The moral ambiguity of Madea-madness or BRILLIANCE!!!

I'm afraid my blog may not be as academically sound as our previous blogger but I will do my best. I just finished re-reading Madea. (I read it years ago for an intro to theatre class) The common consensus among most average Joe's is that Madea is a crazy stone cold bitch. First of all, I love all media forms (get it Madea forms? lol) that approach morally ambiguous decisions. It's the same reason Ben Linus is my favorite character on Lost and and the same reason I love Noah Bennett from Heroes. These are characters that make the choices and do the things that others would not. Most of us hate them for it. The rest of us....well lets just say we appreciate the situation that they are in.
I was raised on the idea of black and white=good and evil. To me, while I was growing up, there was no grey area. Then I left home and realized why Mormon life is so naive. There is no black and white good and evil, there are only shades of grey. The simple truth that most of us do not want to accept is that under the right circumstances we are all capable of anything.
The situation faced by Madea is the loss of everything she has worked for since before the play began. She sacrificed everything for Jason. And what has he done? Jason spat in her face and tossed her out on the street.
The questions I pose to you (you know the story I don't need to reiterate it) is this: Was she justified in her revenge? Should she have taken it as far as killing the children? Did Glauce deserve to go the way she did? Is Madea to blame for Creon's death even though she didn't poison him directly? Is justice by any means necessary still justice?

Aristotle and the "Inferior woman"...well, yes and no.

In his "Poetics" Aristotle notes several trends in tragedies that, in his opinion are instrumental within the construction of the "well made" play. In some ways I agree with Aristotle; In other ways, not so much:

If we look at the basic principles of Aristotle's formula for the perfect tragedy and/or comedy, many of us would agree with the idea that Plot and Character are the top two most important elements within a play's structure. We could also concur that if we excluded the other four elements (Thought, Language, Music and Spectacle) from the makeup of the play it would be an incomplete work. It's true that Aristotle had some ingenius ideas about how to create "good theatre," and many of his ideas are still used today. However, there are several beliefs held by him that I consider outdated and rarely hold water in today's society.

I actually could go on all day about what I disagree with in the world of Aristotelian theatre. But for today, I wish to comment on Aristotle's view of the role of women in theatre during the Ancient Greek play festivals, and also, how In Part XV of the "Poetics," Aristotle comments on the role of women in tragedy: "...the character will be good if the purpose is good...even a woman may be good, and also a slave; though the woman may be said to be an inferior being, and the slave quite worthless. The second thing to aim at is propriety. There is a type of manly valor; but valor in a woman, or unscrupulous cleverness is inappropriate." Not only is he referring to women as inferior and useless, but he is also advocates the portrayal of them as valorless, mindless vessels for the will of Man; Not to mention his opinion of slaves as being lowborn, lesser beings, and his belief that slavery should be a part of the woman's identity. But as time progresses we see that the woman's role in theatre would evolve and that they would take on a stronger, more substantial role in the structure of theatrical performance, particularly in the function of their character; from the captivating, dynamic and strong characters created nearly a thousand years later by William Shakespeare all the way to the empowered women who form the collective voice of the Vagina Monologues written during the new millenium, women have FAR surpassed the expectations of Aristotle.

An abstract view of the moon-Reflection on The Rising Of The Moon

It is often said that history has a way of repeating itself. The age old war of battling oppression can be seen on every continent. Ones fight from oppression is often gruesome, long suffering and unthinkable to endure. When I think of oppressed people, my own heritage comes to mind. My mind creates imagery of slavery, Jim crow laws and the journey of African Americans for equality. I think of the genocide in Darfur and the hideous acts of hate that left thousands of Rwandan descendants broken, defeated and martyred. I was completely ignorant to the fact that a similar class struggle and status quo conflict ever occured between England and Ireland.

The seargeant and the ballad singer represent the thin line between whats legally and morally right. We all have our norms, mores and paradigms of the way we view the world. What one is passionate about may be a direct conflict with what is legally expected of them to do.

Two of the most profound parts of this play look at the concrete fact of: You never know where life will take you. The man says, "Its a queer world, seargeant, and its little any mother knows when she sees her child creeping on the floor what might happen to it before it has gone through its life, or who will be who in the end." This statement forced the sergeant to meditate on his own life and reflect on the fact that he could be the one uprising for freedom. Thus, creating his ethical/moral dillema and legal obligation. We can ponder all day about whether the right decesion was made. The piece illuminates how the sergeant questions himself at the end. His doubt shows a vulnerability to the audience and makes his feelings tangilbe. Its safe to say we all have felt that tug when choosing between two contradicting obligations.

