part of me felt that the boots in the play could’ve been her husband. Even though, he was dead she could’ve been hallucinating the conversation she was having. After all the boots did say that they didn’t talk. It also could’ve been in her conscience since she had just murdered her lover. I like how I got all of this from reading that short play. This just proves to me that everything must be perfect when writing a play. It could be anything from describing characters to play settings. That’s what I’m going to look forward to in future exercises.
ReplyDeleteVictoria Ann Gonzalez
In the ten-minute play "Trash Anthem" by Dan Dietz, Dietz amusingly creates this story about this woman and this pair of boots that she talks to throughout the play. To my understanding, this woman lives out in the country with her husband, in their nice home, but her husband has an affair with the next door neighbor who turns out to be a guy. I actually really enjoyed reading this play and found that I had a much more pleasant experience reading this one compared to others. I admit that I did find parts of this play to be a little confusing such as on page 305, where there is this "New start." I am not quite sure of the purpose that this may serve or how it fits into the play, or that maybe it is a part of this play language that I don't yet know much of. I also found myself second guessing my comprehension of the material in that, in the play on page 306 and 306, the woman shoves her hands into the boots not and pulls out dirt not only once but again during this conversation that they have. It made me question what exactly it was that was going on or that if maybe I was misinterpreting the situation. Another part that I found to be quite bizarre in kind of a funny way, was when near the end, the woman places her hands in the boots and "dances on all fours." It created an odd image in my head of this woman and how wild she must have looked while doing this. It was very interesting to read in that it was able to portray these vivid images and show a lively scene, in a way that was not only entertaining but also easy-flowing.
ReplyDeleteKimberly Cervantes
Starkey speaks about creating good characters and believable dialogue as enormously important for a short play. This is similar to other medias of fiction, except that in the ten-minute play, the character and his dialogue is the only description that the audience has, besides props or sets. Almost the entire weight of the play is in the dialogue and character. It must be a convincing one.
ReplyDeleteThe character in “Trash Anthem” wasn’t convincing because most of her dialogue was tilted (as though she might have had an accent, but I couldn’t tell where she was or how to read her) and sporadic. She wasn’t constant. Of course, we discover why she’s so sporadic (she goes insane), but it would help if there was at least one “normal” character, to balance out the crazy murderer who’s talking to a pair of boots to represent her gay, cheating husband.
“Trash Anthem” also took liberties in how it began; it started and restarted about three times. In a play, it must be hard to simply rewind a scene and begin again, especially when there’s nothing to move except a woman’s hands and possibly a pair of boots. I wonder if the audience (who’s not reading it) understood what was happening, that it was being rewound.
Raquel Williams