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I did not know that direct-address monologues were valid in a play. Some of my plans for my play were actually creating a monologue in which my character could talk to the public without them exactly being the public, but part of the play as well, like they are some characters. I just thought it was not a good idea because I need the action and the conflict. However, Spencer gives a really good example about hamlet’s soliloquy, as the conflict that he has with himself since he is not sure he wants to live or die, and he solves it. I still do not know what I am actually going to write for my play, but that was an idea that I had. Now I know that it is actually part of the definition of the direct-address monologue. I did not agree at the ending when he said that the other way to write a direct-address monologue (a character talking without acknowledging the audience) is clumsy. I think this is biased from his preferences and not the actual truth. He basically refers to this as an unmotivated monologue, but also because no one talks to himself like that. I mean, I think we all do talk to ourselves at some point like at least to see if we are keeping up track of ourselves. I mean, I do it and I know people that also do it.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the plays, I actually enjoyed them and I wish I could see them performed. I liked The Janitor, I think it was a direct-address monologue in which he is talking to his audience that have come to see his speech, but of course he is just a janitor. I think that in Gas, like the character was not really acknowledging the audience though.
Paulina Longoria
I have mixed feelings after reading “Gas.” It is a really compelling, vivid, colorful performance. It makes me think, it makes me feel anger and sadness and fear, just like the character. That being said, there is a part of it that feels flat and lifeless because it is just some guy talking to himself, and there’s not really a motivation behind it. Spencer discusses the types of monologues, and how they have to have a reason if they are going to work. So my question is, why did Cheo decide to start talking aloud to no one, or rather to the audience? It just doesn’t make sense to me. Which is why I really enjoyed “The Janitor.” It was just as provoking and colorful, and there was a reason behind Sam’s monologue: He was imagining what he would say if he got to speak at a National Conference on Youth. The situation Sam was in gave meaning to his monologue, and gave it a logical base. In “Gas” the situation had meaning also, gas is obviously connected to the fighting in Saudi Arabia, which is further cemented at the end when the pump leaks blood, but there is no reason, no motivation for him to start talking aloud, and for me that takes away from the performance. That being said, I think that performances like these, where there is really only one character delivering a monologue, the success of it really hinges on the ability of the actor portraying the character, and if they can create a dynamic and interesting scene alone.
ReplyDeleteLacey Naumann
The Janitor is a direct monologue that has the main character, Sam, talk to the audience and talks about losing his youth, only to be cut off by Mr. Collins. The dialogue between both characters can signify the difference between social class and race, topics the author of the monologue, August Wilson, would write about. Gas by Jose Rivera is a monologue that talks about a gas attendee’s inner frustrations about his brother going to war for gas, which in the end shows us a spectacle of blood spilling from the gas pump. It’s built as a form of irony and plays on the protest of “Blood for Oil”. Stuart Spencer’s chapter goes into details with what different forms of monologues do and which ones we as playwrights should use for certain occasions. He points out how we should make the monologue have purpose as to not bore the audience, give the monologue some meaning. Jeffrey Hatcher’s chapter goes about how we should format the monologue, in order to make the monologue have a consistent flow for the performance. I liked The Janitor as it’s not completely written as a monologue and gives us a lot of information of the characters without it being too obvious.
ReplyDelete-Luis Alonzo
I knew that monologue meant that one person is going to be talking in a play for a fragment of time, however, I didn’t know that monologues break down into two smaller groups, learning more about direct address and soliloquies, I am able to detect the type of monologues in a play. When Hatcher says “Monologues are the easiest speeches to write and the hardest to justify”, I started to think about plays I have read and there would be a monologue, but I wouldn’t necessarily get why it was there in the first place, until the end of the play. I saw how in ‘The Janitor’, a monologue was being used but for me, the hardest part is telling if it’s a direct address or a soliloquy. I feel like it is mostly a soliloquy because Sam (which I assume is the Janitor) is talking as if he is alone or is talking alone. I thought this was an interesting play because it had a little twist at the end, from the start I thought he was actually a presenter, but he was imagining being in front of a crowd and giving this inspirational speech. While reading ‘Gas’, I saw hoe Cheo was making a direct address monologue to the audience. With all three readings, I feel like creating a monologue is something I don’t want to do in my play but I know I’ll have to at some point in this course.
ReplyDelete-Ilene Guevara
I had always known what monologues were, just a big speech the character gives to express or inform the audience. What I didn’t know was how in depth they were, which ones worked, and what makes them monologues. In my mind they were easy all you had to do was speak to yourself about what you wanted and bam you have a monologue. Reading Hatcher showed me that in order for the monologues to be successful they have to be compelling. They have to be so good that no one will interrupt. Personally watching “The Janitor” didn’t affect me, he was able to be interrupted by his boss, and I wasn’t compelled for him to keep going. Maybe it was his topic, or the way he spoke in a weird southern accent it just didn’t appeal to me. Now with Spencer he breaks them down into two groups seamless and direct address. Something that stumped me with Spencer was how he didn’t like the kind of monologue where the character would deliver to everyone else but the audience. To me it sounds ok, in most plays or shows the actors are not supposed to know they’re in a play. They end up breaking the fourth wall. I just don’t feel as strongly towards this approach as Spencer does and hopefully it is something I can incorporate into my play and prove him wrong.
ReplyDeleteKendra Lara
I personally really enjoyed “The Janitor” and had some specific thoughts regarding the craft of monologue. I think that monologues are so powerful and yet so difficult to write. I used to think that monologues were simple “words” or “thoughts” that a single person said or thought about, but now I realize that monologues are supposed to be very compelling. I personally do like when the character in a play talks directly to the audience just like Sam does, but I also like when the characters act as if they are not in a play with an audience watching them. I like how Spencer discusses the fact that monologues are not supposed to be boring. That they must hold a certain meaning and not just some dialogue thrown out without any actual value or meaning behind it. Overall I enjoyed both plays “Gas” and “The Janitor.” They are both vivid and compelling in their own unique way. A lot of thoughts still lingered my mind after reading both plays. Like Dr. Moreira says, it made me re-vision all of the plays I have written and determine if what I have written is truly compelling and worthy of a play meant to be performed.
ReplyDeleteIvanna Zamudio Trevino
With Hatcher's section, the first quote he pulled from Gram Slaton, "Monologues are the easiest speeches to write and the hardest to justify" (pg 148) kinda convinced me without a second thought onto the conclusion that monologues, soliloquies in particular, are definitely the most natural to write. They are a character's innermost thoughts, and from the way I see it, those are conversations that we all have with ourselves. Like Spencer mentions, "Not all soliloquies have such a contemplative problem to work out" (pg 260), that made me feel even more confident on justifying how, like these inner conversations that we have in our head allow us to vent our frustrations or rant about what's on our mind, so can these monologues do for our characters. Spencer then brought me back to reality at the end of his section, writing "To me, such an unmotivated monologue always strikes me as clumsy exposition" (pg 263). He's definitely right, and so now I (justifiably) have some doubts about the monologue I had in mind for my play, but at the very least I understand that there must be action coming about this dialogue, something to naturally engage the audience and move the action forward in the story. I saw this best in "The Janitor", since Sam is having a direct address to his imaginary audience (therefore, the audience watching the performance) and he's explaining how he's reacting to the stage for the Conference on Youth. We don't know what the actual purpose of the conference is, but through Sam we see what he believes it to be, and therefore what his ideas are that should be delivered to the youth.-Jesse Rocha
ReplyDeleteBefore this, I only had a vague idea as to what a monologue was. I never knew how a monologue could be used to move the story along in a screenplay. The first one I read was “The Janitor” written by August Wilson. It was very beautiful in a way that just makes you feel for the character. Juan Rivera’s “Gas” also tells a story in a way that could not have been told to the audience in any other way. It’s such a useful way to show the audience the inner workings of a character’s psyche. Spencer defines a lot of terms relating to monologues which makes the technical talk a little easier to follow along with. I had been under the impression that direct address, monologues, and soliloquies were all the same until now. I hope to check out the examples he provides soon enough to learn how to write, like anything for this class. I feel as though Hatcher gave more relating to the actual writing of it. He mentions how it can, “answer a lot of the play’s mysteries and dramatic questions.” (p.151) This is a general idea I have to incorporate the use of monologue into my own play, in at least the slightest sense.
ReplyDelete-Gaby Urbano
Hatcher says something in the beginning of this section that I’ve always wondered myself when watching a monologue and that’s “If there’s someone else on stage, why isn’t she interrupting the speaker?” Of course there are certain things that are true in the world of plays or movies that just wouldn’t happen in real life, such a uninterrupted monologues, but I couldn’t help but wonder why some characters, that other wise would have interrupted, simply didn’t. Hatcher goes on to explain that monologues need to give a reason to to be interrupted, this made me look at monologues in a different way, the “monologues” I’ve previously written, never worked because I there was no motivation, it was a speech for the sake of being funny, or dramatic but i now realize that there was no real information that i was putting in the speeches.
ReplyDeleteOut of the two reading I really enjoyed “The Janitor”, this was a perfect representation of what Hatcher was saying about monologues having a purpose. This reading gave a lot of emotion, the janitor in the story had a lot of amazing, insightful things to say about youth. He had a dialect of someone with a lesser education but he was wise with his words. In the end Mr. Collins tells him to finish cleaning because there was an “important meeting” later in that room, mr. Collins not realizing that the janitor also had a lot of important things to say. I liked how, as a reader were misled in the beginning, thinking that the Janitor is actually talking to a room full of youths, and then reality sets in towards the end of the story. I feel that this monologue flows better because the character is speaking to an imaginary audience, but the actual audience is instead slipped into the position of this imaginary audience. So it’s not a long winded speech from one character directly to another, it’s a speech that’s meant to be a speech.
Aisha Teegarden
The monologue is one of the oldest and most potentially effective tools in the playwright’s arsenal. Used correctly, such as in Hamlet or in The Janitor, it can allow the audience to see a character’s deepest thoughts and feelings on matters of humanity, existence, life, and the human condition. When used as a direct address, like in Gas, it can also be used as a mouthpiece for a character to discuss a social condition or theme which is central to them and the story. Spencer is correct, however, when he points out that monologues are the easiest to write and the hardest to have matter — not all soliloquies are Hamlet, or have such a deep and philosophical matter which can be —or even deserves to be — talked about at length, nor is it usually quite so natural as in The Janitor. A direct address, which ‘shifts’ the fourth wall and has a character directly address the audience in order to communicate their innermost desires in a straightforward manner, can work, but I feel that if not used correctly it can be very jarring and take the audience out of the play. But when used best, the monologue, the soliloquy, and/or the direct address can be some of the most memorable and effective parts of a play, or even the centerpiece of an entire work. I think, however, that an author must be careful not to make them just a mouthpiece for their views — a speech must fit the character who is giving it and be an expression of their wants and feelings, not just a soapbox for the author. This is a trap that is all too easy to fall into, especially when writing long paragraphs about war or youth or death — your own views may bleed into the character’s own. This is why characters should be firmly realized and fleshed out, so that you can understand their voice before you make them speak it.
ReplyDeleteNathan Phillip