My abstract eye leaves me asking every one this: What would you be willing to risk to stand for what you whole-heartedly believe in?

I Should be Working on the Final, but...

I just had one more thought about the Laramie Project. I'm remembering the article we read about Jose Can You See? One of the main points of the article was that people took for granted that West Side Story was an accurate presentation of Hispanic Americana. I'm skeptical about that point, but it may well be that people took WSS that seriously. If that is the case, then why are we so reluctant to consider the possibility that the Laramie of the Project might seem like to be a real representation of the actual town of Laramie?

I think that, given that these words are the actual words of interviewed members of the Laramie community, it might be reasonable to assume that the audience would be disarmed by the power of their arrangement within the play. I'm not suggesting that this play is propaganda, but I am suggesting that as the motives of Kaufman become clear in the representations of the events, it might be possible that he is arranging the truth to suit his purposes.

That is not a criticism of the play. Every playwright manipulates the truth for a desired result. It is important, though, that you and I as an audience must be aware of it.

Laramie Project

I think everyone is making interesting arguments about the Laramie Project as a play. I think the Laramie Project does exactly what theatre should do; promote a change. Kaufman goes about it a different way though, instead of creating something from his own mind, he took an actual event and gave actual accounts from the people involved in the small town of Laramie. As far as acting in this show, I don't think I could. I don't think anyone can get into the mindset of the people that were effected by this story. These words weren't written, they were actual feelings. In this type of theatre though, your goal is to tell a story, not act the way you feel. I don't think you could just say these words and not have any emotion behind them though especially if you know the story behind Matthew Shepard.

babble babble

I wanted to talk about what happened in class today as well. I think I just have a really hard time expressing my feelings about this because I wrote the letter saying I would direct it. Honestly, I don't think I could ever direct this play. I stick by my statement that this play is not for the sudience to come in and feel sympathy for Matthew Shepard; sympathy never got anyone anywhere. I think the reason Kaufman and the rest of his company compiled this script was to drive people out of their cushiony theatre seats and into the senate, the house, and the streets. Seems like here in Louisville, we are only in the streets..maybe the same is true for Laramie. There's a definie split in our society as to which is more effective, lobbying or protesting. Some say both, but Americans are entirely too lazy to go through all that. :)
Seriously though, I just don't know if I could commit to using the Brechtian technique because I am not as badass as Mosies Kaufman, and am way too emotionally involved in these news stories. But then again, I don't think I would want someone who just did not care about the issues of GLBT to direct it either. I don't know..I never come to any conclusions in these posts.

The Laramie Project

If you guys couldn't tell, this play really got to me.

I was really interested when Jeremy talked about not being sure whether or not he could trust the writers or if it was a genuine reflection on the people in Laramie. We made it fairly clear that journalistic interviewing is different from theatrical interviewing. One thing that was said reminded me of something I saw on TV one time...I was watching this "documentary" about reality television (primarily MTV's Real World, Survivor and The Bachelor) and they were all talking about how they were so surprised by how they were depicted on their shows. A few of them even talked about how the producers (during their one on one face time) would egg them on with certain questions and telling them certain things in order to work up some tension or an emotion from them. Then they would edit the clips together to make situations appear worse than they actually were. I feel that we can all agree that reality television is not the best example of reality and I can totally see where there would be some truth behind the former reality stars saying that.

The Laramie Project seemed to be much more honest. There wasn't really a part that I read that stood out to me as something that could be fake or held back. I also got to thinking that these people who were interviewed would probably be more honest then not because (even though I have no proof of this) I would assume that they had to agree to it before signing anything. By essentially volunteering for this, I assume that they were prepared to be honest. Also, most people seem to have respect for the people in situations like this, especially when it hits so close to home that it would probably have been a huge deal on their emotions to try to fake it. It's sometimes hard to put ourselves in the minds of people like the ones depicted in this play when we haven't been there. But being one who has dealt with some traumatic deaths (including living in Boston and being in lock down at school during 9/11) I feel that it would be extremely difficult for me to lie or hold back in situations that would drag up so much emotion out of me.

Also, while looking up some stuff I came across this picture of Matthew Shepard as a baby...for me, it reminds me that this was a person whose family has to deal with this still and not just a case: