Night, Mother

“Will Jesse kill herself?” is definitely the most obvious choice for the MDQ, however I don’t think it’s the most interesting one. Jesse spends the duration of the play trying to convince Mama what she needs to do, why it’ll be okay and why it is her final decision. I think an effective alternative would be, “Will Jesse be able to convince Mama that life will go on after she’s gone?” This question isn’t answered as directly by the text, but takes more analyzing from the reader, and makes it very important to pay attention to details. Jesse begins the play with full disclosure, telling Mama she intends on killing herself, saying directly, “I’m going to kill myself Mama.” With that, she continues to elaborate on everything she has prepared for Mama so that she can continue to live her life. Jesse describes how she called the milkman, restocked the hard ware drawer, made a list of birthdays so her Mama wouldn’t forget them and even directions on exactly how to proceed after she does the deed. Mama resists in a heartbreaking manner, trying to do everything to convince her to stay…cleaning up, and making her hot chocolate, saying, “….of course I’ll make you a caramel apple.” In the final stages of the play, Mama gets desperate and agrees when Jesse screams, “I should’ve just left you a note!” It’s suspenseful and put me on edge, reading Mama’s reactions. This question is answered at the end, after Jesse shots herself, because we see her beginning to go about her life the exact way Jesse had planned it out. This question is equally as relevant as the obvious MDQ, however, its answer is dependent on a much larger amount of the text, making it a better option. 

Thoughts on Trifles

I think that this is an interesting and unique proposal, given the nature of the play. Since such an important part of Trifles are the different items that the women find, it’d create a very different atmosphere to have the neutral shapes and colors as opposed to elaborate props and period costumes. Based on the stylized nature of this proposal, a lot of the smaller themes that could easily be overlooked would become more prominent. The first of these themes that comes to my mind is never to overlook the smaller things-the subtle details-because these will tell you most about almost any individual in any given situation. Another theme that would gain prominence by removing elaborate design aspects is the male over female dominance that takes place within this play. If the men weren’t so busy looking for forensic evidence, and were actually listening to what the women were saying, they would have found their answer. I think this way of doing the play would be interesting to watch and would give the show a much more modern and contemporary vibe than if it was actually taking place in an abandoned farmhouse.

However, it would also loose some of its eerie nature by NOT having a detailed environment surrounding the action of the play.  For example, while Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are discovering different neglected things, they come across a half-finished quilt. Apparently Mrs. Wright “knotted” the quilt, and the two women allude to this technique various times in the text, which the audience can parallel with the fact that Mrs. Wright’s husband was hung by a rope. I think that having visuals such as the rope and the knotted quilt add emphasis to these moments, so in a minimalistic version of this performance they’d have to make sure that moments such as these, within the text, don’t get overlooked since there aren’t specific props to make them notable.

I could visualize Trifles as an ultra stripped-down production, as long as it was performed in a way that emphasized the important moments between the two main females having to do with material things. It’d definitely give the production a more contemporary spin, and I think that the audience would probably notice more in the text than they would have otherwise. 

Reflection on Overtones

The inner selves, Hetty and Maggie, can always hear each other. While Margaret and Harriet are conversing, Maggie and Hetty have their own dialogue going on, a dialogue that the reader could argue is the “true” version of what these two women are actually thinking. With the very first interaction between Margaret and Harriet, Maggie and Hetty directly address each other. Hetty says, “That’s a lie.” and then Maggie says, “I’d bite you if I dared.” This is the first of many instances when these two speak directly to each other. In the world of Overtones, the reader sees that Margaret and Harriet can address each other and hear their own alter egos, but they cannot hear the other woman’s “dark” side. The reader knows this, because Gerstenberg states it directly in the stage directions. The director and actors would have to block the show so these relationships transferred from stage to the audience perspective. I think these relationships could definitely be less clear from an audience perspective because you’d have to pick it up on your own, as opposed to having it explicitly stated to you. There is a moment when it looks like Hetty may break out of this convention (when she heads to answer the phone), however Harriet wins over and the pattern remains consistent.

I think it’s interesting that the women’s “cultured” sides are the petty, dishonest portions of their personalities. Since it’s the early nineteen hundreds, this is how women were required to act. They had to closet their true feelings in order to appear proper and cultured. However, from the perspective of the modern day women, I think that the “primitive” sides of each woman are actually their truer personalities, so it’s odd to me that Gerstenberg chose to make their solid forms the “cultured” versions of themselves instead of vice versa.