The Glass Menagerie
Who is the playwright and what is the style it is written in?
Tennessee Williams
Southern Gothic
Who is the play write and what style is this written in?
Heinrich Ibsen
Melodrama
Who is the play write and what style is the written in?
Elmer Rice
Expressionisim/ Morality
What is a flat piece of scenery that gives the illusion of a wall on stage?
A Flat
Words to describe the scenery and spectacle of expressionist shows?
Big, exaggerated, distorted, symbolism, imagery, unproportional etc
Why do Tom and Amanda always argue?
because of their different expectations for Tom and Laura//life in general. Tom wants freedom and independence, while Amanda wants him to be a responsible provider for the family. Amanda also can't accept that Tom and his sister Laura want something different than what she wants for them
Why did Nora need a loan and what did she do to with the loan that was a crime?
Bonus-why didn't she tell Torvald?
to take her husband, Torvald, to Italy for his health. Nora doesn't tell Torvald about the loan and secretly pays it back in installments. She forges her father's signature to get the money, which is a crime. Nora keeps the loan a secret because she knows Torvald would never agree to being in debt, which could ruin his reputation.
Their Names
What is a piece of scenery that showcases a background and is normally made out of a piece of fabric called muslin>?
A backdrop
Instead of representing the scenery as it was such as the Naturalist plays, these plays use___________ and ___________ to extract an emotional response from the audience?
Imagery and Symbolisim
What is the symbolism of Laura's collection of glass animals and the unicorn specifically?
Bonus* What does the breaking of the unicorn mean
Laura's fragility, otherworldliness, and tragic beauty. The collection embodies Laura's imaginative world, her haven from society.
Bonus: she cannot exist in the world (especially Jim's) without breaking.
What do Torvald's nicknames for Nora suggest about how he feels about his wife?
Torvald degrades her as both a woman and a human. The word “little” is also frequently used before the pet names to illustrate how Torvald does not see Nora as equal; rather, Nora is his property or possession, similarly to how a child looks after his or hers doll.
What is the Theme of The Adding Machine?
dehumanizing technology, increased isolation and the mechanization of humanity.
The audiences line of sight on stage
Sight lines
What was going on in society to encourage someone to write a play like The Adding Machine?
dominated by reverence for financial gain and opportunism, with an emphasis on morality
**Germany experienced a crash on Wall Street that devastated the area and revealed the intense love of over indulgence and ow devastating the loss of it is and America was experiencing the Great Depression -a period of ten weeks, stocks on the New York Stock Exchange lost 50 percent of their value. As stocks continued to fall during the early 1930s, businesses failed, and unemployment rose dramatically.
Hint-Williams invented this literary device
A memory play-everything seen is from Tom's memory and could possibly be distorted from the truth
What does the dance that Nora practices indicate about her mental state?
Bonus-What is the name of this dance?
Nora's constraining illusions that belong to her previous life and, at the same time, a symbol of her aware destruction of them in order to be free. It means that we are in front of a transformation from an old existence to a new one.
How does Scene 5 (the cage scene), mirror Rice's hatred for the current society of the time this was written in ? (1929)
so fully disconnected from the assertion or fulfilment of one’s desires it has collapsed to the point of being dysfunctional.
over indulgence of the eggs
demanding things from his wife
What would you call the curtains on the side of the stage that hide or mask the wings.
Masking curtains
Instead of a through line plot that went in timeline order, Expressionist play writes wrote their plot in _____________, to
Episodes
It completes a full circle comparison of Tom and his father, both leaving Amanda and Laura to fend for themselves
he cannot endure sacrificing himself to a life he hates to live for his mother and sister anymore.
What does the infamous "door slam" mean for Nora and for women in general.
Nora makes the ultimate assertion of her agency and independence by walking out on her husband and her children in order to truly understand herself and learn about the world.
Zero has come full circle. Here, in the afterlife office, he is being permitted to fulfill his most basic desire to perform rote, repetitive work with little compensation or interaction
Why are stages set at an incline
Bonus* Who is the Greek god of wine, theater and indulgence
So the audience can see what is going on
Dionysus
Which of the other 2 plays that we have read (beside The Adding Machine) is also considered and Expressionist play? Why>
The Glass Menagerie
it explores Tom's subjective memories of his family. Expressionism aims to highlight the problems of alienation and dehumanization in the modern world.
-Episodic
-Set is dreamlike
-All a memory and distorted