Death of a Salesman -- Arthur Miller

Premiered in Morosco Theatre in New York in 1949.

WILLY: obviously exhausted, they say so in the script. Falling asleep at the wheel.
Contradicts himself. Touch of senility? But does it even in the earlier scenes.
Talking to himself. Doesn't pay attention to the driving.


LINDA: Lotta love. Practical too, it would seem. Paying off the bills, etc.


BIFF: Works on a farm. Not making a lot of money, and according to his father(?) hasn't found his place in life yet, at 34.
Steals small things. Also maybe/probably big things. Probably will fail math and not graduate.


HAPPY: "Sexuality is like a visible color on him. Or a scent that many women have discovered."
"Ruining" women. Sleeping with them when they're engaged to be married to business execs. And then going to the wedding.
As a boy, largely ignored. Perhaps fat, or at least not fit.

---
BERNARD: Younger than Biff, loyal. "Not well-liked." Trying to look out for Biff.
Charley's son. Not athletic, so looked down upon.


THE WOMAN: Willy is cheating with her? She "picked him"


CHARLEY: Willy's friend. They kid around, apparently? They share some pretty harsh words. But "despite what Charley says, there is pity." Not sure if that's the same thing as what's coming from Willy, or if he actually means it.
Bernard's father, and their neighbor.
Not athletic, so looked down upon.


UNCLE BEN: Willy's brother. Has died, but is remembered. Went to Alaska and made his fortune. Invited Willy along.


HOWARD: Willy's boss. Distractable. Kinda nice, but needs to let Willy go. He's not doing what he needs to be doing.


JENNY: Charley's secretary.


STANLEY: Waiter


MISS FORSYTHE: Random girl Happy's hitting on. And lying to. 

LETTA: Same




Foreshadowing with car? He was asleep at the car, perhaps will kill himself with car? Also obvious "death" in title, and in one of his first lines.   (Foreshadowing confirmed.)


Why is popularity so fucking important in this play? Is that really the way things were? Is that the way things are now?
Appearances, etc? Grrr. We are such a stupid society, and also with the latter, I'm a hypocrite.


So Willy doesn't make any money anymore? Just borrows from Charley?
Biff knows something about Willy that he won't say, it's what's causing them to fight.

This play is quite sad.  Nothing goes the way it should, in part because Willy wasn't giving his kids real-life advice, just love (rather than tough love, which I think in this instance would have been more useful).

I think it would make more sense to see it staged rather than just read it.  A lot of the language, etc is so convoluted, because they hardly say what they mean.  Well, that or they keep changing their minds.

Monologue:

WILLY talking to Biff about going in to borrow money.  Turns out Willy doesn't really know what advice he wants to give, and winds up contradicting himself.  

Possible arc  Honest/serious (but light)->  Angry?  (Could manage it, though nothing in the script seems to indicate that, but hey, choices!) -> Smiling and light (personality wins through)

True West -- Sam Shepard

In the Intro, his plays noted as dealing with death or betrayal of American dream, decay of national myths, growing mechanization of our lives, search for roots.  An American writer, writing about America, and things that deal with that (I think of like open country, stuff like that.  Not sure how valid that is to his writing, but that's my impression with the language they use to describe him.)
Style changing over his opera?  Borrows like a magpie from many traditions?  Comes from no one tradition, as that's not a thing in America at the time.  Born in Illinois, grew up in Southern California.
Likes rock music.  Embodied in his plays?  Contemporary, harsh, jumpy.  But other musical styles relevant.  He says they're as important as the speech.
Impatience with time for NOT happening all at once like space.  Impatience with space for having limits, contours and finality.  That is integral in his stage presence?

John Cage says "Theatre exists all around us, and it is the purpose of formal theatre to remind us that this is so."
And with that, I'm skipping the rest of the introduction, and moving on to the play.



AUSTIN:  Reserved.  Ivy League school.  Writing something by candlelight, probably a screenplay.  Has a family.  Surprisingly welcoming to his brother despite perhaps criminal tendencies.  Wants to spend time with Lee, or so he says.  Jealous of Lee's ability to have adventures and take risks?

LEE:  Drunk.  Resentful of his brother's intelligence?  Talent?  Is he a thief?  Austin seems to know that he is.  "Invites himself to fancy houses"

SAUL KIMMER:  Energetic.  Enthusiastic.  Polite to Lee.  Seems to be understanding of Austin's plight.

MOM:



The chasing of the two men in Lee's screenplay.  Is that perhaps metaphoric for him and Lee?

Switched roles with Act II.  Thief -> screenwriter.  Screenwriter -> thief.




Interesting how you share Austin's incredulity in Scene 5 (where Lee is saying Saul liked his screenplay).  Then I feel it takes a step away from realism when Saul comes in saying he liked it.  Maybe talking about taking risks, etc.  Certainly speaks to ME as a person, as someone who is more of an Austin.


Umm, so this play starts out normal, and goes pretty weird.  Austin goes mad.  Lee was crazy already.  Their mom doesn't care enough to try to fix things, just like Austin didn't really care about Lee's problems to fix them in the beginning.  Ends with an ambiguous cliffhanger, where they're getting ready to fight.  (The intro talked about how they tend to end in the middle of things)  Lee does allude to murdering Austin earlier though...


According to Sam Shepard:
"I wanted to write a play about double nature, one that wouldn't be symbolic or metaphorical or any of that stuff.  I just wanted to give a taste of what it feels like to be two-sided.  It's a real thing, double nature.  I think we're split in a much more devastating way than psychology can ever reveal.  It's not so cute.  Not some little thing we can get over.  It's something we've got to live with.

