American Theatre

L.26/09/2011

Los textos los podemos encontrar en el campus virtual. Los libros del 'reference' no son
obligatorios, si nos parecen muy difíciles lo dejamos porque nos pueden causar más daño que
beneficio pero nos anima a ello, sobre todo si vamos a ser investigadores. El ensayo, es un trabajo,
que hay que hacer cuenta un 40%,son dos preguntas a elegir, se hace una,en español o en inglés.

El teatro de finales del siglo XVII fue la Edad de Oro del teatro. Luego entra en declive por Cromwell
que escribe mal, lo toma como algo muy libertino, a no ser que tuviese un mecenas oficial se les
consideraba a la gente de teatro como gente de mala vida. Es una cosa que atraía a las masas.
Tiene mala reputación por esto. Cromwell era puritano, los puritanos condenaban el teatro porque
es algo puramente ocioso, tiene potencial de propaganda, a veces el teatro se prohíbe por razones
políticas por si se sueltan ideas que no interesan en ese momento. Cuando matan a Lincoln en el
teatro, le mata un actor, el teatro es peligroso. Es algo que quieres controlar o puede ser
beneficioso controlar. A parte de esto los puritanos están en contra del teatro igual que todo lo que
sea representar (las iglesias no tienen imágenes) la conexión con la verdad tiene que ser directa y
no idealizada, ni a través de estatuas, misas sobre-elavoradas, dadas por curas, pre-establecidas. El
problema con conectarte directamente, evitando toda la mediación, te llevas lo que es el teatro.La
mediación terrenal de la verdad sólo la puede corromper. RE- presentar, sólo puede ser una copia
mala de la realidad, de la verdad.

Esto es relevante para la historia norteamericana porque entre los ingleses que fueron allí había
muchos puritanos. Qué pasa para que vengamos de esto a llegar a tener el teatro como algo
bueno. Teatro autóctono en el siglo XVIII no existe. La primera obra que se escribe y se producce es
en 1767 a finales del siglo XVIII ,muy tarde. No tienen historia realmente. Lo que hacían era
importar teatro, lo importan de Europa y se nutrirán de esto desde finales del siglo XIX. La única
excusa' que le podemos dar a los norteamericanos es que en esa época del XVIII el teatro estaba
bastante mal, por lo general no tiene la altura que ha tenido el anterior teatro, suele ser cómico y
un poco libertino, moralmente sospechoso, se convierte en la peor pesadilla de los puritanos. Este
declive se debe porque el estilo cambió, cada vez más frívolo, parece que se centra en el
entretenimiento puro y duro. Se quejaban que entretuviese a costa de un contenido moral.

El teatro bueno no tiene que ser aburrido. Esta es una cosa que vamos a tratar. Pero hay una razón
más importante, decae porque sube la novela. Disfruta del beneplácito de los críticos porque se
considera como algo edificante y con lo que se aprende. Novelas epistolares como 'Pamela'. El
monopolio literario lo acapara la novela, el teatro se queda como un espectáculo frívolo sin valor
moral ni literario ciertamente. Esto es muy importante, hasta qué punto el teatro ha de ser literario
o no. Igual no lo tiene que ser y la novela no le afecta. Los estudios en teatro no se valoran tanto
como los literarios. Esto sería más ''Drama studies'', estudiamos nosotros los textos, no cómo se
representa sino qué se representa.

La situación en el siglo XVIII es precaria porque el monopolio literario se lo ha llevado la novela, el

