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- Reading responses must be AT LEAST 200 words.
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- Reading responses are due by midnight on the night PRIOR to our discussion of the required reading.
I found the play “The Man Who Couldn’t Dance” to be confusing at first because I didn’t know what was going on but by the middle I figured it was about two people who were in a relationship and fell out of it and now the other one is married and has a kid. I particularly liked the part where Eric says “Could you hold me?” on page 89, and following that Gail walks up to him and she puts her head on his chest and she gets him to start dancing after he said he couldn’t. I thought that was beautiful and it shows how the conflict is resolved. I like how Spencer defines conflict on page 58, “Conflict is a thing (or person) which prevents a character from getting what he or she wants. (We could call this “dramatic conflict” but here we’ll simplify it to just “conflict.”) I also like the views Spencer has on internal and external conflict. I know that for the play I’m writing I want my character to have mostly internal conflict as well as external conflict. I also like how Spencer says that conflict is NOT and argument, and I agree with that. I feel like conflict is more about obstacles (either internally or externally) that characters have to overcome to get what they want.
ReplyDeleteIlene Guevara
When reading "The Man who Can't Dance" I believe we spoke about it before in class which ruined the subtext for me. I understood his problem and the subtext. Going further into conflict and seeing the strain between Gail and Eric made the play very interesting. I was able to feel his sorrow of not being able to have a future with Gail. Of not having Elisabeth as his own. That inner conflict he had with himself having his feelings for Gail, then the external of having Marie and using her as a cover up which isn’t fair to her. While reading spencer the description conflict was confusing, as one would think conflict is fighting. Then reading about Marie and Alia made everything clearer. That conflict doesn’t have to be violent; it can be loving and protective. That’s what I interpreted from the reading. With the possibilities of conflict also being with objects there are worlds of plays that can be uncovered and can be picked up from other plays and scenes. The ugly stepsisters conflict was with the shoe. It was stopping her from marrying the price since it wasn’t the right size. Being able to understand the different kinds of conflicts can help tremendously in the upcoming plays.
ReplyDeleteKendra Lara
I think that Spencer’s chapter on conflict has been possibly the most useful one so far, and not just for playwriting but for all sorts of creative writing. His very brief definition of conflict as “that which prevents a character from getting what he or she wants” ( Spencer 59) really sums up the whole idea. Without conflict, there is really no point to the play, the character can just do whatever they want, which is just boring. This goes back to the first article we read for class, Marsha Norman’s “On Playwriting.” Norman discusses that people go to see plays because we want to see people face the same obstacles we face, we want to see people struggle and overcome, and that is why conflict is so necessary to the plot of a play. In “The Man Who Couldn’t Dance” we see this. The play would have been pointless if Gail and Eric had just chatted about Gail’s new daughter and parted ways. They still love each other, want each other, which is why they stay in the attic instead of going back downstairs, but are held back by their own internal conflicts and the fact that Gail is married. This is both internal and external conflict, and it’s what makes the play into something worth watching.
ReplyDeleteLacey Naumann
"The Man Who Couldn't Dance" shows an interesting conflict in that Gail and Eric both want each other but also can't have each other. It's full of bittersweet longing and regret, but it's also about a secret romance that's still alive. The conflict is complex in that it involves all these opposing desires, sometimes within the same person, but it's also simple and relatable, giving this classic story of two ex-lovers poignancy. There’s really nothing quite like two lovers who can’t be with each other. That conflict is instantly recognizable to all of us and insanely addicting. We all have a show that we watched because we were drawn to a will they/won’t they relationship. “The Man Who Couldn’t Dance” brings out a lot of the pain and anguish that exists within that dynamic. It takes the relationship somewhere dark, but it is when all the obstacles are there that makes the eventual acquiescence all the more alluring. I think it’s because that makes it real – having obstacles in the way and so much to lose make it hard to deny that love’s existence. That’s why conflicts, and especially this particular kind of conflict, are so captivating. They make plays matter to us.
ReplyDelete- Rodin Grajo
Stuart Spencer describes conflict as not just people arguing with each other in plays, but he better called it as a structural device, described as an action. In reality, conflict is known as a concept that prevents a character from getting what he or she wants. Emotions are sometimes looked at as conflict but in reality, they aren’t. An example of this is in the play The Man Who Couldn’t Dance by Jason Katnis. During the play, you don’t get any sense of emotions coming from the character, just on their actions. The conflict is mostly focused on their past relationship and mostly within Eric, feeling ashamed for leaving Gail and coming back. It’s through his and her dialogue that shows the conflict between them, Eric’s goal being with Gail but Gail saying it’s too late. There isn’t a cry of passion or yelling out their feelings, based on the presentation I saw, it was a calm conversation, even more evident as the play had a sleeping baby so it had to keep a consistent quiet tone. The conflict lies within the dialogue of the characters, which reflects what Spencer was trying to convey in his piece, that the conflict doesn’t need to be a spectacle of emotion, just a clear goal that a character wants but can’t have.
