School for Scandal, Reviews, and Seeing Plays

This will serve as an all-purpose post about seeing plays, reviewing plays, our class's trip to see School for Scandal, and whatever else fits into it. There's no requirement to comment on this post; it's just there in case anyone wants to vent, discuss, ask questions, provide answers, and so forth.

Info on School for Scandal: 

We're on for Tuesday, May 3 at 7:30 p.m. Dr. Z has the tickets and will distribute them at LCW on Tuesday. Please make sure you bring $30 to LCW on May 3. Dr. Z will then do his best to get the reimbursement money pledged by the Dean / LCW, hopefully for $20 per ticket.
 
  - also, based on what students have said about being able to go or not, we should have two extra tickets, available also for $30 each, which are to be made available to LCW students on a first-come, first-served basis. So please try to get a friend to come to the play! If you know of someone who will be able to commit to going, please let Dr. Z know immediately.

Info on play-going and review-writing in general:

First, here's a short comedic piece from The Toast about seeing plays. It's called "So You're Thinking About Seeing a Play." (If you don't know about The Toast, and particularly its pieces on art, you should. Some of them are hilarious.) It's sort of about seeing plays, and sort of about what plays are, but it's also apparently about what it's like when your friend is a playwright, or if you yourself are a playwright.
http://the-toast.net/2016/04/14/plays-for-normal-people/

And here are some examples of reviews of plays. These will get you in the mood to write an extra-credit review of S for S, and will show you how the professionals write reviews. They have to deal with word limits, so they try to get as much as possible into short a text as possible. So they often use sentences like, "The parade of extravagant costumes, by Constance Hoffman, brings a colorful injection of visual drama to the proceedings, too." Or phrases like "played with foot-stomping exasperation by Patrice Johnson Chevannes" and "Mr. Camargo’s pale, darkly expressive face" -- in other words, descriptions for an audience who have not seen the play, using vivid (but brief) language to convey the experience in snapshots rather than wholly covering everything exhaustively.
  
- the above examples are from http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/26/theater/review-in-pericles-much-ado-about-a-lot-of-things.html -- a review of a recent performance of Pericles

  - and here's a somewhat older review of a performance of The Rover
  http://www.nytimes.com/1987/07/27/theater/stage-the-rover-feminist-comedy-from-1677.html -- it apparently had Christopher Reeve (who played Superman in the late 1970s and 1980s) as Willmore

April 19 - Cato acts 1-2 - Group A

1) Perhaps more than any other play we’ve studied this semester, Cato is a play of ideas. Briefly discuss one idea or debate that comes up in the first two acts. For example, 1.4, when Syphax and Juba debate the merits of the Roman ways.

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2) Who wins the debate about war vs. peace (2.1)? What do you think about the debate and the outcome?

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3) “In pitying love we but our weakness show” (from the prologue). How does Addison make good on this in the early action? Or are there romantic situations which do in fact inspire pity?

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4) Discuss another part of today’s reading that seems to be in need of exploration, elucidation, or comment.

April 14 - School for Scandal, acts 4-5 - Group B

1) Choose one or other of the two most dramatically complicated scenes in the latter half of the play, and formulate a question as to how it should be played – it could be about a character’s style of entrance, or about how fast something should be played, or about an expression of face or voice at a crucial moment. One spot is the Joseph Surface screen / trunk scene (4.3. 110-425); the other spot is the scandal-mongering scene (5.1.10-150). We’ll then take a look at this moment, and your question, in class.

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2) Lady Teazle has a fine speech at the end of act 4. What do you think of it, and of her?

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3) What exactly is Sir Peter Teazle saying to Joseph at 4.3.205-219 (overheard by Lady Teazle) … and why is this important? What do you think about Sir Peter’s character here?

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4) The regular question of course applies. What sort of comedic ending is this? Is it more or less satisfying than others we’ve seen so far? Why?  Or discuss something else we haven’t mentioned.

April 12 - School for Scandal, acts 2-3 -- Group B

1) What is the “school for scandal,” anyway? Who’s in school? Who’s teaching whom? Discuss an instance in which reputation & blackmail seem to be occurring alongside schooling or learning (even if it’s just in the sense of the experiential school of living / finding out the ways of the world).

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2) What do you think of Charles Surface in the middle action. He is obviously meant to be opposed to Joseph. How do you think he fares in the middle action of the play?

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3) We definitely should not ignore the presence in this play of Moses, the “honest Israelite.” What do you think of this character? Is this an anti-Semitic depiction? What about “Mr. Premium?” What exactly is going on with these depictions? (See 3.1, e.g.)

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4) Discuss another part of today’s reading that seems to be in need of exploration, elucidation, or comment.

April 7 - The School for Scandal, acts 1-2 -- Group A

1) It seems we’re back at it again, with silly names that may or may not show us the essence of a character. Pick one or two of these and show whether the name seems to fit the character. Point us to specific dialogue or plot developments, if possible.

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2) Money matters in this play. Comment on one of the several discussions of money in the opening action.

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3) What set-ups do you find in the early scenes? What expectations do these set-ups create for you? In other words, what sorts of structural or plot-like elements do you find in the early scenes? (We might return to these to find out whether our expectations are confirmed or not in this play.)

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4) Discuss another part of today’s reading that seems to be in need of exploration, elucidation, or comment.