teatro pierde relevancia con la palabra escrita. Sheridan era uno de los más importantes de este
tiempo. Su obra es de alguna manera un acto de protesta contra el tipo de teatro que se hacía y los
problemas de su siglo. En 'The Critic' se trata de una obra de teatro que va de una obra de teatro,
sobre la sociedad inglesa del XVIII, representa y parodia a los críticos de teatro y a los dramaturgos.
Se plasma como se discute qué es si una comedia o una tragedia, se quejan de que el teatro no es
ya una escuela de moralidad cuando sus propias personalidades tampoco lo son. Gente realmente
poco preparada pero que representan esa opinión de que el teatro es sospechoso realmente. Otra
de las razones del declive es porque se está desligando de lo literario. Tenemos la imagen de un
teatro tremendamente entregado al teatro como espectáculo con escenarios y cambio de escenas
complejas (los carpinteros no quieren, no pueden hacer esto tan rápido). Puff por un lado no
controla el texto porque está en manos de los actores y por otro lado que lo que a el se le pueda
ocurrir pueda ser impracticable. Un autor fuera de control, no lo tiene, la crisis fundamental
literaria en esto, es un autor sin AUTORidad. El texto es lo que le da autoridad a un texto, sin esto
no habría referente para definir si es bueno o malo, no sabríamos lo que quería decir, es necesario
un texto al que poder referirnos, como hacemos en esta clase. Lo que está clase es que la relación
escena- texto es asimétrica. Divorciado de la significación, esta pérdida de valores está expresada
también en 'The Critic' porque promueven el plagio y las malas traducciones, sin ninguna intención
de mantener el texto original, sin ninguna integridad (aquí textos del francés). Mientras que el
autor no esté protegido, está a merced de la escenificación, la proteción al autor tardó mucho en
llegar. En EEUU el copyright llegó en el 1856 mediados del XIX. A parte del dinero, afectaba a que
su material estaba desprotegido. En el tratro del XIX primera mitad, son los actores los que deciden
qué obras y cómo las representan , tienen sus propias compañías de teatro. Un teatro de
espectáculo, dominado por actores y en el que aspecto textual es secundario. En el siglo XX ha
habido movimientos como el expresionismo que intenta recuperar lo importante que es la
representación. En el teatro norteamericano lo que está claro es que empieza con una asimetría
escena-texto, y hay que corregir esto para que empiece a funcionar.

Es importante que entendamos en que los orígenes son muy problemáticos así como interesantes.

''Our modern native drama did not grow of literature, as it did in England and France, it grew out of
the theatre''. El drama es la relación entre el teatro y el texto, es una lucha política de alguna
manera esta lucha. En américa de alguna forma es lógico que si va a haber drama que se origine en
el drama y no en la literatura porque no tienen. Otra razón es que el teatro sin texto desde un
punto de vista político es más republicano. Es más libre. Un teatro sin texto es un teatro sin
autoridad, de todos. Es un acto de liberación individual esto de que en 'The Critic' los actores
corten el texto.

_____________________________________________________________________________

M.27/09/2011
The author loses control of theatre because he doesn’t have text, the actors and people who work
there control it because actors cut lines. He wants money so to have audience so he needs to play
things that people will like. Normally you would be able to watch two plays, like one tragedy of
Shakespeare, King Lear, when Cordelia dies, in this theatre the audience like happy audience so she
reminds alive. Most of this plays were in the line of comedy. At the XIX century the performance
aspects are very important. We are talking about the relation of text and forms and how they
manage it. Dramas , melodramas (telenovelas) is also successful in the theatre of this century too
but there are no sad things. Melodrama came from the greek word of ‘’Melos’’ and it means song.
They put music in scenes to emphasize the emotional tone. If you want to put theatre outside you
may have to make a show, a musical. This melodramatic tradition in the sense of music continues
in England.

G.Bernard Shaw, ‘Against the Well-Made play’’: Well-made-> melodrama. This happy-ending
formula. Shaw is up for people, he is a socialist, but why he wants theatre to be more formal, how
he justifies not giving them what they want. ‘’They Pedandry of Paris’’: the French seems to be
more classic and more traditional. The wrote in verse and they carry on writing in French.
Shakespeare wrote in verse and everybody went to the theatre. Not only theatre of XVIII century
was in crisis also was poetry. Because the poetry should be the language of everybody ,of every
people. Shar critics education. ‘How to Write a Popular Play’: problems that get resolve. If you take
a train to go to the theatre, watch a play, smile at the end and then take another train that takes
you home, your life is being mechanical.

Stephen Crane, Maggie, A Girl of the Streets (1983) How does the audience response to the play?

Morality when bad behaved men were up for the hero and against the villain. Moral message that
does nothing to people. Crane

________________________________________________________________________________

L. 10/10/2011

Shakesperian drama. The novel was leading the way.

Dickens:

 Realistic in the way of social concern.

 Religion meaning.

 Melodramatic.

It’s not a break, is a continuous moving from old drama to his ‘’You can close your eyes and really
feel you are in Ireland’’.
‘’Art for truth’s sake in the drama’’; he is conscious of being revolutionary but he is not a scientist.
Why not? Art vs. Science?.

James Herne: Art must be more human. There is a certain romanticism, is an emotional subjective
approach. It doesn’t have to be objective to be true. Why will an American be more open to the
romanticism than an European? The American theatre was born in melodrama.

Representing humanity the way to get the truth.

Art for art’s sake (It’s subjective and emotional) Vs. Art for truth’s sake.