They switch roles in the middle, but wind up at the same place, right?  Both drunk, weird, bad(?) people.

Monologue:

AUSTIN:  Trying to deal with Lee's news that Saul liked the idea for the screenplay.  Torn between hurt, confused, happy for his brother, and trying to catch him in his lie.  

Possible arc:  Catching in the lie, disbelieving -> Jealous -> Genuine, brotherly.

Interrogating the Nude -- Doug Wright

In the intro to his book, he talks about his grotesque Medusa painting in elementary school.  It was not only good, it was forbidden.  He fancied himself to be a provocateur.  Later, he just wrote about provocateurs.  Characters who subvert the status quo on purpose, "gleefully".

The characters are eccentric, but he says that sometimes the most extreme personalities yield the most universal human truths.


About Interrogating the Nude, he says he was inspired by Marcel Duchamp, (Dada, conceptualism) how his art not only was decorative, but "punctured the mind."  Tackled his life.
First draft was more biographical, almost encyclopedic in scope.  Boring.  Didn't do the man justice, cause he was not a boring person.  Needed to emulate his art, not his life.
"Nude Descending a Staircase" was noted as desecrating the most sacred form to art, the female nude.  Wright says it wasn't really that outrageous anymore, and so he had to take things further.  Critics had said Duchamp had "murdered art" so why not make it a mystery, whodunnit type thing?

"What constitutes an aesthetic crime?  What is the impact of irreverent art on public morality?  Is one man's felony another man's muse?  And isn't innovation always a crime against the status quo?"

Premiered in 1989 at Yale Repertory Theater.




DUCHAMP begins with the metaphor, I think.  He is "desecrating the nude," "murdering art" etc. Speaks in metaphors and ridiculous language.  His description of his and Rose's fucking, "our bones gelatinous and our skins chafed, so great was our exhaustion."  I think ROSE is DUCHAMP.   Cast as male actor with a similar build to Duchamp.  "Share the same umbilical cord."  Turns out that with the exception of conjoined twins (ie Siamese) all twins have their own umbilical cord.
Seeking attention and notoriety (which is what he found).  After he finished telling his story of the "murder" he says "alert the papers"


INSPECTOR takes it seriously.  It is unbelievable to him.  Outrageous.
Heads the "Art as decoration" (rather than puncturing the mind)

CONSTABLE PUBLICK:  Whining.  Why do I always get these kinds of jobs, etc?  All the raucous ones.  Grotesque, etc.

ROSE SELAVY:  Name seems to be conjured by Duchamp in wordplay.  "Eros, c'est la vie!"  (Love is life)  Rose Selavy.  Perhaps representative of his inspiration?  She does what she wants, though he thinks he knows her mind.  Perhaps that metaphorically.  Literally she is Duchamp in drag.

MAN RAY:  Appears to be a real person Man Ray who did avant-garde photography, worked with Duchamp.  Not his birth name, but an associated name that he thought to mean "joy, to play, to enjoy"
"Shit, I never thought I'd see the day when a mixed metaphor could land a man behind bars."




Painting the nude.  DUCHAMP refers to literally painting the nude, Rose's skin, etc.

Page 61-62, talking about art, how Rose existed only between the two of them, but now she is to be put before the world.  People will remember her if the story sells, that she was walking here or there, or...  Become legend in a sense, and as a result, become art.




What fascinates me about this play are the possibilities in work between ROSE and DUCHAMP.  They essentially will have to imitate each other by the end of the play, as ROSE becomes DUCHAMP II, and DUCHAMP acts "(As Rose)".  Their mannerisms, their voice.  All could be copied from each other.  Also, they descend the stairs.  :P

They flat out switch at the end.



Monologue:

MAN RAY meeting Rose for the first time.  Drunk, stumbling to the door.  Etc.
Possible arc:  Shooing -> Seducing / comforting -> Evicting (laying down the law, so-to-speak)

Wait Until Dark -- Frederick Knott

Saw this live at Stage III.

Mike Talman and Sgt. Carlino are pseudonyms.  They never refer to each other by their real names.  The names are given to them by Roat.  Which is kind of cool.


It would appear Roat has killed Lisa, who both Mike and Carlino had feelings for before going to jail.  All of the sudden, he has all the power, as they left fingerprints everywhere in the house.  He's manipulating it from the beginning.


Roat:  Creepy guy.  Smart.  Cold.  'Squeamish' (that is, he prefers to keep his hands clean.  White collar crime, or at least crime organization, if you will.)  I imagine him as Solf J Kimblee.
Disguises himself as Roat Sr. and Roat Jr.
Sr:  Comes in, "ransacks the dresser" and leaves (to provide cover for Mike to be good guy)
Jr:  "Cold-cut" in his suit.  Professional.  Perhaps snobbish.
One step ahead of the game.  Kills both Mike and Carlino, when he needs to.

Sam:  A perfectionist.  Loving toward Susy, but in a quasi-parental way.

Mike:  As a disguise, the "good guy".  Sticks around to help Susy.  (Stage directions hint he might feel a little guilty conning Susy, he is being coerced into this job now, after all)

Carlino:  No personality things stood out to me upon reading it.





Thoughts about play:  I want to see it live again.  I appreciate reading it and noticing things that I did not when watching it live.  (ie the fact that their names weren't actually their names.  Wonder what choices they could have made differently to clear that up for me.)

I think it's well written, especially in giving plot information in a natural, conversational way.  Susy's journey from trusting Mike to realizing that something is afoot to realizing that he is, in fact, against her is very fluid and involving for the audience.




Monologue:

ROAT after Mike and Carlino realize he killed Lisa.  ONE possible arc:  Patronizing -> ridiculing -> Cold, calculated orders.