The Play’s the Thing.

Near the very backend of Heidi Schrek’s Creature we got to my favorite part. It’s when a  character by the name of Juliana comes out after we had heard about her throughout the play. She comes out and steals the show particularly when she says “Now I’ll tell you a secret: I don’t believe in Hell. I have tried for many years, but with great agony I have finally set aside this belief. And what is so terrible, really, about this Hell? What is it that terrifies you really? The fires? The hot pokers? The animals chewing holes in our flesh? No, no. Sin itself is terrifying. If you had to choose between all the pains of this place they call “Hell” and Sin, I promise you that you would choose all that pain rather than Sin.” (73) That alone is what sold me on productions at LR.

I had tried to convince some friends to watch Creature with me but none of them would budge a bit. They probably would have if I told them it was worth a convocation but nonetheless they did not end up going to see the play with me or at all which is disappointing because they truly missed out on a good time. So when Our Town came around to being performed I had to make sure that at least one of them came with me.

 

Three people ended up coming with me to watch Our Town. We went on the last day that the play was being performed and sat in the middle. Just hoping for a good time. We ended up getting that with great performances from all of the actors, especially Reverend Weisner. Everytime he spoke everyone’s eyes were glued to him. Because I’ve enjoyed those two plays so much I will definitely be watching more plays performed at LR and I guess that’s one of the things I have gotten out of this english class.

Work Cited

Creature. By Heidi Schreck. Dir. Liz Bokhoven. Perf. Liz Bokhoven, Chase Fowler, Benjamin Thomas-Reid, Callie Cope, Milissia Koncelik, Corey Smith. LR Playmakers, Lenoir-Rhyne U., NC. 21 Sept. 2017.

Our Town. By Thornton Wilder. Dir. Lindsay Weitkamp. Perf. Andrew Weisner, Tom Townsend, Sophie Heller-Lee, Timothy Goldberg, Ariona Smith, Ashton Pesterfield, Jack Verner, Heather Osterer, Quentin Heller-Lee, Callie Cope, Sally Putzer, Chase Fowler, Sarah A. Nelson, Jovani Valdez, Amber Biecker, Derek Spencer, Milissia Koncelik, Mason Fowler, Brandon Lee, Clay James. LR Playmakers, Lenoir-Rhyne U., NC. 12 Nov. 2017.

Schreck, Heidi. Creature. Samuel French, 2011.

Wilder, Thornton. Our Town. 1938. Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2003.

Annotated Bibliography

Junod, Tom.” Falling Man.” http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a48031/the-falling-man-tom-junod/, 9 Sept. 2016. Accessed 28 Nov. 2017. 9/11 was one of America’s worst tragedies ever; it was also one the most unifying things in America’s history too. One of the most memorable things to happen that day was people jumping out of the building so they would not get burned alive. The excerpt covers what they might have been thinking and who took the pictures.

Larson, Erik. The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America. Crown Publishers, 2003. Published after years of research in 2003, Larson’s magnum opus is an intricate dual narrative centered on the 1893 World Fair.  Focusing on Daniel Burnham’s efforts on keeping the fair to be completed on time while still living up to the otherworldly expectations it has and H. H. Holmes heinous murders with his infamous “castle.”

Lucas, Guy. “Loss of Unwelcome Burden Devastates Me.” guylucas.com/2017/10/05/percy/, 5 Oct. Accessed 28 Nov. 2017. Guy Lucas starts off by saying he never actually wanted a cat. From there he talks about how his wife found the cat and how he instantly knew she was going to keep the cat. After this Lucas succulently goes over why he fell in love with the cat and why the loss of it means so much to him even if he didn’t want the cat at all at first.

Schreck, Heidi. Creature. Samuel French, 2011. In 1373 Margery Kempe was born, some years later she saw the vision of Jesus Christ himself covered in purple robes. This is the story covered in Heidi Schreck’s Creature. A wonderfully done comedy about her struggles trying to be a saint and trials her sanity went through after childbirth.

Twenge, Jean. “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/, Sept. 2017. Accessed 28 Nov. 2017. One of the biggest problems facing a youth now is whether or not they have a phone. They have become so ingrained in modern society that those without them are the oddity. Twenge tackles the ubiquitous nature of the cell phone in her article Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? And why the cellphone may be a very bad thing for people.

Wilder, Thornton. Our Town. 1938. Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2003. Our Town is a play showcasing the “classic” american life, falling in love with the girl next door and getting married. In trying to show this Wilder uses never before seen tricks in his play that even today would be looked at as original. Using a handful of props to give the play a barebones feel, a wonderful narrator called “Stage Manager” who pushes the story forward as it unveils what makes it so special.