Being representative or demonstrative…

________________________________________________________________________________

M. 11/10/11

Margaret Fleming; exchange between Philip and some of his workers.

James Herne's Margaret Fleming is surprisingly bold and realistic in regard to
the time period in which it was written. The subject of infidelity is dealt with
candidly, and other aspects, such as the breast-feeding of an infant, are
depicted in a true-to-life form. The content, then, seems quite modern for the
play's 1890 date. Yet, Herne is the successor of a playwright like Henrik Ibsen
rather than Bronson Howard or, even, Augustin Daly. As Watt and Richardson
note, Margaret Fleming is "unequaled in realism by any other known American
drama of its century"

Reading: A Doll House… & Henry James. Margaret Fleming.

(*) References to the rain. How can we predict what is going to happen next? Who control this? Is
like it is uncontrolled but everything is going to be OK Melodramatic.

Who control character’s destiny? The Doctor is very important. Larking is saying he understand
animal’s appetite but in the case of human beings you have to control yourself.

Morality What happen if we consider ourselves as animals?. This kind of theatre shouldn’t have
questions about morality. Maybe the thing about the baby ‘’that should have never born’’ is
because a sexual appetite. It doesn’t seem like Philip is dealing with his responsabilities.

‘’I know all of this about appetites that have to be controlled’’.

Philip: ‘’I’m just the next guy’’.

Doctor: ‘’You should have done it because of your morality,etc…

Comics characters (as Joe and Maria) but they still are in a serious picture. (Serious business; real
possibility that Philip can become like Joe or Maria can influence positively her friend).

____________________________________________________________________

17/10/2011

In a way the second ending is a happy one, but of course there is a melodrama ; it’s happy with
complications. She loves him as equals (she thought he was a hero). A very interesting ending is
the original one, which has no concessions for melodrama or happy endings, more realistic.

The point of which this book has two endings.

Representation of reality with no solutions. Begins to suggest that realism to melodrama, it means
it is a melodrama with some realism.

There is something patriarchal about reality here, reality but for the men. It doesn’t mean come
back realism to melodrama, it means it is a melodrama with some realism.

He’s saying theatre is in decline, maybe it is a critic point of view about it, but he also talks about
women ( that women go to the theatre to learn and be educated and to entertain themselves).

It’s a play about a women who marries an aristocratic man, and because a social escandle she opts
to kill herself. Women are just naturally inferior, more erotic or more histherical than men at his
point? At least is not heir essence? ‘’July is a woman character…’’; Evidence again that the author
see women as synonymous of corruption, ‘half women’. Maybe he is not bleming women just
women who behave like that, and that they became half because they are less women (female
independation). She is acting in an unfeminine way, falling victim for genre of that time. Factors she
can’t control. She is not being able to dual with that time she is living in and the social
conventions , she doesn’t accept it.

If you don’t act as a woman, your increase the possibilities of not survival and disappear, the way
to survive is TO STAY.

Intuition is for women and reason for men. They should to remain as they are and exercices their
virtues, does he feel for women?

Maybe the main character of this play dies because she became a half woman in the correct sense
of the word. We need to look behind appearance.

Why will he think that monologues are not a good thing? He is actually saying it is realistic. People
in real life talks with themselves, a lot indeed. He is reinventing the monologue in a realistic way.
Includes things which conventional socialism will not accept. He is saying that reality includes
more. Gives examples of people doing it as normal. It stop being reality as long as it is madness. He
is introducing realistic elements into melodrama, or using melodrama to modelate the monologue.
He says that in some times people acts mad.

‘’And to give the actor the chance to create…’’ He even believes the non-verbal part is important. In
Mrs. Julie you have dancing melo-music. The new realistic drama; he is using melodrama but not
promoting it again, the character of Julie still have naturalistic forces, invisible.

Join the dots is an act of intuition not an act of realism. Melodramatic interest on the stage is quite
different. He is not interested in luxurious sets, the audience is attracted for the stage. To kept the
interest of the audience. Persuading the opposite. Less is more. He will simply to suggest. We are
never asked to do anything, they are not demanded to join the dots. 3D He tries to give as a
different way to entertain us, something new of the ‘’normal’’ cinema. 3D is an act of our
imagination, but we are just used of it. ‘’There is nothing more difficult that to make a bedroom
look like a bedroom’’.

The idea of objects are not what they seems. Idea of penetrating into things is also an idea of
penetrating into people. He also complains about lights in theatre. Facial expressions become
crucial. Make up x unrealistic. Faces are after all the mirrors of the soul.

