This chapter begins the study of formalist analysis, which is the foundation for action analysis studied in the previous chapter. Unlike action analysis, which is rapid and sketchy, formalist analysis is slow and detailed. Like the first years of medical school that require the close study of human anatomy and how the body works, formalist analysis closely studies dramatic anatomy and how plays work. Formalist analysis asks readers not to cling to any preconceived ideas about the play or characters they are studying, but to allow the play to come to them and identify itself piece by piece. Readers have ideas, of course, but they are asked to set them aside and let the play speak to them. Readers should also try to forget about previous theories—for the time being there is only the reader and the play.
The Introduction referred to Aristotle’s Poetics, in which it was said that plays consist of six elements that set them apart from other artistic forms: plot, character, idea, dialogue, tempo-rhythm-mood (Aristotle’s “music”), and mise-en-scène (scenery, costumes, lighting, properties, sound, makeup, and blocking). Aristotle arrived at this scheme in his study of how the parts of a play operate. He did not mean that all plays have these elements in the same proportion or express them in the same way. One play may have more or fewer events in its plot than another, more complicated or simplified characters, and more or less attention devoted to mise-en-scène. Aristotle meant that all these elements are present in one form or another in all those works we call plays. Because this is a book about script analysis, however, we are primarily concerned here with the written part of a play. We will not deal directly with the practice of acting, directing, or design in themselves, but with the playwright’s text, which, in any case, is always the starting point for theatricalization by actors, directors, and designers.
The beginning of all plays is the unique combination of present and past that Stanislavsky called the given circumstances. Others use different terms—social context, foundations of the plot, playwright’s setting, texture, local detail, or literary landscape. They all mean the same thing: the specific conditions in which the action of the play occurs.
Novice play readers sometimes consider given circumstances as the trivial, uninteresting things they can quickly pass over. The impulse may be unthinking, but it acknowledges something important. At first glance, the given circumstances may not seem as exciting or useful as are the other parts of a play, for example, the characters or setting. They are simple things—so obvious that the impulse is to take them for granted, like the air we breathe. Yet assumptions that are most familiar are often hardest to recognize as important; again, like the air we breathe. Actually, the given circumstances are as vital to a play as plot, character, and all the other features. They put the characters and audience into the “here and now” of the action. Without the given circumstances, characters would exist in an abstract never-never land without any connection to life as we understand it. Given circumstances work as silent, invisible yet potent forces. They influence the characters, increase tensions, create complications, create the environment, suggest the mise-en-scène, and move the plot forward. Moreover, given circumstances always contain important clues to other parts of the play. They may seem trivial at first, but they are precisely the details that make it possible to know what makes the plot go and the characters tick. Bringing each given circumstance into focus will help to explain how it operates. This can happen only after careful analysis forces it to stand up and be identified.
This chapter is concerned with the given circumstances that take place in the present, on stage, before the audience. They spring from the time and place of the play along with the conventions, attitudes, and manners behind and around it. Under this heading, we will be concerned with eight subtopics: time, place, society, economics, politics and law, learning and the arts, spirituality, and, to end with, the special world of the play. In the next chapter, we will turn to the given circumstances that exist in the past, the unseen background story, which includes everything that happened before the play begins.
Time in the given circumstances has three aspects: (1) the time of the play’s writing, (2) the time in which the action of the play is set, and (3) the time that passes during the course of the action.
Time of Composition
The time of composition is not strategic in the earliest stages of script analysis because it is not part of the written play. It will become more valuable when it is studied in connection with the biography of the author, the conditions of the author’s era, and the place of the play within the body of the author’s works. Although knowledge of the author’s life, world, and work is necessary for a complete understanding of any play, too much attention to these issues at this early point can even be distracting. Sometimes confusion can arise between what is learned about a play from the author’s life and other outside information, and what is objectively in it. It is perhaps better to set aside external matters for a later time when the process of script analysis is further along.
Time of the Action
In many plays it is important to know the time of the action, that is, the exact time, season, and year and epoch in which the action is set. This knowledge is not just for the sake of realism or bookish accuracy but also to become alert to the entire dramatic situation. The exactitude of the information available about time depends on the play. For instance, in Death of a Salesman there are references in Willy Loman’s memories of the boxer Gene Tunney and the football player Red Grange. These names establish the year of those scenes at about 1927 when Tunney was heavyweight champion and Grange played football for the Chicago Bears. Two years later the stock market crashed, ushering in the Great Depression—important time information in this play about the American dream of financial success. References to the time period in Machinal—a telephone switchboard, adding machines, typewriters, Telephone Girl, slang (“hot dog!,” “sweetie,” “sweet papa”), and the Mexican Revolution—establish the time of the action as the decade of the 1910s, an era of immense national confidence prior to World War I. It was also the decade of revolution in Russia. The last days of the archconservative lawyer, Roy Cohn, depicted in Angels in America, set this play’s action in 1986. At that time Cohn was dying of an AIDS-related illness, and the United States Attorney General had published the first official report about AIDS. For the first time the enormous magnitude of the AIDS epidemic began to be reflected in public discourse. This year was also the beginning of Ronald Regan’s second term as president, which many considered a sign of the end of American liberalism. The year 1986 can therefore be seen as the end of one era and the beginning of another.
Gene Tunney, the Great Depression, economic boom and political unrest, Roy Cohn, and public awareness of the AIDS epidemic are important in these plays not merely because they help to establish the historical context, but because they set in motion, stand out against, or reinforce the conflicts among the characters and inform the creative work of designers. For these reasons, the time of the action is a crucial issue. The time of the action should be determined by searching the dialogue for direct statements or references to historical people, places, or things. Stage directions and playwrights’ notes offer added information about the time of the action, but they may not be as reliable or influential as time stated in the dialogue itself. Since stage directions and extra notes are only one vision of the play, actors, directors, and designers looking forward to a genuinely contemporary production will normally withhold study of them until settling on their own interpretation first.
Dramatic Time
Dramatic time is the total of the time that passes during the on-stage action plus the time during intervals between acts and scenes. Some plays permit very precise determination. In The Wild Duck, it is possible, without the help of stage directions, to identify the passage of dramatic time almost to the hour, including the time of day and day of the week for each act. But dramatic time can also be compressed or expanded to accommodate theatrical needs. Several days pass in The Piano Lesson, months in Hamlet, and years in Three Sisters and Mother Courage. Time moves forward and backward in Death of a Salesman, and stands still in Happy Days. In A Lie of the Mind, time moves in random leaps.
There is an interesting assortment of information about dramatic time in the opening lines of Hamlet:
BERNARDO. Who’s there?
FRANCISCO. Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.
BERNARDO. Long live the King!
FRANCISCO. Bernardo?
BERNARDO. He.
FRANCISCO. You come most carefully upon your hour.
BERNARDO. ‘Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco.
FRANCISCO. For this relief much thanks. ‘Tis bitter cold, And I am sick at heart.
