Prompt 2--"Trifles"

My first instinct is to say that Trifles would be much less effective if produced minimally.  While the dialogue is obviously very important to the meaning of the play, it would not be as effective if none of the props or set dressing were included.  The point of Trifles is that all of this meaningless feminine junk onstage that the men carelessly pass by actually holds the key to Mrs. Wright’s motive, if one were to look closely enough.  Therefore, I would think that the best way to produce Trifles would be to clutter the stage with such trifles to prove the point further—perhaps this would imply to the audience that all of the other, non-referenced props could also help tell the story of what actually happened.  If I were the props master or set designer, I would create the story of what actually happened between the Wrights in my own head, then I would set the scene accordingly, so that an observant audience member actually could dissect it if he wanted to. 

On the other hand, one could produce an ironic production in which the trifles are dismissed, and the actresses are interacting with and referring to nothing physical onstage.  I’m not sure what effect this would produce—perhaps it would be from the point of view from the male characters, who do not notice any of that important evidence.  It is as if the trifles did not exist.  Alternatively, it could call to attention the idea that a woman’s success is measured by her husband’s, and now that her husband is dead and she is in prison, men see her as having nothing in her life.  Also, since her primary job in life was to take care of the home and make it comfortable to anyone living within, all of her life’s work has disappeared now that no one is living there anymore.

Prompt 1-- "Overtones"

First, Gerstenberg states in the opening stage directions that “Harriet never sees Hetty, never talks to her but rather thinks aloud looking into space. Hetty, however, looks at Harriet, talks intently and shadows her continually. The same is true of Margaret and Maggie.”  This actually creates some interesting questions about what is actually happening in a world where Hetty and Maggie are not corporeal creatures.  After all, the opening scene is just Hetty and Harriet speaking to each other; would an observer who could not see Hetty just see Harriet’s responses? Would he see Harriet acting out both sides of the conversation? Is Harriet’s inner dialogue all in her head? If so, is she just staring vacantly while her mind undergoes its schismatic crisis?  Perhaps none of this is relevant, as, for the purposes of this play, we do see Harriet and Hetty converse, but I still find it very interesting.  Also, Hetty and Maggie can converse to each other sometimes, which has really interesting implications—is their collective unconscious so powerful that they are essentially telepathic?  My interpretation is that Hetty and Maggie can hear each other when they want to be heard, like when the stage directions say “(to Hetty)” or “(to Maggie),” but they cannot hear each other when it is unspecified, as the characters are just speaking their basic thoughts, such as “I’m so hungry.”  I am not certain, but I believe that this rule fills many on the exceptions of whether or not the primitive selves can speak to each other.  This is entirely reliant on the playwright’s helpful stage directions noting to whom each line is spoken; this information is obviously not available to the audience, so it is up to the director and actors to make sure that these distinctions are clear.  Still, though, in my opinion, it is not very difficult to tell who is being spoken to in any moment; the rules of these characters’ existence seem pretty clear to me, and I do not think it would be too complicated to recreate it for an audience.

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