He is promoting a sociological drama. A new theatre that is more intimate. Femenine complexity.
New drama in small theatres.

->In a way the second ending is a happy one, but of course there is melodrama, it’s happy with
complications. She loves him as equals (she thought he was a hero). A very interesting ending, the
original one has no concessions for melodrama or happy endings, more realistic.

The poiny of which this book has two endings. LEER MRS FLEMING

Representation of reality with no solutions. Begins to suggest that realism, there is something
patriarchal about reality here, reality but for the men. It doesn’t mean he has come back realism to
melodrama, it means it is a melodrama with some realism.

He’s saying theatre is in decline, maybe it is a critic point of view about it, but he also talks about
women (that women go to the theatre to learn and be educated and to entertain themselves).

It’s a play about a women who marries an aristocratic man, and because a social scandal she opts
to kill herself. Women are just naturally inferior, more erotic and more hysterical that men at this
point. ?. At least is not their essence? Evidence again that the author see women as synonymous of
corruption, ‘’HALF WOMEN’’. Maybe he is not blaming women just women who behave like that,
and that they became half women because they are less women, FEMALE INDEPENDATION. She is
acting in an un-flaming way, falling victim for genre of that time. Factors she can’t control, she is
not being able to dual with that time she is living in and the social conventions and she doesn’t
accept it.
The literal theatre drama movement M/18/10/2011

___________________________________________________________________________

M.25/10/2011

Prison house of art for women. Feminist expressionistic mood (Fotografías en clase) More
dramatic pictures.

LONGS DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT_ Eugene O’Neill He goes further in order to make
his works truly realistic. His father spent almost his life playing the same role (‘’The Cond of
Montecristo’’). Long Day's Journey shows how all of these characters deceive themselves about
the extent of their 'sickness'. Also, they refuse to help each other. All of the characters seem to act
like drug addicts, repeating themselves and contradicting themselves. The audience's sympathy
shifts throughout the play, alternately condemning and forgiving each character. His insistence on
the seriousness of theatre and the tragic condition of human life was revolutionary.

The Emperor Jones (1920).

The Hairy Ape (1922). The sound suggest a meaning. Expressionistic but some kind of realistic.
Slavery : A form of redemption. Man reduced as monkeys or neanderthal (bad:slave /good:
natural) by being oppressed by capitalism. They are all masks metaphorically speaking.

All God’s Chilh. Got wings (1924).

The Great God Brown (1926)

Lazarus laughed (1927)

Masks. Acting not only with facial expressions but with body language involved. With expressions
you have a better idea of the character complexity. By masking the actor we also solve the problem
of ?. They are actors in action rather than actors in character. Now we go to see a movie of stars
rather that characters (a development of it). Crown signs. From catharsis, experimental therapy.

Sheridan criticized 19th century drama because the actors controlled the play and the audience
participation but because it was mechanical patriarchal and had tricks to emphasize
entertainment. If O’Neill put masks you pay more attention to language, but it became more
vulnerable too, undetermined. Language is audiovisual.

O’Neill, ‘’The Hairy Ape’’,1922

Typical naturalistic stage. Ibsen. But maybe is not as simple as that. The directions are very long,
this tell us the stage direction is controlling everything. Narrator that normally is the author. O’Neill
sends us messages reading ‘’Long Day’s Journey into Night’’, maybe it was a play
just to be read, he said it never had to be played.

A reaction against melodrama and focus in spectacle and performance, it seems to be a return of
the strong author. This play seems to be a return to sexuality. The narrator’s text direction takes his
time to describe us the books on the stage, very important. Books became a very important part of
the drama. Radical meaning, recent history. They are not just ornaments, they have the look of
having been read and re-read. The other books: romantic melodramas, history, someone who likes
the canon. Edmund is the youngest soon, he represents O’Neill. He reproaches his father he
doesn’t spend money in good doctors, etc…

‘’You will find anything you want to say in Shakespeare’’ -> Shakespeare will speak for you. But they
want to hear their father. He is like that, he had a complicated life

L. 07/11/2011

Equally, everyone in the family is blaming at the father because he doesn’t spend money in
important things. He acts like an actor in his life. Idea of control, god that control our lifes or a
reference that can tell us what is true and what is false, the control of an author. That amount of
control would have the opposite effect.