BERNARDO. Have you had quiet guard?
FRANCISCO. Not a mouse stirring.
BERNARDO. Well; good night.
Although Francisco is on guard duty, Bernardo speaks the first line. Why? Because he is nervous to begin with and then becomes frightened when Francisco makes a noise in the dark as he paces back and forth during his watch. Then Francisco challenges him, “Nay, answer me.” Francisco, after all, is the one who is on guard duty. “Stand and unfold yourself,” he says, from which we understand that it is night and Bernardo is coming toward him wrapped in a cloak. The cloak is needed because it is winter, a fact that is confirmed a moment later when Francisco says “Tis bitter cold.” Another comment by Bernardo indicates the time of day—“Tis now struck twelve”—and specifies the time as midnight, the “witching hour.” The passage ends with Bernardo’s expression of “good night” to further emphasize the lateness of the hour (and his eagerness to get away). They are all afraid of something. Imaginative actors, directors, and designers should be able to grasp the mysterious atmosphere Shakespeare has established as the cold winter night enfolds the edgy, frightened characters.
Ibsen uses some of the same methods for expressing dramatic time in this selection from Act 2 of The Wild Duck:
(A knocking is heard at the entrance door.)
GINA. (rising) Hush, Ekdal—I think there’s someone at the door.
HJALMAR. (laying his flute on the bookcases) There! Again!
(Gina goes and opens the door.)
GREGERS. (in the passage) Excuse me —
GINA. (starting back slightly) Oh!
GREGERS. Doesn’t Mr. Ekdal, the photographer, live here?
GINA. Yes, he does.
HJALMAR. (going toward the door) Gregers! You here after all? Well, come in then.
GREGERS. (coming in) I told you I would come and look you up.
HJALMAR. But this evening—Have you left the party?
GREGERS. I have left the party and my father’s. Good evening, Mrs. Ekdal. I don’t know whether you recognize me?
GINA. Oh, yes, it’s not difficult to know young Mr. Werle again.
GREGERS. No, I am like my mother, and no doubt you remember her.
HJALMAR. Left your father’s house, did you say?
GREGERS. Yes, I have gone to a hotel.
HJALMAR. Indeed. Well, since you’re here, take off your coat and sit down.
GREGERS. Thanks. (He takes off his overcoat.)
Gregers’ statement, “I told you I would come and look you up,” refers to something he said to Hjalmar at the dinner party, an event we already know occurred earlier the same evening. Its use at this point is not just a way of maintaining continuity of time by connecting this scene with a prior incident in the play, but also indicates that Gregers has rushed over to Hjalmar’s house straight after arguing with his father. Hjalmar’s reply “But this evening—Have you left the party?” and Gregers’ responses “I have left the party” and “Good evening, Mrs. Ekdal” reinforce the continuity of time, confirm the time of the current scene, and underscore Hjalmar’s surprise at the fact of Gregers’s unexpected late-night arrival, and suggests that Gregers and Gina Ekdal already know each other. We see also that Gregers is wearing an overcoat because it is winter. The season is important enough for Ibsen to remind us about it again in the accompanying stage directions, which we know he wrote himself. The point is that the environment is cold, that Gregers is a mysterious late-night visitor, and, besides that, he is more than a stranger.
In the opening scene of A Raisin in the Sun, dramatic time is stated in the dialogue, observed in the characters’ actions, and confirmed in the stage directions. Ruth mentions it three times. Travis gets out of bed and exits to the bathroom, and then Ruth warns Walter Lee about being late for work. Ruth’s interest in the time shows that it is her duty to keep the family operating successfully.
RUTH. Come on now, boy, it’s seven thirty.
(He sits up at last, in a stupor of sleepiness.)
I say hurry up. Travis! You ain’t the only person in the world got to use a bathroom. (The child, a sturdy, handsome boy of ten or twelve, drags himself out of bed and almost blindly takes his towels and “today’s clothes” from the drawers and a closet and goes out to the bathroom, which is in an outside hall and which is shared by another family or families on the same floor. RUTH crosses to the bedroom door at right and opens it and calls in to her husband.)
Walter Lee! … It’s after seven thirty! Lemme see you do some waking up in there now. (She waits.) You better get up from there, man! It’s seven thirty I tell you. (She waits again.) All right, you just go ahead and lay there and next thing you know Travis be finished and Mr. Johnson’ll be in there and you’ll be fussing and cussing around here like a mad man! And be late too! (She waits, at the end of her patience.) Walter Lee—it’s time to get up!
Careful detective work searching for the passage of time in the dialogue will pay handsome dividends later on when dealing with more complicated issues.
The next subdivision of given circumstances is place—the physical environment. Some directors and designers feel that the mise-en-scène should illustrate the physical environment realistically, while others believe it should illustrate the play’s inner spirit. Formalist analysis does not argue for or against either of these viewpoints. A realistic picture of the physical environment may work for some plays and an abstract scenic metaphor for others, while for others it may be a combination or something entirely different. What is important is that the physical environment in any configuration influences the action and characters, besides the setting itself. Therefore it is an extremely important part of the entire experience of the play.
General Locale
The first topic under the heading of place is general locale, that is, the country, region, or district in which the action is set. Instructions about the general locale are often available in the front notes and stage directions, but readers should validate them in the dialogue as much as possible, if not discounting them sometimes for the sake of genuine originality. This passage from Hamlet contains references to the city of Wittenberg, where Hamlet has been studying, as well as to Denmark, his native country and the geographical setting for the action:
CLAUDIUS. For your intent
In going back to school in Wittenberg,
It is most retrograde to our desire;
And we beseech you bend you to remain
Here, in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
Our chiefest courtier, cousin and our son.
QUEEN. Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet.
HAMLET. I shall in all my best obey you, madam.
CLAUDIUS. Why, ‘tis a loving and a fair reply. Be as ourself in Denmark.
In addition to these locales, the play also contains references to Poland, Norway, England, and France. The motive for including all these locales is more than topographical accuracy. Readers should ask themselves: Why Wittenberg? Why Norway? Why England? What was Shakespeare suggesting by naming so many countries?
The emotional associations evoked by the general locale can also contribute to the emotional life of the entire play. Playwrights take advantage of this to add extra meaning to their works. Few can read Machinal, for example, without sensing the emotional associations of life in a large, busy metropolis such as New York City. Death of a Salesman contains several examples of emotions associated with the general locale, as in this passage when Willy Loman laments the decline of the neighborhood around his home in Brooklyn.
WILLY. The street is lined with cars. There’s not a breath of fresh air in the neighborhood. The grass don’t grow anymore, you can’t raise a carrot in the back yard. Remember those two beautiful elm trees out there? They should’ve had a law against apartment houses. Remember when I and Biff hung the swing between them?
In this excerpt from A Raisin in the Sun, Mama Younger announces that she has made a down payment on a new home. Her family has been living in a crowded tenement on Chicago’s south side. They are delighted about the prospect of a place of their own. There are negative associations connected with the soon-to-be neighborhood, however, which everyone knows to be a historically white suburb.
RUTH. Oh, Walter … a home … a home. (She comes back to Mama.) Well—where is it? How big is it? How much it going to cost?
MAMA. Well —
RUTH. When we moving?
MAMA. (smiling at her) First of the month.
RUTH. (throwing her head back with jubilance) Praise God!
MAMA. (tentatively, still looking at her son’s back turned against her and RUTH) It’s—it’s a nice house too …
(She cannot help speaking directly to him. An imploring quality in her voice, her manner, makes her almost like a girl now.) Three bedrooms—nice big one for you and Ruth … Me … and Beneatha still have to share our room, but Travis have one of his own—and (with difficulty) I figure if the—new baby—is a boy, we could get one of them double-decker outfits … And there’s a yard with a little patch of dirt where I could maybe get to grow me a few flowers … And a nice big basement …
RUTH. Walter, honey, be glad —
MAMA. (still to his back, fingering things on the table) ‘Course I don’t want to make it sound fancier than it is … It’s just a plain little old house—but it’s made good and solid—and it will be ours. Walter Lee—it makes a difference in a man when he can walk on floors that belong to him …
RUTH. Where is it?
MAMA. (frightened at this telling) Well—well—it’s out there in Clybourne Park—(RUTH’s radiance fades abruptly, and Walter finally turns slowly to face his mother with incredulity and hostility.)
MAMA. (matter-of-factly) Four-o-six Clybourne Street, Clybourne Park.
RUTH. Clybourne Park? Mama, there ain’t no colored people living in Clybourne Park.
MAMA. Well, I guess there’s going to be some now.
Playwrights choose general locales to evoke emotional associations as well as for realism and authenticity. In A Lie of the Mind, the general locales are remote towns in Oklahoma and Montana, depicted in the play as inhospitable regions attractive to society’s loners. American Buffalo takes place in Chicago. What emotional and technical associations do these general locales evoke?
Specific Locale
The specific locale is the particular place in which the stage action occurs. A reader’s first impulse is to rely on stage directions for information about the specific locale. And published scripts often do include notes and diagrams of the scenery, such as the lengthy description of Doaker Charles’s kitchen and parlor in The Piano Lesson or the even lengthier description of the transparent multi-level Loman house in Death of a Salesman. Scenery notes and diagrams can be interesting and useful, even if outdated, but they are normally the editor or stage manager’s description of the first professional production and not the author’s own. This may not be a problem for those who are reading a play for study purposes, but it is a serious issue for designers or directors who are preparing for a truly contemporary interpretation. Modern theatre calls for distinctive mise-en-scène for each and every production, meaning that editorial notes about an earlier production should not automatically be used as a guide.
Dialogue is always a more productive source of information about the specific locale. Statements like, “So this is your quarters, Hjalmar—this is your home” in The Wild Duck and “Lord, ain’t nothing so dreary as the view from this window on a dreary day, is there?” in A Raisin in the Sun are the best kind of references about the specific locale in those plays. They identify, but they also emotionalize. Some plays may also include details about the architectural layout. Mrs. Sorby instructs the servants in Act 1 of The Wild Duck, “Tell them to serve the coffee in the music room, Petersen.” Anfisa opens Act 3 of Three Sisters by saying:
ANFISA. They’re sitting down there under the stairs now. “Please come upstairs,” I tell them. “We can’t have this, can we?” They’re crying. “We don’t know where father is,” they say. “He might have been burnt to death.” What an idea! Then there are those other people out in the yard as well, they’re in their nightclothes, too.
Little by little the Prozorov family is displaced from one specific locale in their house to another, until at last they are completely pushed out by Natasha. This sense of displacement is experienced by the characters on both sides of the conflict and is central to the meaning of the play.
Specific locale can also be identified through implication. In this passage from The School for Scandal, Charles Surface is about to auction his family portraits to pay his debts. He points to the paintings in the portrait gallery of his eighteenth-century house where the sale takes place.
(Enter CHARLES SURFACE, SIR OLIVER SURFACE, MOSES, and CARELESS.)
CHARLES SURFACE. Walk in, gentlemen, pray walk in—here they are, the family of the Surfaces up to the [Norman] Conquest.
SIR OLIVER (disguised as MASTER PREMIUM). And, in my opinion, a goodly collection.
CHARLES SURFACE. Ay, ay, these are done in the true spirit of portrait painting; no volontère grace or expression. Not like the works of your modern Raphaels, who give you the strongest resemblance, yet contrive to make your portrait independent of you; so that you may sink the original and not hurt the picture. No, no; the merit of these is the inveterate likeness—all stiff and awkward as the originals, and like nothing in human nature besides.
SIR OLIVER. Ah! We shall never see such figures of men again.
CHARLES SURFACE. I hope not. Well, you see, Master Premium, what a domestic character I am; here I sit of an evening surrounded by my family.
When Charles says, “Walk in, gentlemen, pray walk in,” we imagine him entering a picture gallery and inviting the others to follow. When he says, “Here they are, the family of the Surfaces up to the Conquest,” he is pointing to the paintings. His sarcastic description of the paintings (“the merit of these is the inveterate likeness—all stiff and awkward as the originals, and like nothing in human nature besides.”) is a clue to what the style of the paintings should evoke as well as Charles’s attitude toward his ancestors.
In science, a closed system is an assembly of objects in the state of isolation from the outside environment. Plays show social groups living together under a closed system, too; closed because the playwright has isolated the society of the play from the world of objective reality. In this section we will seek information about society, the closed social system of the play, which influences the characters’ thinking and behavior.
Arthur Miller believed that the playwright’s choice of social groups predetermines the form of the play. Communication among family members, he said, is different from that with strangers, and private behavior is different from public. Interest in the family leads to writing realistic plays dealing with personal and private subjects, while interest in social groups outside the family leads to nonrealistic forms that treat public subjects. Miller’s observations are intriguing, but they should not be applied too rigidly. The implications that result from the choice of social groups are numerous and complex, and there are some obvious contrary examples. In any case, his observations help us to understand how the choice of social groups, the meaning, and the environment of the play are interconnected.
Families
The most common social group, and the most important one in the majority of modern plays, is the family. This is logical because we are all sons, daughters, sisters, and brothers before we are anything else. And since the family is the most basic social unit, playwrights cannot stray too far from it without losing touch with their audiences. The dramatic importance of families lies in the emotional quality that attends specific social relationships, such as love between husband and wife, pressures between parent and child, and competition among siblings.
Seven family members are identified in the garden scene from Death of a Salesman that we looked at in the Introduction. They are Willy’s father, Willy as a father, Willy’s wife, Willy’s sons Biff and Happy, Willy’s brother Ben, and Ben as the uncle of Biff and Happy. Almost every member of the Loman family and their family relationship to each other is identified in the scene. This leads to certain expectations about family relationships that may be confirmed or perhaps disproven in the play.
