During our class dedicated to theater,we not only learned some Shakespeare trivial but also got to experience Mr. Rodney Gutierre, a character all on his own. One of the first things I noticed was his lack of shoes, and thick British accent, but Mr. Gutierre continued to entertain throughout the entire class. He was neither shy with his words, nor his opinions, which added to the effectiveness of the class. Thanks to Mr. Gutierre, I learned that Shakespeare changes based on the publisher. I was impressed that he could decipher when the published copy makes sense and when it seems entirely arbitrarily written. When I first read a few lines of Shakespeare, I am happy to just keep track of the characters. It is obvious that Mr. Gutierre is very dedicated to his work and enjoys it too. He let us in on some theater history, emphasizing the importance of a stage and some evolution of the stage with the changing of eras. It was fun to listen to his comments as well as to students attempt to perform an Old-English dialogue they were reading for the first time.
The Penelope performance was one of the few, but best theater performances I have seen. La Bete was fairly entertaining, but I didn’t feel such a rush of emotions after I watched it. I also once saw God of Carnage, and every minute I was hoping that the set would change, a new set of characters would come on stage, and there would be a complete turn around of plot…that’s how exciting it was. I found Penelope to be of a sufficient length, long enough to tie everything together and short enough to keep me interested.
Aside from the plot, I also thought the director made some good choices. He chose proper moments to include the ringing of the sirens, positioned next to the camera. It was slightly startling but also a wake up call to draw us in. The fact that Penelope was absent for the first half of the performance, and silent for its entirety showed that the emphasis is on the suitors, rather than on the beauty of Penelope. The ending was also well crafted. The fire from the grill rattled the audience, who knew what would happen if the play were to continue. We know that the fire signifies the return of Odysseus. Although the play does not explicitly state it, we know Odysseus is back and we know that the suitors will soon face a most unpleasant death. We never actually see the murder nor even Odysseus, but it is all implied by the fire.
Aside from the layout of the play and the skillful acting, the plot and the dialogue also left an impression. Each character had a unique way of interpreting life and man’s (or woman’s) purpose in it. Whose interpretation is most correct and who best understand the meaning of life is of course subjective. I personally was able to take away something from each man’s speech. I found Fitz’ dialogue to Penelope to be most captivating. The constant emphasis on the nothingness that is our world. According to Fitz, what transforms the world from the giant pool of nothing to something is emotions, and passions, such as love. I found this way of looking at life unique, but slightly inaccurate to my tastes. I feel it is true that certain components of life are a whole lot of nothing, but other aspects help us to feel the passion and so it is unfair to say that it is nothing.
The line I most enjoyed from Burn’s speech said that we all walk around with our own pedestals. We put some people on a pedestal where they may or may not belong and expect others to match this rank. This is what I took away from his speech and what made me evaluate my impressions on life. Burn also talked about waking up and being able to take away joy from all forms of life, mundane or not. He said that this day he finally woke up and started living. I didn’t look at Burn’s speech as a whole, but rather as parts that spoke to me.
Dunn’s speech to Penelope was hard to take seriously, but his second major dialogue made me nostalgic. He spoke of his childhood and the relationship he had with his mother. Although I can’t relate to feeling that my mother is a “fat,cold b****,” I can relate to his other emotions as a child. Dunn describes childhood days as those without worries. He wasn’t upset from the events of yesterday and wasn’t worried about the upcoming events of tomorrow. I remember those days. It made me think, if most of us were able to be so carefree then, maybe we can be at least a little more carefree now.
In general, each man gave a snippet on life and left me to think. I found that each man made some valid points; even Quinn’s pessimistic view that man in innately evil has some truth. Each person walked out with different emotions, but it got us all to think.