____________________________________________________________________________

L. 14/11/2011

Exploring Our Town

Epic theatre suggested a way of getting people into action, giving them the vote metaphorically
speaking. Temporal conventionality. What else makes this play epic theatre?:

the stage manager (encourage the audience he also speaks directly to the audience, sometimes he
became one of the actors) of the theatre is a very important feature of this play. He feats perfectly
in the idea of epic theatre, but in some point he is also a narrator, complicated with the actors with
the whole theatre operators (melodrama is more about the theatre about the narrator, freedom).
Sometimes is a narrator, which some time is problematic, in a play like this, because Like Benjamin
is someone who interrupts. This universal human experience he finds in little things in normal life.
This link crosses special temporal lines, that is the power of art, so actually Wilder is curiously
identifying this universal human experience with this. That’s why she is interested in this things.

‘’Preface for Our Town’’ –Archeologist. Is the ability to see far the very small.

From the ‘’Preface’’ to Three Plays (1957)- ‘’It is an attempt to find a value above all price for the
smallest events in our daily life’’.
Page 21, he bring a scientific account, is gave by professor x. Showing us, making us aware that we
are watching just a play. Is good that something unite us, but is a very pessimist and naturalistic
point of view of human life that what unite us, is something very universal, The structure of this
play actually follow this naturalistic way. In act 2, page 47: the third character about is death,
curiously again we find this conflicting forces award in this play. The predestination of realism that
is going to die; this play is in three acts, the most conventional formation that we have. The last act
is death. Pesimistic duem , there are two readings in this play. He has been attacked for not
including what is really happening. The only reality he paints is the reality of death, of course, he
does not give any practical solutions.

Language is very important in this play, what is peculiar in the way he speaks is the accent, local
color involve in the use of language, the strategies of specificity in this play. Out town could be any
town, but the peculiarities of the localities are universal. Universalizing the particular. The big
question is (end of 24 page) where are the politics in this town, Wilder need to universalize this
town, and he wants to make sure politics doesn’t get in the way of his attempt. He is trying to be
artistic. He doesn’t want to talk about human nature, just in artistic point of view, because art is his
answer. It’s a play that is liking spirituality.

_____________________________________________________________________-

L. 21/11/2011

Arthur Miller. American playwright . In the mid 1950s. Miller wrote this brief biographical resume:
29 Crisis, his family lost all their money.

If you are not going to write propaganda, what are you going to write about? Salesman is clearly
connected to literally editions. Tragedy in the aristhotinian sense. He is appealing to the literally
rules.

The Poetics of Aristotle: Epic: Tragedy is epic with some extras form the stage. He uses the epic to
attack. Does he redefines tragedy or does simply update tragedy or adapt?. Tragedy: A
representation of an action. Mode of dramatic enactment not narrative- and through the arousal
of pity and fear effective the catharsis of such emotions.

The most important of these elements is the structure of events, because tragedy is a
representation not of people as such but of actions and life,

We are not interesting in seeing people sitting on the stage looking each other telling stories, we
are interesting in seeing happen, about tragedy. Speech is simply about words, rounded, we can
have access through the thoughts. Without the action characterization is pointless.

The problems of Willy are very real. The solution of this problem, W. seems to find a solution from
the play. Offering a little bit of immortality, seems very relevant, also is the obsession of W., it’s not
just to make money. Legacy, leaving money to his son, the mortality that comes in being famous,
the idea of being remembered, Salesman was very famous. Immortality also in some pedestrian
way.

‘’I set out not to write tragedy in this play but to show the truth…’’: Again he is claiming saying he
done all himself, however he is happy to believe that the result is the tragedy, is a reinvented
tragedy or is an updating?. Is he defending his play as a tragedy or just saying it is a tragedy by
mistake, he can’t be a tragic hero, because he is just a salesman (noble people in Shakespeare). He
is defending his right to do whatever he wants in his tragedy. Rank is about social standing (prime
minister, postman), stature is about the individual value, what give you this? And why structure is
linked to rank. Human weakness, one day you are up other day you are down. Personal tragedies.
Freak teacher ‘’READ HOLA’S IS YOUR ARISTOTENIAN RIGHT’’. TÚ NO, TU COMPAÑERO, ES QUE YO
ERA BIZCO DE PEQUEÑO, LO GUIÑO SIN DARME CUENTA.

Death is important, idea of immortality, of finding it and permanent values. Killing yourself is the 1 st
cause of unnatural mortality, the 2nd is traffic accidents. That is not a valiant pose. When you are
closer to death you give more values to life. He sacrifice himself for his son for love, but he does it
for money do, which proves his blindness (that caused the tragedy in the first play) and he see the
world as marketing.