Whitehead, Colson. The Underground Railroad. Doubleday, 2016 Taking place in an alternate universe where the underground railroad consists of actual railroads underground. Following Cora, a runaway female, who goes through a traumatic journey in her quest for freedom. A surreal sci-fi novel masking itself as a historical novel with detailed paragraphs to make it feel all too real.

A Cloud Of Ignorance

Our Town is a seminal great American play about an American town. The town is mentioned throughout the play but the name of it really doesn’t matter, it’s THE small time America. The location of the town doesn’t really matter either even though Wilder goes through the arduous task of letting us know all about it, to give it the idea of being real to make the watcher of the play feel at home. At the core of the play, it’s the quintessential American love story of small-town neighbors growing together and falling in love. Beyond that, it’s a different beast entirely.    

The raw brilliance of something does not always jump up and down while begging and pleading for attention. Sometimes it’s a subtle hint here and there that will pass by you without blinking an eye. Brilliance does not exist to be known by all of the mankind it exists for those patient enough to look for it and seek it. With a play like Thornton Wilder’s Our Town or Norman Rockwell’s  Four Freedoms, you can take whatever you want from them. Paint them as masterpieces that can be taken on the surface as enjoyable, or look at them deeper and find the subtle genius they both possess.

In 1941 America was mentally preparing itself for World War II. The current president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, had to get the public on his side so for the  “1941 State of the Union address”which was about  the four basic principles that everyone should be able to enjoy,  to be able  to worship who you want, say what you want, have your basic needs fulfilled as a human,  and not fearful for your life on a daily basis. Which is why the speech is now referred to as “Four Freedoms Speech.” People loved this speech, so much so that Rockwell created four paintings, one on each of the ideas F.D.R. represented with his speech. The paintings themselves are by themselves are pretty similar to Rockwell’s other works, what makes them special is the context to them. The Four Freedoms paintings ability to capture the essence of America’s toughness of “If you stop someone from enjoying what we enjoy we will stop you.” So clearly is what makes the work so special.

   Whereas the beauty of the Four Freedoms paintings lies in the context the greatness of Our Town lies in the random moments where Wilder feels fit to mention something thought-provoking. In the very first act, the basically omniscient Stage Manager rambles about the life of the paperboy in a way that gets you angry about the wasted life of a young man to war with, “Want to tell you something about that boy Joe Crowell there. Joe was awful bright graduated from high school here, head of his class. So he got a scholarship to Massachusetts Tech. Graduated head of his class there, too. It was all wrote up in the Boston paper at the time. Goin’ to be a great engineer, Joe was. But the war broke out and he died in France. All that education for nothing.” (9)

During the entirety of the play, he mentions the character Simon Stimson, an alcoholic organist for the church who commits suicide, his alcoholism is acknowledged but there is never an idea to help him.They just ignore the problem he is suffering through in front of them while gossiping behind his back. It gets to the point that Stimson commits suicide and delivers a particularly fiery speech “Yes, now you know. Now you know! That’s what it was to be alive. To move about in a cloud of ignorance; to go up and down trampling on the feelings of those … of those about you. To spend and waste time as though you had a million years. To be always at the mercy of one self-centered passion, or another. Now you know that’s the happy existence you wanted to go back to. Ignorance and blindness.” (109) Why a town would allow someone drink themselves to death is one of those this play might just leave you thinking about if you paid enough attention to everything it offered and that’s the brilliance of Our Town.

Works Cited

Wilder, Thornton. Our Town. 1938. Harper Perennial, 2003.

“Four Freedoms.” National Archives and Records Administration, National Archives and Records Administration, http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/powers_of_persuasion/four_freedoms/four_freedoms.html.

How a Killer Kills

Good looks, a “castle”, and a silver tongue helped H. H. Holmes become a prolific serial killer. Throughout the Erik Larson’s The Devil In The White City we watch Holmes coldly have women fall head over heels in love with him, take everything he wants and then he would kill her. The most bone chilling realization you get from the book is that Holmes doesn’t transition into a monster, he was born that way and the reason he becomes a killer is as he puts it ““I was born with the devil in me. I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing.” (109)

This transition to full blown serial killer comes alive with his new found power as a hotel owner of World’s Fair Hotel. In the pivotal chapter of “Modus Operandi” the reader gets a disturbing look into his process of murdering the women and how coldly he goes about it. A calculated attack on the victim where he just heinously kill them in their sleep. Where Holmes will just wait until he lost the rush of his last killing to do it again, like a drug addict with unlimited money, the only thing stopping him at that point was him.