Claudius’s opening lines in Hamlet explain his (apparent) relationship to his deceased brother, King Hamlet, and above all his new relationship to his brother’s wife, Gertrude, a relationship many readers would interpret as dishonorable, if not incestuous. Once more, expectations associated with family relationships provide the grounds for future conflicts.
CLAUDIUS. Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s death
The memory be green, and that it us befitted
To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom
To be contracted in one brow of woe,
Yet so far has discretion fought with nature
That we with wisest sorrow think on him
Together with remembrance of ourselves.
Therefore, our sometime sister, now our queen,
The imperial jointress to this warlike state,
Have we, as with a defeated joy,
With an auspicious and a drooping eye,
With mirth in funeral and dirge in marriage,
In equal scale, weighing delight with dole,
Taken to wife.
The thematic issue behind the complex family relationships in The Piano Lesson may seem difficult to grasp at first, but upon closer examination the families feel an unbroken bond going all the way back to slavery times. This bond exerts a powerful influence on the characters and opens a window into the basic subject, or “lesson,” of the play. Characters that ignore these family roots risk losing their identities as free and independent human beings.
Families form the heart of such dissimilar plays as Oedipus Rex, Tartuffe, Three Sisters, A Lie of the Mind, Mother Courage, and Angels in America. A study of these examples indicates how universal the attraction of family groups can be, in modern drama most of all. Family love, its absence, or its distortion can be found at the heart of many, many plays.
Love and Friendship
Friendships are sympathetic social bonds outside the family. We find vivid examples of friendship in David Mamet’s play American Buffalo, where the social group is defined by the perceived friendships among a group of petty criminals. An important friendship exists between Hamlet and Horatio in Hamlet; Gregers Werle and Hjalmar Ekdal in The Wild Duck; Walter, Willy, and Bobo in A Raisin in the Sun; Willy and Charley in Death of a Salesman; and Roy Cohn and Louis Ironson in Angels in America. As with family relationships, friendships point to emotional and behavioral expectations that may be confirmed, or just as often disproved or tested in the play.
Love identifies another kind of social group outside the family. Love entails not just the dominant heterosexual form but all forms, including homosexual love, the love of a parent for a child, love between siblings, and above all obsessive or destructive love. There are many examples in the study plays: Oedipus and Jocasta, Hamlet and Ophelia, Tartuffe and Elmire, Mrs. Sorby and Mr. Werle (The Wild Duck), Mother Courage and the Chaplain, Winnie and Willie (Happy Days), Louis Ironson and Prior Walter (Angels in America), Berniece and Avery (The Piano Lesson), and Jake and Beth (A Lie of the Mind), to name only a few. Apart from the family unit, friendship and love are among the most dramatic social groups found in plays. Readers should have little difficulty finding more examples and determining how they affirm or disprove customary expectations. Make a note that in modern plays love can at the same time confirm and deny such expectations, a paradox that for some readers may obscure the real issues at stake. Jake’s love for Beth in A Lie of the Mind is a case in point. Jake is an example of a lover-abuser, and Beth’s behavior abets that of her abuser. Some readers may deny that real love can exist in such an abusive relationship as theirs. The point is that in spite of everything, real, mature love somehow manages to emerge from their abusive relationship.
Occupation
Occupation forms another social group outside the family. This group is defined by what characters do to earn a living and their interactions with others having the same or different occupations. Office workers and businessmen form the central occupational group in Death of a Salesman and Machinal, for instance, as do professional soldiers in Mother Courage and Three Sisters. Occupational groups also occur in classic plays, where we might not expect to encounter such social issues. Professional actors, soldiers, and gravediggers are represented in Hamlet; process servers in Tartuffe; and moneylenders in The School for Scandal. Information about occupational groups provides clues to the characters’ motives and suggests emotional values that could be underscored in the play. Why does Angels in America feature attorneys, doctors, religious and other educated figures and those who serve or support them?
Social rank distinguishes a character’s position or standing in society, differences which in general stem from wealth, power, formal education, or other material issues. It is based on a fortunate group whose members are accustomed to giving orders and having them carried out by those from lower social ranks. Characters of lower social rank show deference to those of higher rank by using formal titles and various kinds of submissive behavior, such as bows, curtsies, salutes, and special forms of address. We observe this at work in Hamlet, for example, where Claudius and Gertrude address Hamlet by his given name. All the others, including Ophelia and Horatio, say “Prince Hamlet” or “my lord.”
Although distinctions of social rank can be found in many other classic plays like Oedipus Rex, Tartuffe, and Three Sisters, they are seldom the subject of explicit attention there (The School for Scandal is a notable exception). Distinctions of social rank were often a normal part of everyday life in the past and are still customary in many regions of the world. When such distinctions are taken for granted because of the play’s general locale or time period, no special need exists to provide explanations in the dialogue. In such cases, information about social rank needs to be deduced from the characters’ behavior. There may not be much information about the inner workings of the class system in Hamlet, Tartuffe, or Three Sisters, but class distinctions are nevertheless of paramount importance. In other words, projecting modern, egalitarian social behavior into historical plays can lead to misreading. Sometimes it will be necessary to supplement script analysis with outside information or devise contemporary substitutions to communicate the thematic significance of distinctions among social ranks.
Social rank may not work the same way in the present as it did in the past, but it still exists and can be just as forceful and repressive. While aristocratic birth was the main source of high status in the past, today it often appears as an outcome of education, financial or political power, ethnicity, or sexual orientation, and in these forms it may be easier for modern readers to comprehend. For example, social rank based on money turns up in The Wild Duck, Mother Courage, Death of a Salesman, The Piano Lesson, and Three Sisters; social rank based on education is found in Three Sisters; ethnic discrimination influences the social rank of the characters in A Raisin in the Sun and The Piano Lesson; and social rank associated with sexual orientation is a feature of Angels in America. Understanding obvious and hidden evidence of social rank is essential in these and other modern plays.
Social standards (norms) are the codes of conduct and shared beliefs regarded as necessary by the characters and to which they are expected to conform. Examples of modern social standards include belief in individual rights, prohibitions against dishonesty and antisocial behavior, and belief in working for a living and being a useful member of society, but there are many others, just as powerful though less obvious, from other times and places. Social standards do not need to be proven or even stated in most plays because characters accept them as true without question. Characters believe in them and conversely their behavior and beliefs are conditioned by them. Social standards are often so important that violation produces shock, horror, moral revulsion, indignation, and ostracism, and even justifies the use of more extreme penalties to enforce conformity. A certain dominant group enforces these standards at the same time as secondary groups reinforce (or challenge) the dominant group and its standards.
