I really loved this show. Honestly, it was just really well written. SO many good things to look at.
I think one of the best things was the balance between the “real” of the play and making it dramatically interesting. I found that the language was the most helpful in making them seem real. We obviously don’t know EXACTLY how people back then talked, and I am not extremely familiar with Southern dialects. But I felt like August Wilson captured the spirit of the South in their speech patterns. Each person spoke slightly different. Troy definitely sounded older, like he was from a different generation, whereas Lyons and Cory, in their speech, represented two aspects of a new generation: the beatnik musician and the rebellious, forward thinking teen. This contrast in speech not only set Troy apart from his sons, but it also showed the clashing between the generations. Cory’s language was also slightly elevated from Troy, as if he was slightly more educated. This established, from the beginning, a disconnect. Troy, unable to attend school, is stuck in his ways. All he knows is work. Cory is educated and understands a need for progress. He has dreams, and goals, and he wants to make them happen. He wants to go to college. So I guess I would say what I learned from Wilson here is to really develop the voice of your character. These differences can help establish relationship immediately and subconsciously.
Something else I noticed was the continual use of symbols. First, there is baseball. Troy uses this as something to make him feel better. It represents his past, his glory days. He was the big cheese in baseball. He can relate to baseball. We soon understand that he views his whole life as a game of baseball. His family and friends are the players on his team, and the obstacles are the team he plays against. When he finally tries to explain to Rose why he slept with Alberta, he himself uses baseball as a means to explain his life. Because he cannot view his life as anything more than a game, he cannot really live his life in a healthy way. He is only competing, even against the members of his own “team”, such as his son Cory. This need to feel like the top dog is what ultimately tears his family apart and leaves him with little to be happy about.
The other symbol that I noticed was the fence. Obviously, this is the title of the show, so it’s important. But I think the thing I noticed that was interesting was calling it Fences and not the singular Fence. It is an allusion to the many fences in the show, both physical and emotional. Bono actual speaks of what the fences mean to people, that sometimes they are meant to keep people in, some to keep people out. Rose begins wanting to hold the family in, whereas Troy wants to get out. Not until his mistress dies and his wife refuses to talk to him unless necessary, when he is no longer comfortable in his life, then he wants the fence. He suddenly wants to bring his family in. But it is not the same love as with Rose. Troy wants to selfishly hold them in to make himself feel more powerful. He is the father, the alpha dog, and he must maintain that status. I think on some level he does love Rose, but it appears to be more the idea of a loving wife rather than Rose herself. So what would I say I learned from this? Find a symbol that can connect to certain themes and weave it throughout the play. It creates something the audience can follow and grab onto, making the play that much more easy to understand.
You've done a beautiful job here nailing down what it is about these voices that differentiates them -- this one's a bit older; this one's a bit more educated; this one's a bit more beatnik; this one's a bit more forward looking. What strikes me is how much easier that is than it sounds. It's just few words here and there. Micro-editing. Going back and having someone say a slightly fancier word, say, every fifth line or so. Very tackle-able I think.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes on the symbols which do so much -- here: theme, plot, setting, character development, history, background info, and foreshadowing. Impressive indeed. Great thing to play with!
Micro-editing? Say it aint so Laurie! To be honest the level of voice differentiation you point out here seems terrifyingly difficult, it makes sense that it's from a poet(ex whatever), as the demarcation between them is subtle yet clear, and clearly involved obsessive formalism. And indeed I think you're right, it really doesn't matter to us whether this sounds like the 1950s so long as it captures what we think the 1950s could have sounded like. Though that sounds almost equally as hard! I know for my character play I will avoid this problem by trying to create interesting voices that are also fantastical (IE Eurydice), but maintain an internal consistency in their patterns and structure (IE the difference between Cory and Lyons. How will you create voice? Are you interested in writing these subtly demarcated voices that also speak entirely unlike you do? I think it's entirely possible to create distinct and interesting characters that all speak alike, perhaps even like the playwright. I would like to see that tried.
ReplyDeleteAlso, we both talk about symbols. I've been wondering about that lately, mostly in terms of what I like in fiction. Have you ever seen the first season of the Wire? The show was flawless for me until there was this one scene where two of the gangsters were playing chess, and then another gangster comes up and starts talking about chess in a way that for the audience is clearly a metaphor about the gangster's position in life (Though perhaps not metaphorical for the character talking). That scene was reallllly grating for me, and I can't necessarily put my finger on what it is about the fence that didn't bother me in the same way, perhaps with reflection it will. I think perhaps that for the symbol to work in theater it must come second, or like Laurie continues to tell us, the dialogue must always be doing two things at once. Maybe that scene in the wire bothered me so much because it was only doing on thing, metaphor. Though I think the fence is dangerously close to doing the same...
It seems like we all talked about symbols, which I guess is a good thing :). I wonder at this nature of talking about symbols. Does shouting out to the audience "Okay, we're going to talk about a metaphor now, where the fence is a metaphor for constraining people and etc. etc." or do we try to let them figure it out? On one hand, if you want to go the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead route, you could always talk about the metaphor, and I think that works alarmingly well. But, they also do it sucessfully here. Remember when they talk about the fences as "keeping people in"? In a sense, I think that's one step towards admitting that they're dealing with a metaphor here, albeit not quite as obnoxious as telling the audience they're going to be dealing with a metaphor now. However, they never really make that final step. They never emphasize what else it can stand for, and the many layers of "Fence" that we could examine here if we were doing a close reading of the play. This mixture of both, I think, is what makes it so good.
ReplyDeleteI think your observation and analysis of the various voices, and the work these very different voices do, is key. They very tone of the dialouge helps whatever is being said do more than one thing- it illuminates generation, education, region and everything else you say WHILE also conveying whatever meaning the actual words have. Writing different voices is hard (and I think writing descriptions of our characters for Laurie's assignments help differentiate/develop them) but so important to making the characters different and therefore the play more dynamic and interesting.
ReplyDeleteI think symbols and motifs work much better on stage than they do in other forms of writing and I'm not sure quite why this is...maybe because of the audiences unwritten agreement to buy into the inherent non-reality of theater. That being said, not hitting the audience over the head with a symbol or motif is important. I think one of the ways Fences strikes this balance is portrayed in the example you refer to about Troy explaining cheating on his wife through baseball...its more than a motif, its a way for him to make sense of his world, avoid his issues, communicate, and escape the realities of his world. The symbol is more than a tool for the playwright to communicate with the audience, the character uses it to make sense of his own world.