Drama final project
Feb. 24th, 2005 07:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
philenaRight, so for my drama class we're going to need to do a final project, and my group has decided to write a short play about betrayal:
My group and I (my group consisting of Marcel, whom nobody knows, I believe, and Robert and Bill, whom the fencing people know) started putting together our project skeleton, which goes like this: A girl (me) and a bartender (Marcel) are exchanging bar jokes. The girl's bar joke is terrible, so the bartender says, "I know a better one. Two guys walk into a bar . . . " and what follows is the meat of the plot: Guy 1 (Bill) is describing to Guy 2 (Robert) how he is entirely enamoured of this girl (me, as it turns out) he went out on a date with, he thinks she's the fairest, the loveliest, etc. etc--describing her and their interactions in terms of fairy tales. He's the knight, she's the princess, he rescued her when she was in distress (helped her with his calc homework), and they got married (went on a date) and lived happily ever after. Guy 2 is less than impressed, and thinks it only important that the girl is very, very hot (I had a lot of input on this part of the plot development). The girl at the bar then recognizes Guy 2, and greets him very warmly--too warmly for Guy 1, who recognizes her as his damsel in distress before she sees him. He becomes upset, gets in a fight with Guy 2 for sullying her honor, Guy 2 completely wastes him, and leaves with the girl on his arm. While they're gone, the bartender leans down to Guy 1, and suggests that maybe he can still rescue the damsel in distress, who has gone astray with this punk of a Guy 2, but Guy 1 has given up all his fairy tale perceptions, and says that it clearly doesn't work that way. At this point, however, things do begin to work that way: there's shouting from off-stage, the girl runs back in, admits the error of her ways, and begs Guy 1 to forgive her. At this point though, since Guy 1 has rejected the fairy-tale rules, he also rejects the fairy-tale ending, and walks away from the girl, leaving her sitting with the bartender. She turns to him, and says, "I don't really get it. How about this one: A guy and his DOG walk into a bar . . ."
It was fun plotting this out, but I worry that the bar-joke framework will interfere with the meat of the story, which is supposed to illustrate a reversal in perceptions: Guy 1 believed in fairy-tale rules, rejecting the rules of cynicism that the outside world is following, and then when he gets burned, he believes the cynical rules and rejects the fairy-tale rules that the outside world follows. It's good for our theme of betrayal, because not only does the girl betray Guy 1 so does the outside world. Our problem was that we couldn't think of a strong way to end it, if we didn't use the bar-joke framework. But then, the bar-joke framework can also be a betrayal, because if the bartender is telling the story, he's an unreliable narrator, and we have no way of knowing whether he's lying to us or not. It's fun to think about, but I think we'll need to do some pretty fancy work with the dialogue this weekend, and unfortunately, Robert, probably the strongest member of our group, will be away this weekend. Maybe we'll try to schedule a separate meeting before next week. Chloe expressed a good deal of doubt over our project, and wants to see a rough draft or a rehearsal, which I think is an excellent, excellent idea. I'm having doubts too.
So, yeah. Thoughts, anyone?
My group and I (my group consisting of Marcel, whom nobody knows, I believe, and Robert and Bill, whom the fencing people know) started putting together our project skeleton, which goes like this: A girl (me) and a bartender (Marcel) are exchanging bar jokes. The girl's bar joke is terrible, so the bartender says, "I know a better one. Two guys walk into a bar . . . " and what follows is the meat of the plot: Guy 1 (Bill) is describing to Guy 2 (Robert) how he is entirely enamoured of this girl (me, as it turns out) he went out on a date with, he thinks she's the fairest, the loveliest, etc. etc--describing her and their interactions in terms of fairy tales. He's the knight, she's the princess, he rescued her when she was in distress (helped her with his calc homework), and they got married (went on a date) and lived happily ever after. Guy 2 is less than impressed, and thinks it only important that the girl is very, very hot (I had a lot of input on this part of the plot development). The girl at the bar then recognizes Guy 2, and greets him very warmly--too warmly for Guy 1, who recognizes her as his damsel in distress before she sees him. He becomes upset, gets in a fight with Guy 2 for sullying her honor, Guy 2 completely wastes him, and leaves with the girl on his arm. While they're gone, the bartender leans down to Guy 1, and suggests that maybe he can still rescue the damsel in distress, who has gone astray with this punk of a Guy 2, but Guy 1 has given up all his fairy tale perceptions, and says that it clearly doesn't work that way. At this point, however, things do begin to work that way: there's shouting from off-stage, the girl runs back in, admits the error of her ways, and begs Guy 1 to forgive her. At this point though, since Guy 1 has rejected the fairy-tale rules, he also rejects the fairy-tale ending, and walks away from the girl, leaving her sitting with the bartender. She turns to him, and says, "I don't really get it. How about this one: A guy and his DOG walk into a bar . . ."
It was fun plotting this out, but I worry that the bar-joke framework will interfere with the meat of the story, which is supposed to illustrate a reversal in perceptions: Guy 1 believed in fairy-tale rules, rejecting the rules of cynicism that the outside world is following, and then when he gets burned, he believes the cynical rules and rejects the fairy-tale rules that the outside world follows. It's good for our theme of betrayal, because not only does the girl betray Guy 1 so does the outside world. Our problem was that we couldn't think of a strong way to end it, if we didn't use the bar-joke framework. But then, the bar-joke framework can also be a betrayal, because if the bartender is telling the story, he's an unreliable narrator, and we have no way of knowing whether he's lying to us or not. It's fun to think about, but I think we'll need to do some pretty fancy work with the dialogue this weekend, and unfortunately, Robert, probably the strongest member of our group, will be away this weekend. Maybe we'll try to schedule a separate meeting before next week. Chloe expressed a good deal of doubt over our project, and wants to see a rough draft or a rehearsal, which I think is an excellent, excellent idea. I'm having doubts too.
So, yeah. Thoughts, anyone?