In former times, social standards were determined by established religion, class, politics, inherited family position, and national culture. In classic plays, the characters’ behavior tends to be controlled by religious, aristocratic, or nationalistic standards—royal power, for example, in Oedipus Rex, Hamlet, and Tartuffe. In contemporary society, the overt influence of such forms of social control has lessened. At the present time it is the social standards of science and business, the idea of social equality, and the social standards exhibited through the media and the dominant middle class that collectively determine the standards of belief and behavior for most people. The powerful influence of social standards may be distasteful to those who consider themselves independent-minded, but understanding and dealing with these influences in plays is necessary nonetheless. Today the unwritten codes dictated by social standards are often the only principles that characters take seriously enough to cause conflicts.
One way social standards make themselves known is through the use of euphemisms in the dialogue. A euphemism is an inoffensive term that is substituted for an offensive one. Thus euphemisms are evidence of social standards at work through avoidance of unacceptable words, those that point to highly charged social issues. Examples may be found in The Wild Duck. In the first scene the servant Jensen, referring to Mr. Ekdal, says to Petersen, “I’ve heard tell as he’s been a lively customer in his day.” They both understand that “lively customer” is a euphemism for someone who is a womanizer. In the climactic scene at the end of Act 1, Gregers accuses his father of having been “interested in” their former household servant Gina Hansen. In this context, “interested in” is a euphemism for covert sexual relations. Both Gregers and Mr. Werle use euphemisms when referring to the deceased Mrs. Werle. Gregers refers to her “breakdown” and her “unfortunate weakness.” Mr. Werle says that she was “morbid” and “overstrained.” He also says, “her eyes were—clouded now and then.” These are euphemisms for alcoholism and possibly drug addiction, which were almost as common in the late nineteenth century as they are today, unfortunately, though social standards of that time prohibited speaking openly about them.
Social standards are disclosed through other kinds of verbal clues, too. When Jensen says earlier, “I’ve heard tell …” it is a hint that there is serious gossip about Werle’s family, and gossip stems from violation—or apparent violation—of narrow-minded social standards. This is confirmed later when Mr. Werle explains to Gregers why he did not provide more help to Old Ekdal. He says, “I’ve had a slur cast on my reputation … I have done all I could without positively laying myself open to all sorts of suspicion and gossip.” Then, referring to the fact that Mrs. Sorby is living with him, he says, “A woman so situated may easily find herself in a false position in the eyes of the world. For that matter, it does a man no good either.” Mr. Werle is controlled by a fear of scandal. It could ruin his position in business and society. More evidence of this veiled type of social control occurs when Hjalmar confesses that he “kept the window blinds down” when his father was in prison. Euphemisms and other kinds of hints in The Wild Duck show the existence of powerful social standards concerning marriage, sex, alcohol, drugs, mental health, politics, business affairs, and even relations between labor and management. The reward for conforming to these standards is economic success and social acceptance; the penalty for violation is malicious gossip, public scandal, social ostracism, and even prison.
Social standards frequently construct a harsh and unforgiving world. The old saying that sticks and stones can break our bones but words can never hurt us is not true in plays. Words, above all epithets and slurs, are used to condemn violations of prevailing social standards, and they have the power to inflict serious harm. They can cause shame, embarrassment, and guilt and they tend to work very effectively in plays. Notice this harsh exchange of epithets between Roy Cohn, a Jewish lawyer, and Belize, a black homosexual hospital worker, from Angels in America. The topic is Belize’s demand for access to Roy’s unauthorized supply of the then scarce and expensive AIDS drug AZT.
ROY. (a beat, then) I expect you to hand over those keys and move your nigger ass out of my room.
BELIZE. What did you say?
ROY. Move your nigger cunt spade faggot lackey ass out of my room.
BELIZE. (Overlapping starting on “spade”) Shit-for-brains filthy-mouthed selfish motherfucking cowardly cocksucking cloven-hoofed pig.
ROY. (Overlapping) Mongrel. Dingo. Slave. Ape.
BELIZE. Kike.
ROY. Now you’re talking!
BELIZE. Greedy kike.
ROY. Now you can have a bottle. But only one.
These offensive epithets emphasize the outsider status of Cohn as a Jew and Belize as a black and a homosexual. They are intended to offend and insult. In this episode the words hurt so much that they almost transcend offensiveness by calling attention to the fact that both characters share a hidden bond, the regrettable bond of exclusion from mainstream society. On a similar note, why is Baron Tuzenbach considered an outsider in Three Sisters ?
Economics is concerned with the large-scale monetary system the characters live under and the smaller scale financial transactions in which they may be engaged. It may seem that the study of economics is far from our stated principle of fixing on the play itself, but economics is more important in script analysis than it first appears. Among the study plays, Tartuffe, The School for Scandal, The Wild Duck, The Hairy Ape, Mother Courage, Death of a Salesman, A Raisin in the Sun, Three Sisters, The Piano Lesson, American Buffalo, and Angels in America all share a deep concern with money. Sometimes economic issues appear where we least expect them, for example in the plays of Anton Chekhov. In The Cherry Orchard, it is important to identify information about real estate development, mortgages, banking, borrowing and lending, agricultural marketing, and the daily financial affairs of a large country estate, not to mention the economic impact of the 1861 decree freeing the serfs. Andrey’s unauthorized mortgage of the Prozorov estate is a significant financial issue in Three Sisters. Gaining or losing money (for the most part losing it) has been and continues to be one of the favorite plot resources for dramatists. (Ask, why is this so?)
According to economists, there are four principal financial systems. Mercantilism is colonialism with national control of manufacturing and exports. In a laissez-faire economic system, business is permitted to follow the unwritten “natural laws” of economics. Private property, profit, and credit form the basis of capitalism. Socialism calls for public ownership of manufacturing, public services, and natural resources. These four economic systems seldom exist in isolation, but usually operate in various combinations.
Capitalism is a system that many of us are familiar with and one we often encounter in the plays we read. Since capitalism is based on individual freedom and free enterprise, it can be rewarding for successful entrepreneurs, but it can be very hard on those with limited financial talent, influence, or resources. In Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman struggles to live within a capitalist system dominated by powerful, unfeeling business interests. His economic concerns consist of meeting the regular payments for his refrigerator, automobile, life insurance, and home. Willy’s personal economics are so important to him that they are elevated to almost symbolic status in the play. In the kitchen of Joe Meilziner’s famous scenic design, for example, the Hastings refrigerator (always breaking down) is the lone appliance.
Mercantilism is the economic system in The School for Scandal. The important economic issues are the loans made to Charles Surface based on his credit issued from the family’s colonial imports, the auction of his family home and its furnishings, and the sizable financial resources controlled by Sir Oliver Surface. International trading, which plays a major role in mercantilism, influences the timing of Charles’s loans and the well-timed arrival of Sir Oliver. In Machinal, the First Man’s revolutionary adventures in Mexico indicate deeply held socialist principles, principles which also filter through the dehumanizing capitalist environment of the play by implication. Economics can be an important issue in script analysis, but a word of caution. Because economics is an issue close to almost everyone, special care should be taken against projecting personal economic convictions or experiences into a play. As with the other analytical concepts, readers should search for conditions that are actually present in the play.
