Today, we are going to check out Jane Martin's play Talking With from the library. After we return from checking out the script, get into groups of 1-3 and read the play.
As you read, answer the following questions (write them out to hand in next class):
1. What did you think about the play as a whole? Did it surprise you or please you or frustrate you? Explain why you reacted to the play in this way.
2. What is the premise of "Talking With"? In a sentence or two, explain what you think is the premise or main idea/theme of the play.
3. The "audience" for each character changes as the play continues. How does the author help a viewer or reader understand who the character in question is "talking with..."? Overall, by the end of the play, who do you think the playwright Jane Martin is "Talking with...?" Support your opinion.
Please complete "Talking With" for homework, if you do not complete the play in class. The handwritten questions are due next class: 9/7, along with your first monologue project.
Please bring your scripts with you next class to discuss this play.
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2 comments:
1. What did you think about the play as a whole? Did it surprise you or please you or frustrate you? Explain why you reacted to the play in this way.
The play didn't seem like a play, so I suppose it surprises me to see it referred to as one. The various monologues did please me, though. Especially Lamps. They were all insightful and emotional, and made me think or feel something deep and strong.
2. What is the premise of "Talking With"? In a sentence or two, explain what you think is the premise or main idea/theme of the play.
The premise of "Talking With..." is that humans are slightly insane, with different idiosyncrasies, and always a seemingly ridiculous aspect their lives.
3. The "audience" for each character changes as the play continues. How does the author help a viewer or reader understand who the character in question is "talking with..."? Overall, by the end of the play, who do you think the playwright Jane Martin is "Talking with...?" Support your opinion.
I personally don't feel like the audience changes which each play. I mean, intrinsically it has to, but there's no literary evidence to prove that any of the characters are addressing a particular audience. I think this is supported by Jane's placement of the characters in secluded environments, usually addressing the audience head on, informing them about their life, or something they're doing, or a preference they have. By the end of the play, I'm not sure who Jane is speaking with. It could be herself, or with different peoples she's encountered in her life. But I don't find the literary evidence to back this up, so nothing stops me from guessing that she's simply writing powerful monologues to provoke thought and emotion in her audience and readers.
1.) I thought the play was kind of complicated. Not as far as words and text, but as far as what the play's message was. It was kind of frustrating. I like for a play to be well mapped out, or funny, the play was neither.
2.)The main idea or theme of the play was about faith.
3.)By giving them an accent, or character traits within the monologue. By the end of the play i think that the playwright Jane Martin is talking with God through the audience. In a lot of the monologues the actor was praying, or talking to themselves.
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