_____________________________________________________________________

M. 21/11/2011

In the flashback we learn about Willy that things were better. He made 92 hundred. He was
exaggerating back in 98, he has been doing it all along. He has the necessity to be the best and a
successful man, making 2 hundred was good but it doesn’t seem to be enough. It is not enough in
the end because is nothing in the end, he is trapped into a life style, because he has this
commodities that make his life comfortable, is not a necessity culture but a commodities culture.
Willy is also complaining about this objects, through the dream we realize it wasn’t that good.

He is forcing to confront his own reality. These dreams have phsycoanalitic effects, confrontation,
actually the opposite. Dreams tell us how we really feel.

________________________________________________________________________________

M. 29/11/2011

STREET CAR NAMED DESIRE

Why is she an intruder, she also represents culture in a way, she is a teacher of literature. Light is
complicit with the activity of literature, the gothic literature is about life teach us about the truth
of things, is she actually escaping from this true things.

She is new in a place, she is being a snob, she acts like that because maybe at the beginning she
has some fear, you discover she is always telling lies, not the kind of person you can trust on.
Stella’s apartment is like Poe’s novel. She is escaping, but she is also protecting herself.

One of the characters doesn’t like her at all, Stanley, he represents the opposite about what Stella
is. He is a working class immigrant. Stella refuses to him, the way she describes him is interesting.
Stella is fighting against the clock because she wants to be always young and pretty. He is kind of
an animal, literally.

Why is Blanch against her, maybe Blanch feels something for Stanley. It is animal instinct. But love
is permanent.

Do you have sex with love always? Do you think it is possible to have sex without love? Do you
always love the man you have sex with? The Blunch is not only snob but in another level he is
fighting against humanization. He is something like a monkey in the way of walk. They want to
reforce this masculinity, smoking, drinking, playing… the sex is the tik tok of the plot. Very
American, everyone is the same.

She is lying because is a way to invite him to participate in something, she is not just lying she is
giving men what they want. She has no money, no husband, no house…she is really exp. To nature.
Obviously Blanch situation was marked for some reasons. She found out her husband was gay, she
was disappointed and he killed himself.

*Poner en google force download, te baja el video en la calidad más baja. Tube catcher.

_____________________________________________________________________

L.12/12/2011

Blanch is taking de roll of the stage manager, articulating the decoration. She’s been lying to her
sister and to everybody (pretending to be other person (rather that nearly a prostitute). Why does
she lie? Maybe is a self-defense, she is like weak and she needs to survive. Maybe Blanch is weaker
than Stella. This case where you exercise or put on the test to survive, women are not alloud as
part of it, they have a roll, to proqueate, don’t forget she is pregnant. She doesn’t want this
naturalistic world she wants art in her life. Blunch is not ready to do that she wants another else.
Maybe she is using and alternative way to survive, without being part of this way of life in America.
She represents the south but also the civilized European society, like her friend French.But
Standley is strong and has the ability to adapt himself to this industrial jungle. She is pretending
she is moral when she is having sex with strangers, but men seem to like her. She responds to this
demand. This temporary magic is a way to escape. Or maybe the tragedy is really temporary and
that is for nothing.

Micth confront her, he said she lied to him, in the age she has and about her past.

Realism was good, the critic: theatre only reflect reality. She says that her powers are failing, she
says she can do it anymore. Because she can’t stop lying, you can’t do anything about the pass of
time. She is going to lose. She is increasingly pushed to escaping.

There is a masking spectator, he turns the light on. The men are no longer willing spectators for her
show, mainly because he turns the light on you see how she really is.

Tenessi Williams. A Street Car Named Desire is a song in defense of industry. That is their life cicle,
confront, make peace and then have sex, she get pregnant and then they again have sex…and so
on, animal attraction. Can you love your partner if she/he is gay? She did love her husband but at
the end of the day sex is part of love, or that was what she was expecting. Is a world where love
has some part of sex. Is not about sex, she is not really attracted to Mitch but she is neither kind of
attracted to Stanley. She says she wants a boy, just a boy, Why boys? To stop time maybe. This kids
are sexless. This escaping into art an expense of fertility, Stella is pregnant, Blanch does not,
because she is attracted to kids.

Fake pregnancies. People talk about creativity, is nor proqueation exactly but is something similar.
We will see something similar in Virginia Woolf. This is the key, if art is going to prove his value in
life, art has to create something that lasts. Create art against to have babies through sex. You don’t
want a weak baby, you want a strong one that will lasts, like Stanley.

She manipulate scenes, she is William’s messenger. The identification is there. Blanch is a character
created but an artist, he sends Blanch as his creation. She is destroyed and pushed to a corner.
Once again is possible to put SCNM into a Christian metaphor : Jesus is killed but in a way is going
to stay, can Blanch be some kind of victory? You have no more believing your show. Standley is an
animal and then maybe he deserves to be in a prison. Is almost like a roll. Against with a Christian
point of view…Blanch is a fail Jesus. At the ending of the play she is different at the ending of the
play and at the ending of the film where it seems quite clear Stanley is downstairs with the baby.
Sexual creation is the baby. The more melodramatic message is really that Stanley is punished
because he race Blanch. And for a Hollywood audience is very important. The movie tries to make
the play more in Blanche’s favour, or just against the others. The Maniqueans were a Christian sect,
they debated the divinity of Christ. Good is good and bad is bad. The play is different. It is depicted
an industrialized world. She is not going to come back down again.

Conflict, resolution and sex. Maybe Stella is going to be downstairs in 10 minutes. Stanley’s victory
is complete, a completed successful victory, at the end of the play when the lights come up, the
darkness desapair. That moment may have an interesting effect in the way we consider Stanley,
even he is a creation of T. W.

LIFE HAS TO GO ON.

Relation between art and reality in Who’s afraid of Virgina Woolf.

______________________________________________________________________________
L. 09/01/2012

DUTCHMAN Of course is not just a question of civil rights, this play first produced in 1924,
the question of segregation, we are concerned is a question of identity, of how we as human
beings are able to construct our identities. The origins is slavery, taken away from Africa mostly,
you, one day, stop knowing who you are. Before even talking about civil rights, we have to talk
about identities. A reference to make a decision for anything. How do we get identity. Abolition of
slavery in the 2nd hand of XIX century. Black cult of emancipation.

GREAT MIGRATION: from country sides to cities, people got their neighborhoods. In terms of
literature and art (of course them have a lot to do with identity) there is not culture heritage,
because they left them behind, the came almost naked without nothing. They had to start from
cero.

In the 1920’s a movement called HARLEM RENAISSANCE: was about artistic experimentation, they
shared a lot of experimental techniques, a reaction against modern techniques_ modernism, being
in touch with the realities of the modern worlds. New techniques because old ones didn’t
represent modern world. They were interested in the modern man, not the afroamerican man
only. It is called the NEW NEGRO MOVEMENT. Created to give voice to Afroamerican people; they
reach the cities, educated themselves, etc… is not as simple as that, when you have nothing to
start with. What do you use? Is not part of your heritage. The question is open, which materials
you can use, you have nothing to work with, and if you have something, is infected by the other
cultures.

Read essay of Langston Hughes: artist doesn’t matter what color you are. The little negro poet is
like denying his identity. If you write you have to choose a language, so you have to accept some
distinctions like the language you are going to use. Author says he has to confront and is afraid of
being himself. The idea of if something is universal is good is not necessary true. We, white culture,
believe we have the answers because they are universal. How do we create an identity? Full of
traps you have to be careful not to fall into. People mascarating someone they are not. Dressed up
like the people whom were servants their antecessors. Jazz is wild doesn’t correspond to any rules
or structures. It connects us directly with the human experience. Hughes says use jazz to express
yourself. Poster advertising: Big minstrel jubilee, Billy van: the monologue comedian. Even the
black man has to paint himself like more black. Can jazz truly safe Afroamerican identity?

The 60’s in many ways mirror the 20’s, by the Civil Rights Movement. The main stream is very
clever at fitting all those cultures. Johns start in the 50’s as a young poet, is like the black young
poet Hughes talks about settled in the 20’s. He is got a white girlfriend in the 60’s, but later he left
her and left the B-poets.

Dutchman reflects Jones struggle, his real awareness of the important of being an artist doesn’t
matter about the color. 1965 was a very important year. By this time, 64 was very famous and had
devoted friend. Main characters:
Clay, Lula and then the riders of coach and a young negro and a conductor, is about the murder of
a young black man. Is not about what you say but how you say it because it will compromise you in
or out of the conflict. Clay: arcilla. God modelate man with clay. Educated reading somehow.
Ducthman : el holandés errante... A woman eating an apple? Lula is doing it in the first scene,
biblical references. Frist lines describing : ‘’The subway heaped in modern myth’’. Very literally,
very hot. The subway is underground is like the UNDERWORLD, episodes that take place in the
underworld, is modern hell. Apocalyptic scenario in the subway like a hell, industrial forces control
subway. We don’t even know to what place they are going. Lula seems to life in the train. She kills
him and another black man get in to the train and she seems to do the same thing. She is so
trapped in some way in this subway system. There is a myth that is recycled and reused. Leo Jones
is going to protest against the exploitation of Afroamericans? If so he is doing it in the wrong way
because he cannot help writing it.

