Period 1:
Respond to this blog post regarding your homework. Consider how David Ives (the playwright) uses the roots of action and the dramatic triangle in his plays. Make sure that you respond using specific examples from all three plays. Grades for your response are based on the homework rubric shared with you.
Then please use period 1 to work on your 10-minute play projects.
Period 2:
Let's begin reading some of the 10-minute plays in our handout. The first play is by comedian, musician, writer and brilliant crazy guy Steve Martin. Click on the link to find out more about him. Wendy Wasserstein was also an important contemporary playwright. Check out her bio too!
HOMEWORK: Complete your 10-minute play projects & complete any short plays we did not finish in class.
Come join us for the opening night of the Creative Writing Department's production of Love, Loss, and What I Wore tonight, Thursday or Friday at 7:00 in the Ensemble Theater. Creative writing students attend free, but we'd like to challenge you to bring a friend or family member. Tickets are $5 and available at the door. This is a fundraiser for the department. Extra credit for those who attend.
Respond to this blog post regarding your homework. Consider how David Ives (the playwright) uses the roots of action and the dramatic triangle in his plays. Make sure that you respond using specific examples from all three plays. Grades for your response are based on the homework rubric shared with you.
Then please use period 1 to work on your 10-minute play projects.
Period 2:
Let's begin reading some of the 10-minute plays in our handout. The first play is by comedian, musician, writer and brilliant crazy guy Steve Martin. Click on the link to find out more about him. Wendy Wasserstein was also an important contemporary playwright. Check out her bio too!
HOMEWORK: Complete your 10-minute play projects & complete any short plays we did not finish in class.
Come join us for the opening night of the Creative Writing Department's production of Love, Loss, and What I Wore tonight, Thursday or Friday at 7:00 in the Ensemble Theater. Creative writing students attend free, but we'd like to challenge you to bring a friend or family member. Tickets are $5 and available at the door. This is a fundraiser for the department. Extra credit for those who attend.
12 comments:
David Ives uses the dramatic triangle quite frequently in his plays and it's very interesting to see it. In his play, Arabian Nights, David Ives uses the dramatic triangle to show the Flora's father is sharpening his blade. "If he sees me talking to you, he'll cut your throat!" In this instance, he uses the dramatic triangle in this fashion, Flora and the Interpreter are talking and Flora's father is the outside character. The roots of action in this case were sociological. At first the characters Sinbad and the interpreter were looking to trade with Flora, but as the play progresses Sinbad is wanting to marry her. In the play, Words, Words, Words, they use the dramatic triangle of the monkeys and the professor. This has a sense of identity in the play when one of the monkeys asks, "What's a Kafka? Why am I a Kafka?". The roots of action this play uses are also sociological because of them questioning a higher power or in this case, Dr.Rosenbaum.
David Ives characters are introduced to the audience with little understanding of who they are and why they're their together. Though audience can quickly find this out towards the middle of the play. Nevertheless the reasons they are there together are off stage occurrences that must be found out by the audience, his roots of action. For example in Arabian Nights the character start by having a casual conversation until the Interpreter announces himself as the son of "a great prince" (23), and explains that he has been exiled from his land; an offstage occurrence. However we can also see examples of the dramatic triangle in his play All in the Timing. In this play the tension between Trotsky and his wife is dependent the image of an ice pick. Which audiences soon find out is connected to a recurring dream Trotsky has, another example of roots of action. Roots of action in his third play Word Word Words is also the dramatic triangle. The three monkeys surrounding the typewriter often refer to a they that not instructed them before they came on stage but also is pushing their action while onstage.
David Ives uses roots of action and the dramatic triangle in his plays. In the play 'Variations on the Death of Trotsky' roots of action is used when the characters read the encyclopedia, stating the actions how he died. "On August 20th, 1940...Ramon Mercader smashed an axe into Trotsky's skull..." Dramatic triangle is used between the wife, Trotsky, and a Spanish gardener named Ramon who always seems to be the cause of his death. "Ramon, did you bury this mountain-climbers axe into my skull?" "I smashed it into your skull." These play tropes are often used in his plays and help thicken the plot.
David Ives uses the root of action within his plays sort of in the description before the play begins as it sort of sets up the play and gives you an idea of what's going on like in Arabian Nights he describes the setting, the characters, and what the characters are doing leading you to think that an interpreter is showing a normal man the different ways of this setting he is in, and then in Words, Words, Words, with the title of the play and the description of the characters, you can sort of get the sense of the roots of action being monkeys attempting to write in comparison to the works of Shakespeare, in hopes of a humorous play being that monkeys normally do not speak, and creating the idea that the best writing could come from stupidity, and then in Variations on the Death of Trotsky from the title and the initial description of him writing furiously you can hypothesize that the root of action is with Trotsky being a very stressed individual which then leads up to his death. David Ives uses the dramatic triangle in Arabian Nights with the use of Flora's father creating fear and intimidation within the play moving the characters dialogue to focus on this character who is not even on stage, and then within Words, Words, Words, Shakespeare seems to be the completion of the third triangle as it is based on his writing, and then within Variations on the Death of Trotsky's completion to the third triangle consists of Ramon who is the root of Trotsky's demise.