ReplyDelete-Luis Alonzo
I like that Spencer breaks down the different types of conflict and introduces it with an example from, yet another one of his students who was unhappy with the way their scene turned out. It’s easy to forget how conflict doesn’t have to be just people shouting at each other on the stage. There’s a lot more to it, and as Spencer says on page 59, “Conflict is that which prevents a character from getting what he or she wants.” After reading and watching “The Man Who Couldn’t Dance”, I still couldn’t bring myself to form a strong opinion on whether I enjoyed it or not. I made the mistake (cause I’m an idiot) of watching it while following along in the book. This made me feel this weird lack of the author’s voice in the play and missing the emotion in the script. Anyway, once you realize the conflict of Eric wanting Gail back and Gail being unavailable, you begin thinking about how much deeper this goes. Eric reveals more about why he lost Gail in the first place, and the audience is left feeling bitter-sweet with how the play ends. It almost feels that once the shouting ends, the real conflict comes out.
ReplyDelete-Gabriela Urbano
I like Spencer’s definition of conflict and how he states, since the beginning, that it is not when “people are going to each other.” I would rather use the external conflict instead of the internal conflict. I remember from previous chapters in which Spencer uses soliloquies from Shakespeare when referring to a character having an inner conflict, such as Hamlet. I think that is a good example for that type of conflict, and I do not think I would use that methods. My favorite would be the indirect external conflict in which my character wants something (which I am still trying to figure out) and where the other character does not let her do that for their own reason.
ReplyDeleteThe Man Who Couldn’t Dance was a really sad ten-minute play. I read it and I understood that the conflict between these two characters was still things from the past, when they were together. I think that both Gail and Eric wanted to prove each other how happy they are. Gail has a family and Eric has a new girlfriend, but its all a show. At the end, they embrace each other to pretend that is their lives, but it isn’t. I liked the part where Eric breaks down and starts talking about how the fact he couldn’t dance was harming their relationship, as if he was holding her back and dint really let her enjoy the life she could have had and that’s why he let her go. Still, I didn’t like the acting of the video, but I figured it was a high school competition, so makes sense.
Paulina Longoria
This week's reading on Spencer brought up a beneficial analysis on Conflict and how it can be utilized in our playwriting. For me, I appreciated the barebones description of conflict being an obstacle in the way of a character's action, since it allows a lot of potential for creating scenarios in which literal external factors, perhaps not even relating to the characters, can create tension without an interaction amongst them, and becomes like a fun challenge to write within. Reading "The Man Who Couldn't Dance" was a bit of a roller coaster for me. I didn't like Eric initially since he came across as way too pedantic, speaking in convoluted terms in order to explain to Gail that he had intimacy issues, but after reading his line, "I couldn't act correctly in social situations. I couldn't sacrifice truth for a relationship," (pg 88) it started to make sense why he was presented in this light. In line with Spencer's description of internal conflict, Eric is (literally) telling the audience the crux of his inner dilemma, that he can't really connect and understand what Gail wants from him in a relationship, and as such he's come to be defensive and antagonistic towards her now that he's unable to go back and try again since she's married and is a mother (acting as external conflicts).-Jesse Rocha
ReplyDeleteI very much liked 'The Man Who Couldn't Dance'. It was an excellent portrayal of the conflict and buried tensions which can exist between two people who used to be in a relationship, and how every conversation between them is a little like a minefield. The slow unraveling of the tension that caused their relationship to fail is great, and shows how you can create conflict and excitement in a story with just two characters interacting. If you know your characters and their history together, you can craft an interesting and compelling narrative simply from exploring that history. Making a character acknowledge something about themselves as Eric did is just as effective a conclusion as a Shakespeare play in which, say, everyone dies. The buildup of tension (why did their relationship fail) and the resolution (because Eric can't dance, and everything that implies) are what make this play work, and feel satisfying to an audience. This ties into Spencer's point about conflict. Conflict is what drives any story forward, and it is at the heart of any play, especially a ten-minute play. 'The Man Who Couldn't Dance' is an excellent example of how to craft, build up, and resolve a conflict in the space of ten minutes while tying up all loose ends and providing a satisfying conclusion.
ReplyDeleteNathan Phillip
I really liked how Spencer discusses conflict and goes in-depth about explaining it and how you can incorporate it in your plays. For me, I think that conflict is perhaps the most important element in any type of writing, especially plays. Without conflict, you have no interesting tension moment, no action, and chances are that your audience will get bored. No one likes to go see a play with no action or no tension between the characters. For me, reading any type of story that has no conflict is worthless. You could basically predict what will happen in the story. A conflict must be the center of the plot.
ReplyDeleteThe Man Who Couldn’t Dance was an interesting and sad play. I really liked the title though. I also liked that this play had an inner conflict between the characters and their past. I believe that both characters from the play, Eric and Gail wanted each other to know how happy they were. Although I must point out that I enjoyed watching the play being performed. I can definitely say that watching it and reading it has some huge differences. The actors must do a good job with the stage directions and portrayal of emotions since the audience don’t have the script in front of them.
Ivanna Zamudio Trevino