Unsuspected because everyone he talked to seemed to like him, and on the surface that made a lot of sense. He was a rich white male in his thirties that looked good and had the charisma to make Johnny Bravo look boring. With the police overworked in a regular year much less one where the world fair was being held it is not too crazy to see how it all turned out for him. He was able to get away for so long because on the surface it was just something that was normal, another woman went missing after staying at a hotel for a day.

The brilliance in Erik Larson’s book lies in the meticulous research placed in the history of the historic events here to the point where the whole world written feels real. You care for every victim who is about to be blind sided when Holmes gets what he wants and his wicked intentions come out. The evil personified that makes up Holmes is best put when Larson wrote in the chapter “Modus Operandi” with “He liked being near enough to hear the approach of death in the rising panic of his victims. This was when his quest for possession entered its most satisfying phase.” (257)

Simply put H.H. Holmes was a dreadful person who got a death that was well deserved for him. The calm almost disconnected dialogue he would speak in. The weasel like demeanor he has when running away from loan collectors. Yet with those there’s the charisma girls are attracted to like a moth where he’s the only light bulb. Larson wrote a genuinely interesting Holmes that stole the show of The Devil in the White City.

Works Cited

Larson, Erik. The Devil in the White City. Vintage, 2004.

False Mirror Opposites

Beyond the wonderfully done humor in Heidi Schreck’s Creature is a fascinating story of a delusional woman who neglects everything in her life in a foolish attempt to become a saint. Wanting nothing more than to give her confession Margery gets a vision of Jesus Christ himself in purple robes. From there a story unfolds of a woman suffering of visions of a demon haunting her looking for the best way into sainthood.

The most interesting dynamic in the play is how similar and dissimilar the wants of Father Thomas and the Nurse Eliza. The Father at first glance is a pretty simple character who simply wants to help the poor and be closest to god in the most direct way possible. The nurse on the other hand is on the other side of the spectrum with a very selfish desire of Margery’s husband, John. She’s willing to do absolutely anything for him even dabble in witchcraft which in the fourteen hundreds was about as serious as one could get.

Looking further on in this Father Thomas is technically a heretic with his very against the rules beliefs with the english bible and the various odd things he would tell Margery. He’s even aware that what he’s doing isn’t allowed and that people are starting to talk about it when John confronts Father Thomas late at night for his relationship with his wife with “I can say that to you right? There are rumours you’re a bit of a free thinker.” (49)

While the Nurse’s love for John may be scandalous it’s not at all nefarious with her showing instant regret as soon as she believes that possible witchcraft could be the reason Margery is acting so peculiar she goes to Father Thomas and asks if there is anything she can do “Father is there such a thing as witchcraft?” (61)

Continuing this she asks if him more questions saying that it is her sister that has done the possible witchcraft and she wants to help her. Obviously it’s truly about her and Eliza is just trying to save her reputation. This does show that she truly does not want to hurt Margery but was so swept away in her pursuit for John’s love that she tried to do anything she could.

Is going for love a bad thing? Whether it be with a mortal man or the almighty God himself it will probably always be a selfish thing. You could say Eliza or Father Thomas are both selfish for what they did to get what they wanted or you could argue that they did the right thing to get what they wanted. That’s the quandary with giving your all for love, it’s a fickle thing and if you go too far you might have lost everything and not have even gotten close to what you wanted.  “What is sweetest in love is her tempestuousness, to die of hunger for her is to feed and taste; Her despair is assurance; Her sorest wounding is all curing to waste away for her sake is to be in repose; Her tender care enlarges our wounds Her table is Hunger.” (23)

Works Cited

Schreck, Heidi. Creature. Samuel French, 2011.

Swish.

For as bad as I am at basketball, I absolutely love watching it. I could spend far, far too much time just watching to random basketball teams of any level play basketball. I went to every home basketball game my junior year. They won one game and it was away game, every other game they lost by at least thirty. My point is that I love watching basketball.

My grandmother came to America in 1982 due to her marrying an American that was in the army. She didn’t particularly care for the sport when she first came to America, but  had become a huge fan of the team after she learned about David Robinson. David Robinson was a basketball player for the Navy, but had become too tall to actually work for the Navy. He ended up doing other things for them like charity work and recruiting which seemed to endear him to my grandmother for some reason. So even though she nor I have never been to Texas we support the Spurs.

This year she took me to a Spurs game in Atlanta to watch them play the Hawks. It was a great game that even went into overtime, but could have ended if the game winner attempted by Kawhi Leonard had went in completely. The ball rolled around the rim off of his jumper from around the free throw line for went felt like ever. It rolled off and the Hawks went on to win the game in overtime. While it would have been better if I saw the Spurs won it’s still my fondest basketball related memory.