Extra-literary elements such a screen device, music, and lighting play a key role in the first three scenes of the play. These tools accentuate the events in the play by emphasizing the sentimentality of the atmosphere and highlighting the emotions rather than factual evidence. Since this is a "memory play", the extra-literary elements help give more fluidity to memory-recall because humans often omit certain details and overemphasize on one particular detail of a memory because you have a stronger emotional connection with it.
Two instances where the screen device was used was when Laura admits that she hasn't been attending her typewriting class but instead wanders off outside and when she confesses to her mom about a guy she fell in love with who called her "Blue Roses".
The screen image of a "winter scene in a park" allows the audience to delve into Laura's mind as she is speaking to her mother. She's not really focusing on her mother because her mind wanders off to that moment where she was walking in the park and enjoying her freedom outside without any feeling of anxiety. It also highlights the sentimentality of her walk in the park as Laura recalls that memory, and it also shows how our mind focuses on an image that often gives nostalgia.
The screen image of blue roses is also important because it begins scene two with "on the dark stage the screen is lighted with the image of blue roses. Gradually Laura's figure becomes apparent and the screen goes out. The music subsides." The literary device of screen images is interconnected with light and music. The screen image lights up the dark stage with the blue roses, which I think also adds to the sentimentality of the image because it is the focus of the stage. It then gradually fades out with Laura's figure, implying to the audience an association between the blue roses and Laura, essentially connecting Laura and the blue roses as one entity. It foreshadows Laura's lack of romantic experience because instead of the typical red roses, her lack of romantic experience is represented through an unusual blue-colored rose.
Music is also playing in the background along with the display of the blue roses, which complements the Laura's emotional connection with the blue roses. It also subsides as Laura's figure becomes more apparent, which effectively transitions the play into "reality" as Laura faces her mother's presence.
The extra-literary elements give so much more to the play than dialogue and stage directions. They help the atmosphere of the set become more emotional and sentimental. The recurrent music or the images can direct the audience to a certain level of understanding of what the playwright intends for the characters to be portrayed as. The blue rose part was quite unique because typically blue roses are rare. To say that Laura is a blue rose (which derived from her sickness) shows how beautiful and special she is in Jim's eyes. It's quite different from her actual introvert and self-deprecating personality. Perhaps this is why Laura seems so enamoured with Jim, because he sees something positive within her crippled self.
ReplyDeleteAn issue I wonder about is how the screen and the music is actually realized. With each run of the show, won't the music and the screen device image be different? I wonder especially how the director shows something as abstractly described as the music themes for each character.
The extra-literary elements give so much more to the play than dialogue and stage directions. They help the atmosphere of the set become more emotional and sentimental. The recurrent music or the images can direct the audience to a certain level of understanding of what the playwright intends for the characters to be portrayed as. The blue rose part was quite unique because typically blue roses are rare. To say that Laura is a blue rose (which derived from her sickness) shows how beautiful and special she is in Jim's eyes. It's quite different from her actual introvert and self-deprecating personality. Perhaps this is why Laura seems so enamoured with Jim, because he sees something positive within her crippled self.
ReplyDeleteAn issue I wonder about is how the screen and the music is actually realized. With each run of the show, won't the music and the screen device image be different? I wonder especially how the director shows something as abstractly described as the music themes for each character.