The term politics and law refers to governmental institutions and activities, including the rules of conduct or legislation established by political and legal authorities. Political and legal conditions rely for their enforcement on the mutual consent of the governed (the characters). Consequently, their importance in plays is identified through the respect or disregard that the governed characters show for political and legal matters. In Oedipus Rex, the public oath Oedipus undertakes to track down the murderer of Laius is an example of an important political condition. For him and the population of Thebes, this oath has the force of law. Moreover, the absolute political authority of Oedipus is understood and accepted by everyone without question. There is no need for him to explain or justify this authority, except when he feels it is being openly challenged.
Politics is at work in the pact made between King Hamlet and King Fortinbras that Horatio discloses in 1,1 of Hamlet. Horatio informs his companions that this pact has serious political consequences for Denmark and Norway. First, Denmark has gained political control of Norway; second, young Fortinbras of Norway has raised a military challenge against Claudius to regain his country’s independence; and third, Claudius has responded by placing Denmark on military alert. Danish weapons makers are working around the clock to prepare for war. The feeling of war is in the air, and everyone is frightened and tense.
Politics plays a significant role in Angels in America, too. Roy Cohn is a successful lawyer and political power broker. His desire to influence political decisions at the highest level forms the basis of his relationship with Joe Pitt. Louis Ironson, Prior’s faithless companion, is a political liberal who is very much interested in current politics. Joe Pitt and his family are political conservatives who admire and respect the conservative political values that were dominant in America in 1986. Angels in America consists in large part of dramatic illustrations of the complex dynamics formed by the mixture of opposing political ideologies.
According to philosophers, learning and the arts are among humanity’s highest forms of social activity. Every society has its knowledge-workers and artists, or at least it has people who spend a large part of their time dealing with intellectual life and the arts. The life of the mind—sometimes referred to unironically as “the greater good”—is protected in most societies because in significant ways it helps to shape the course of life in general. Although there may be no specialized professional roles for learning or art, learning and the arts play a substantial role in creating culture in its broader sense, too. Intellectuals and artists often try to influence political action and advocate social change, for example.
Learning itself is not reserved for scholars and artists. It may appear in nonprofessional ways, besides. At one limit of the learning spectrum are characters with formal schooling and refined artistic taste. Hamlet, for example, is most at home in Wittenberg, which is an isolated intellectual and artistic environment. He is the product of a humanist education that taught him to appreciate poetry, philosophy, theatre, and the value of the individual. He prefers the life of the mind to the life of action exemplified by Claudius, Fortinbras, and Laertes. He is out of place in practical and warlike Denmark. At the other end of this spectrum are uneducated characters or those who may even condemn the life of the mind. The characters in American Buffalo are not formally educated, but they do display a deep respect for criminal, “street” wisdom. In fact, it is Don’s blind respect for the street wisdom he sees in Teach that leads to his disillusionment at the end. In A Raisin in the Sun, Walter Lee Younger has been denied ordinary learning opportunities. As a result, he is scornful of the educational dreams of his sister, Beneatha, as well as those of her college friend, George Murchison. In Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman preaches against formal schooling. He encourages the cultivation of a winning personality because he believes this is what has made him a successful salesman. School is for losers, he says.
On the other hand, formal education does not always go hand-in-hand with wisdom either. Gregers Werle is the most educated character in The Wild Duck, yet he is helpless in carrying out even the simplest of chores such as lighting a stove. He also lacks the kind of humane wisdom possessed by Gina, the uneducated former housemaid and wife of Hjalmar who is one of the targets of his idealistic scheming. Humane wisdom, without the advantages of a formal education, also characterizes Mama Younger in A Raisin in the Sun as well as Boy Willie in The Piano Lesson. Anfisa, the former serf and now household servant in Three Sisters, is perhaps the wisest and most well-adjusted character in the play. It is the educated characters in that play that cannot understand what is happening to them. Likewise with Hamlet.
In its narrowest sense, spirituality entails the formal religious features in a play. More broadly, spirituality includes any beliefs in divine, spiritual, or supernatural powers that are obeyed, worshiped, or respected. It can be identified through the presence of religious organizations, ceremonies, and traditions, and in spiritual values espoused by the characters.
Spirituality as such does not figure in American Buffalo, A Lie of the Mind, or Death of a Salesman. Spirituality plays a small but strategic role in The Wild Duck through the character of Reverend Molvik, in Mother Courage through the Chaplain, and in Happy Days through Winnie’s repeated prayers. Spirituality is very important in A Raisin in the Sun, The Piano Lesson, and Angels in America. Oedipus Rex contains many religious references, including prayers by the Chorus. Hamlet also includes important spiritual conditions, particularly references to religious ceremonies, traditions, and beliefs. Because Ophelia committed suicide, her funeral was unsanctioned by the established Church. Tartuffe is about the duplicity of certain religious groups that were influential both in Molière’s time and, unfortunately, our own time as well.
Sometimes characters may be guided by spiritual considerations that remain hidden or unspoken. It is worth noting that the absence of spirituality (or of any given circumstance for that matter) can be as significant as its presence. Like “the dog that didn’t bark” from a well-known Sherlock Holmes mystery, absence can become an important issue in certain situations. There is no mention of spirituality in Three Sisters, American Buffalo, or Death of a Salesman, for example. What changes might the introduction of spiritual values induce in these plays? Readers should be on the alert for any evidence or absence of spirituality in characters’ actions as well as in their words.
The cumulative effect of all the given circumstances creates the world of the play. The characters reveal this world through their behavior more than their words. They show whether the reality they inhabit is a world that is a heaven, a purgatory, or a hell; whether it is good or bad, welcoming or unwelcoming, amusing or frightening, benign or dangerous, lovable or hateful.
At the beginning of this chapter, there was a statement that without living through and theatricalizing the given circumstances, the play and its characters would exist in an abstract world without any connection to real life. How many times has an audience experienced the feeling of looking into such a psychological, social, or environmental void while watching a play? This occurs when productions devote insufficient attention to understanding and illustrating the given circumstances that identify the world of the play. To create that world it is necessary to recognize the given circumstances and understand which ones exert the most influence over the characters and their environment.
In Oedipus Rex, spiritual forces control the characters. Their world is a fearful place dominated by unpredictable and unforgiving gods who do not hesitate to send plagues and famines to punish those who disregard them. The world of Hamlet is inhospitable but ultimately just. As punishment for his sins (what were they exactly?), King Hamlet has been condemned to wander among the living, and to suffer the fires of purgatory among the dead, until his murder is avenged and the criminal is brought to justice. For his part, young Hamlet is compelled by his world to undertake a violent and bloody revenge that he is morally unable to perform. Since strong political forces are at work in the play too, the reader will have to determine whether the world of Hamlet is predominantly a spiritual or political one. The world of Tartuffe, on the other hand, is obviously controlled by religion and politics working in concert. Orgon suffers at the hands of the religious hypocrite Tartuffe throughout most of the play, but at the end the King uses his political power to set everything right again. The characters in The Piano Lesson live in a harsh economic, social, and political world, but also one whose harshness can be made less severe by a sympathetic spirituality.