David has a very interesting way of using the root of action throughout all three plays. In Arabian Nights, it is explained that Flora is dusting around this souvenirs on her table, when the interpreter walks though the beaded curtain, dragging Norman along with him. By doing this throughout the play they are all showing the different fixation of words and how things can be interpreted differently, all while in this shop. In Words, Words, Words, David Ives uses the root of action to explain that anyone could make a good play on accident (even monkeys). In the beginning, they explain how these monkeys are dressed up all professionally, and keep their monkey instincts but are working humanly (pounding their chests, eating bananas, and leaping around, and then going back to typing-kind of showing that even monkeys can make something out of nothing. In Variations on The Death Of Trotsky, they use the root of action to show that Trotsky is oblivious to him supposed to be dead. throughout the play he keeps a nonchalant attitude towards the fact that he has, in fact, been killed with a mountain-climber's axe. the beginning actually gives off a nonchalant tone towards him being dead, explaining that he's living in this beautiful setting and working hard, and then at the very end shortly mentioning that he has this huge axe handle sticking out of his head. throughout each of these plays, the root of actions play a big part in the whole script seeming as without it the audience nor the reader would be able to decipher the play and its importance.
David Ives generally includes three characters in each of these plays. Two of them are directly connected to each other, and lets the audience infer that they have a relationship off screen that is not seen and a third additional character to push these characters to interact or respond to the given dilemma. Often times, the third character has little to be known of. For example, Flora and Norman are the main focal point of "Arabian Nights," and the Interpreter is simply facilitating their conversation and providing more entertainment. He completes the dramatic triangle and helps develop the roots of action by constantly repeating the lines of the other two in order to push them in another direction or topic. He seems to be managing their relationship and steers them to be positive of each other. There are small dramatic triangles within a play too, such as the father of Flora and apparently, the Interpreter. In "Words, Words, Words," the dramatic triangle is completed within the play with the three monkey characters. The outlier character is the experiment itself, observing these monkeys learning how to write Hamlet. An example of a root of action in the play revolves around identity and what to do once one discovers this realization (if they do). This is evident in how the monkeys contemplate who they are, but the plot continues to go on despite their thinking. Lastly, in "Variations on the Death of Trotsky," a dream is realized after the characters speak lines that indicate something else, but the inclusion leaves the audience with a heavy implication that there is a piece of information to infer. He also mentions gruesome parts about his supposed unknowing death. The root of action is developed in this way. The dramatic triangle is supported with Trotsky, Ms. Trotsky, and Ramon but there are also sociological factors that affect the characters as well.
In Arabian Nights, David Ikes uses the roots of action by establishing certain circumstances, such as physical ones -- Norman is a man while Flora is a woman-- social ones-- Norman and Flora are completely normal while the interpreter is absurd and over the top-- and economic ones-- Flora is a shop keeper and Norman is a customer. The dramatic triangle is used in Arabian Nights as the main two characters-- Norman and Flora-- are constantly interacting and being motivated by with the third-- the Interpreter. In Words, Words, Words, David Ikes uses the roots of action by establishing various circumstances, such as physical ones-- the main characters are monkeys typing away at type writers-- psychological ones-- the monkeys question their purpose and worth-- and political circumstances-- the monkeys are controlled by their experiments desires and they discuss rebelling against that power. The dramatic triangle is also created in Words, Words, Words, as Milton, Kafka, and Swift are constantly interacting with each other, whether through compliments/feedback, discussion, or dispute. In Variations on the Death of Trotsky, the most obvious circumstances are the physical ones-- Trotsky has a mountain climbers axe in his head-- but there are social ones as well--Trotsky and his wife are both communists opposed to Capitalism. The rhetorical triangle is established between Trotsky, his wife, and his murderer Ramon.
David Ives uses the roots of action to give the audience/readers a lens to view the play in. The information that they have about where the characters are coming from can help them understand their future actions and thoughts. The detail of what is going on in the scene before it actually happens. In Words, Words, Words, the inclusion of the context before the characters appear gives depth. The dramatic triangle takes a regular interaction/relationship between two characters and changing it by adding a third. This can change the scene, how they talk to each other. Also in Arabian Nights; Norman and Flora are between a "language barrier", but the Interpreter becomes the translator for them and also becomes essential for the play to happen.
He gave the audience a better view of his play. The information about his characters help the reader better understand why they act the way they do. The triangle describes a relationship between two people and adds a third one this changes how the characters react with one another. Everything was essential for the play and its interpretation.
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