_______________________________________________________________________________

M. 24/01/2012

How the feminine presents herself in this play, because they can due with the changing of
meaning, the mother is identifying

Women had been under the control of patriarchy telling her what to do what to think, everything
dictated by man. She has got this ability, she changes her costumes, as she call them. Men assert
their masculinity by holding on… In this play a line mine, masculine language…insecurity about
language. Jake. Change her appearance, manipulate herself. Language is symbolic, the capacity for
language to find security, you say a word and that word became real.

The way Beth makes sounds. At the beginning she can only make noises, in a sense you can
interpretate that, she literally, as a result of injuries, semiotic’’ stage, before the symbolic and this
feminine symbolic chaos. Beth represents femininity because a voice is close to language.

Men retrat outside the house, hunting, and jakes father before he died he went to, drunk, the
frontier, maybe looking for himself. Trying to find a spiritual place to find himself. Without ‘’self
‘’there is no language. The women seems to be ok with these men, but the children suffer. All the
children in all this play are not feeling good. PAGE 67. Sally tells her mother about their last visit to
her father. The question of where you belong is crucial to find who you are. This is important in
American culture.

In the absence of language to give meaning… Tirony of the image in postmodernity. Scene 3 page
84: Beth put a shirt on and her identity changes. She is in bed clothes… these are pictures of
people riding horses in a representation of people from the west that didn’t really existed. A lay of
a lay of a lay. Photograp in inself means nothing at all at least you put what it means, is anti-
temporal in a sense, not timeless, anti-time. No time, unreal things. Paranormal. You can take
prhotograps of things you don’t see. Culture devoted to image. Identity. Where are Lorraine and
Sally going?? -‘’I found it’’… They are going to Ireland. The lost children. Place gives identity.

Finding an answer by this place. Two families with no father figures, lack of a father figure. They
are refresing to childhood coming back home. Is full of toys and small. Jake and Beth are not
proper adults yet, the relation with them has been impossible. People without identities. When
people with unsure identity has a relationship that is difficult. She is unhealthy, his mother. He
killed his father accidentally. Jake needs catharsis, the repression of the memory, what he has
done, who he is in a sense. He is not able to grow and find out who he is. Bodies without wheels,
without minds.

Does this play manages to find a solution to resolve people’s problems? Does do improve the
situation? What do we do with all the photographs? Burnt them. The last seen the play, the last
moment, we have this men looking into and seen this glow burning this photograph, a re-birth.
The lies of the past. Aristotel view of the past. People can’t love each other any more. Virginia
Woolf 60’s,more metaphoric than real... Jakes do that, in order to touch her he hit her. Space
between us from violence. There is something moving about American violence. It’s very
problematic what he is saying. Is moving because is an act of love in a sense, or an attend to get
loved, for people who has lost everything else, that not longer has a meaningful identity to
communicate to anybody else, you can’t tell anybody you love them because you don’t have the
language. You hit them. Like the babies and the kitty animals.

He treat it like a horse, that violence seems to work, because after that fisical humilliationl, he tells
Beth he loves her. Some kind of redemption at the end of this play.

They are beginning to realize things by themselves.

The theatre appeals ? as a play where human action is?

It’s celebrates meaning. This play at the end, Beth and Meila are so happy that they dance 94page,
they even kiss. In a sense is a happy ending, a melodramatic one, because Jakes says I love you and
then he left, he has understood something. In this play PLACE is very important, PLACE is very
important, also in the area you identify with, like them, they want to go to Ireland because they
will find some identity.

Richfield.

You are the same dimention even when you are separate. Melodrama is not Aristotelian, ‘’melo’’
‘’drama’’.

In bottom of page 53,and 4… Lorraine and Sally are talking to Jake and he is feeling confused.

Hay tiempos paralelos, Jake ve lo que está pasando en el otro lado, al otro escenario y puede ver a
Beth y Franky.
The action acts out these background of geopraphical spaces. The theatre can do that. You can
folded out space. Where we belong to ge ther. You don’t have to go to Ireland, or to the frontier to
the west, just to this place, not easy but it is possible. When he leaves he is not necessary going
away but he finally understood, he grew up he has matured, that often you don’t have to posses
the thing you love.