The dramatic worlds of many modern plays are dominated by social considerations that can be as cruel and unforgiving as could be the gods of old. The world of the play is dissimilar in each of the two parts of Angels in America. A rough and unfeeling form of justice governs the world of part one, while a humane form of forgiveness governs part two. In The Wild Duck, a petty financial crime leads to the social ruin of the Ekdal family. In Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman is the victim of a world dominated by unfeeling, profit-hungry commercial interests. The coarse and impulsive ideology of petty crooks controls the special world of American Buffalo. Outmoded, distorted, and forgotten ideals control the world of Happy Days and A Lie of the Mind.
Studying the world of the play also offers an opportunity to acquire an initial sense of the characters and environment. As observed before, the world of the play is formed by the given circumstances that control the characters and their environment. Accordingly, the characters’ relationship to their world reveals their individual distinctiveness, just as it suggests the distinctiveness of the mise-en-scène. Different characters in a play will exhibit different responses to their world. In fact, their responses toward the given circumstances, toward their world, actually delineate their identity. Every character in Tartuffe, for example, has a distinguishing response to the religious values that define their world, and their individual responses in turn determine their behavior. To Orgon religion means extravagant public devoutness. He admires Tartuffe for this characteristic, which he interprets as saintliness. He hopes that Tartuffe will teach him how to achieve peace of mind and how to stop worrying about what he views as his family’s irreligious behavior. According to Orgon, Tartuffe must take the family under control and teach them how to behave faithfully. The other characters express their own points of view toward religion. For Madame Pernelle, it means social status and respectability; Elmire views religion as a private affair of conscience; Dorine considers it a refuge for gossips; for Cleante religion is “pious flummery” (flattery); Marianne sees religion as a tiresome family duty; and for Tartuffe religion is a con game and a means to easy wealth. It is only the King who seems to believe that religion equates with virtuous conduct! Thus each character expresses a different response to the spiritual–political ideals that control the special world of this play.
Given Circumstances in Nonrealistic Plays
Given circumstances in nonrealistic plays identify the who, what, where, when, why, and how of the play’s world much as they do in realistic and classic plays. The difference is in their purpose. Traditional dramatic plays (those written with the intention that all the parts fit plausibly together and everything is readily understood) are about particular people, places, and events; that is why their given circumstances are driven by plot and character (the human focus of the play). Nonrealistic plays are about generalized people, places, and events; hence their given circumstances are driven by theme (the intellectual focus of the play). The essentials of plot and character are not neglected, of course, but they are treated in a different way and function in a different way than they do in traditional dramatic plays. Later chapters will explain more about this issue. The point here is that since realistic plausibility is not the main concern in nonrealistic plays, playwrights are free to create any imaginable sort of given circumstances they wish, as long as they manage vividly to harmonize the given circumstances with the theme. The examples below represent the wide range of theme-driven given circumstances found in the nonrealistic study plays.
Atemporal Time
Time in nonrealistic plays is free from the constraints of clock or calendar, emphasizing their independence from a particular time. Nor is time always arranged in sequential order as it is in most standard plays. In Angels in America, dream-like and hallucinatory episodes (illustrating the inner life of certain characters) exist outside of traditional time and interrupt the sequential flow of the action on a regular basis. Happy Days and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead take place completely outside of traditional time; their world is atemporal. Top Girls begins with an atemporal episode in which present-day characters interact with historical and legendary characters, and continues with later scenes in which time in Marlene’s outer life jumps back and forth from past to present, further suggesting its atemporal nature. Acts 1, 2, and 3 in Fefu and Her Friends are sequential; however, atemporal time is suggested when each of the four scenes of Act 2 are performed four times at once in four different locales, suggesting their atemporal nature. In addition, Julia experiences atemporal, dream-like visions (her inner life) and is even able to transport herself through time and space. Mother Courage employs a so-called epic approach to the passage of time, meaning that each scene is autonomous and does not necessarily contain a germ of the next sequentially, but is instead an atemporal facet of the main subject, in the manner of a mosaic or montage (a pattern of meaning).
Unlocalized Place
In nonrealistic plays place is treated in a generalized manner to draw attention away from the particular toward the universal. Details of place are often suggested but not always explained, and the places are frequently unlocalized, meaning that no specific place is called for. An unlocalized patch of scorched earth identifies the locale of Happy Days. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead occurs in no identifiable place at all. Even the so-called ship in Act 2 is unlocalized, and Stoppard parodies the stage conventions of a specific realistic locale to emphasize the fact. The setting for Fefu and Her Friends appears to be a specific place (Fefu’s home), but upon closer inspection its “tasteful mixture of styles” is a generalization without particulars, a locale overly simple and clean, and with an atmosphere of something gone wrong (like an Edward Hopper painting). Mother Courage takes place in empty, unlocalized, or generic locales (a result of war’s desolation), which could be anywhere or anytime. Machinal and Angels in America take place in generic urban locales: an office, a hall, a corridor, a hotel, an apartment, a park, a bedroom, a restaurant. Their settings could be (and sometimes have been) made realistically specific, but this approach would likely compromise the wider meaning of these plays.
Myth
Nonrealistic plays regularly make use of mythic awareness in the given circumstances (see information about myth in the Introduction). Recall that myth means a traditional story that describes the psychology, customs, or ideals of a society. In this manner, myth works to introduce a large-scale, collective sense of awareness into a play.
Note the examples of mythic associations found in some of the nonrealistic study plays.
Machinal makes use of myths about society and politics:
The Organization Man: someone who subordinates his personal goals and wishes to the demands of the organization for which he works.
Liberation Movement: freedom movements that arise in certain nations to expel dictatorial powers, often by means of guerrilla warfare.
Mother Courage makes use of myths about society and economics:
Survival of the Fittest: the idea that social progress results from conflicts in which the fittest or best adapted individuals or entire societies would prevail.
Capitalism: an economic and political system characterized by a free market for goods and services and private control of production and consumption.
Invisible Hand: belief that individuals seeking their economic self-interest actually benefit society more than they would if they tried to benefit society directly.
A Lie of the Mind makes use of myths about society:
Prodigal Son: a wandering son returns home for forgiveness after an errant life.
The Frontier: new and untested opportunities.
Mark of Cain (from the Bible):—an individual’s or humankind’s sinful nature.
Pioneer Mentality: the attainment of a livelihood for oneself and for one’s family, hard labor, and solid material achievement as the true marks of patriotic spirit.
Top Girls makes use of myths about economics and society:
The Free Market: the production and exchange of goods and services without interference from the government.
Feminism: women should have the same economic, social, and political rights as men.
Survival of the Fittest: as above.
