The first thing I have to say is that my favorite line was definitely about the delivery woman’s key ring. I noticed that in the picture in the novel, and I was really excited that they made a point of it.
Having said that I think there were two really interesting things about the production. One was the” author” character watching the events of her life. That included the way that the “author” kept looking over the shoulder of her younger selves and reading what they wrote in her diary. Often she read it with a different tone than it had been intended. This fits well with what we discussed in class about the reliability of a person looking back at their own memories. It also included the way she saw things and then tried to dissect what the people in the scenes, including herself, were thinking. She had the sense of a person trying to put the pieces of her life back together, not sure as to where she was going or she had come from. The novel didn’t have that same tone of self-discovery.
I would say the other thing that struck was the way the one blue door was used to represent choices that Alison had to make, as well as the major events that had a tremendous impact on her. For example, the door to her room were she had all those important conversations with Joan, or the door to the Gay Union room, that represented the choice she had to make about herself. Part of the re-use of the door was probably practically, but I think there was definitely a greater meaning, because I got a similar vibe from the novel.
I also felt the father was much more menacing in the novel.