Fefu and Her Friends makes use of myths about society as well as learning and the arts:
Middle Class: desire for social respectability and material wealth and emphasis on the family and education.
Intelligentsia: intellectuals who form a vanguard or elite.
WASP: white Anglo-Saxon Protestant—a member of what many consider to be the most privileged and influential group in American society.
Angels in America makes use of myths about spirituality and politics:
Democracy: a system of government in which power is vested in the people.
Annunciation: announcement made by the angel Gabriel to Mary, the mother of Jesus, that she was going to bear a son; Gabriel also revealed the sacred laws of the Koran to Muhammad.
Liberalism: a viewpoint or ideology associated with free political institutions and religious toleration, as well as support for a strong role of government in regulating capitalism and constructing a social support system.
Conservatism: a general preference for the existing order of society, and an opposition to efforts to bring about sharp change.
The Birthday Party makes use of myths about politics and law:
Power Elite: a small, loosely knit group of people who tend to dominate policymaking, includes bureaucratic, corporate, intellectual, military, and government elites who control the principal institutions and whose opinions and actions influence the decisions of the policymakers.
Power Corrupts: an observation that a person’s sense of morality lessens as his/her power increases.
Happy Days makes use of myths about society, spirituality, and learning and the arts:
“The Waste Land” (from a poem by T.S. Eliot):—the fragmented and sterile nature of the modern world.
Shangri-La: an ideal refuge from the troubles of the world.
“The Inferno” (from The Divine Comedy):—a hot and terrible place or condition.
It should be emphasized that we are not promoting arbitrary “myth hunting” here. Myth in nonrealistic plays serves the very specific purpose of illustrating aspects of theme, which Chapter 7 will study in more detail.
Theme World
We said earlier that each play creates its own closed system, its own special world. It follows from this that nonrealistic plays create their own worlds too, although the given circumstances governing their worlds are determined more by thematic issues than by plot or character. In other words, the given circumstances in nonrealistic plays create literally a theme world. “Theme park” is a term used to describe an amusement park that is designed to carry a theme throughout the park, and theme world describes a world that is designed to carry a theme throughout the play. For example, the given circumstances of Machinal are controlled by economics and social standards, working together to create a theme world of enforced mechanization of humanity. The theme world of Mother Courage is controlled by the dehumanizing economics of big capitalism. Happy Days is controlled by distorted social standards, creating a theme world of absurd dreams. The Birthday Party is a political theme world controlled by nameless, menacing power. In Fefu and Her Friends middle-class intellect and culture coproduce a theme world of human feelings dangerously suppressed. Top Girls illustrates a socioeconomic theme world of self-centered ambition. The myth-centered given circumstances in A Lie of the Mind produce a theme world of distorted, irrational ideals. Learning and social standards govern the given circumstances of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, producing a theme world of irrational uncertainty. And the theme world of Angels in America is controlled by politics, law, and social standards, forming the picture of a broken-down civilization. These examples are for teaching purposes, of course, and not intended to be authoritative. The lesson is that given circumstances in nonrealistic plays should be closely analyzed for what they reveal about the theme. Any clash with traditional dramatic expectations needs to be theatricalized to illustrate theme.
This chapter contained a review of the given circumstances that readers should try to identify in the study of plays. We also attempted to discover the dramatic potentials within each given circumstance. It is not too much of an exaggeration to say that after the given circumstances are accurately and thoroughly identified, the rest of the play will begin to fall into place more or less by itself. Of course, not all the given circumstances will be equally useful on every occasion. But as in most situations, over time readers will develop their own instincts for what is most useful and when. Because these instincts are among the unteachable skills of play analysis, this text cannot equip students with them. It can do no more than point the way.
1. Time. In what year and season does the action occur? Can the passage of time during the play be determined? The time between the scenes and acts? The hour of day for each scene? Each act? What features of time suggest the mise-en-scène? How could the mise-en-scène contribute to the expressiveness of these features?
2. Place. In what country, region, or city does the action occur? Are any geographical features described? In what specific locale does the action occur? What is the specific location for each scene, including the ground plan and other architectural features if possible? What features of place suggest the mise-en-scène? How could the mise-en-scène contribute to the expressiveness of these features?
3. Society. What are the family relationships? What are the friendships and love relationships? What occupational groups are depicted? What social ranks are represented? What are the social standards, the behavior expectations? Are they spoken about or implied? Are they enforced openly or indirectly? What social group controls the social standards? What are the rewards for conformity? What are the penalties for violating social standards? What features of society suggest the mise-en-scène? How could the mise-en-scène contribute to the expressiveness of these features?
4. Economics. What is the general economic system in the play? Any specific examples of business activities or transactions? Does money exercise any control over the characters? Who controls the economic circumstances? How do they exert control? What are the rewards for economic success? The penalties for violating the economic standards? What features of economics suggest the mise-en-scène? How could the mise-en-scène contribute to the expressiveness of these features?
5. Politics and Law. What is the system of government that serves as the background for the play? Any specific examples of political or legal activities, actions, or ceremonies? Do politics or law exercise any control over the characters? Who controls the political and legal circumstances in the play? How do they exert control? What are the rewards for political and legal obedience? The penalties for violating the political and legal standards? What features of politics and law suggest the mise-en-scène? How could the mise-en-scène contribute to the expressiveness of these features?
6. Learning and the Arts. What is the general level of culture and artistic taste in the characters? Any examples of intellectual or creative activities? Any characters more or less educated or creative than others? Does intellect or culture exercise any control over the characters? Who controls the intellectual and artistic circumstances in the play? How do they exert their control? What are the rewards for intellectual and creative activity? What are the penalties for violating intellectual and artistic standards? What features of learning and the arts suggest the mise-en-scène? How could the mise-en-scène contribute to the expressiveness of these features?
7. Spirituality. What is the accepted code of religious or spiritual belief? Any examples of religious or spiritual activities or ceremonies? Does spirituality exercise any control over the characters? Who controls the spiritual circumstances in the play? How do they exert control? What are the rewards for spiritual conformity? What are the penalties for violating the spiritual standards? What features of spirituality suggest the mise-en-scène? How could the mise-en-scène contribute to the expressiveness of these features?
8. The World of the Play. Describe the special world of the play, the closed system, the distinctive universe created by the collective given circumstances. How does the world of the play influence the conduct and attitude of characters in the play? What are the different points of view expressed by the characters toward their world? How does the world of the play suggest the mise-en-scène? How could the mise-en-scène contribute to the effective illustration of the world of the play?
9. Following Action Analysis. Search for the play’s seed/theme at work in the given circumstances. How does the seed/theme relate to the given circumstances? Why did the playwright choose these specific given circumstances from the whole range of other possibilities to illustrate the seed/theme? In what way would the use of different given circumstances change the seed/theme, and vice versa? In what way does connecting the seed/theme with the given circumstances and mise-en-scène contribute to the expressiveness of the play?