A Little Night Music By Stephen Sondheim

In the town of Grover’s Corner Wisconsin, there lies a small farm town with all the small town aspects. The newspaper editor runs the newspaper from his own house as the doctor runs the clinic from his house. The small town being shown through the combination uses of one building, giving off the small town feel, “The town hall and post office combined; jail’s in the basement” (Wilder 4). The younger men have the jobs of delivering the milk and newspapers in the morning. “Joe Juniors getting up so as to deliver the paper” (Wilder 6). In Our Town there is Irony among the fact that the Joe Crowell graduated from the head of his high school class and his college class, then went and died in the war. Throughout the story, the author Thornton Wilder uses mood and tone to really help describe and explain what the play is telling us.

“The matter must be hushed up at any cost. And as for you and me, it must appear as if everything between us were just as it were before –but naturally only in the eyes of the world.” Helmer stated. In this very sentence the author highlighted the standing views on marriage and political views. It is clear that Helmer is not happy with his wife after what she has done and to learn of how she has lied. Helmer is not worried about his marriage and his wife’s feelings, he is worried about what others will think. Through this dialogue in the play it become clear to the audience that what is important in society shouldn’t be. The characters were influence by other around them, others views and perceptions of them. It was shamed upon to have a broken marriage and a deceitful wife. Helmer states, “Before all else, you are a wife and a mother.” Nora replies, “I don’t believe in that any longer. I believe that before all else I am a reasonable human being, just as you are-or, at all events, that I must try and become one.” (Page 1390) Henrik did an amazing job at touching on key points of societies views and did it in such a way that empowers women and the feminist movements. In a time when woman are encouraged to be obedient and act as a second citizen, the author wrote this story out differently. Nora realizes her worth as a woman and understands that her feelings are more than just second best

Our Town is a play written by Thornton Wilder set in a small town known as Grover’s Corners. Wilder conjured the Stage Manager to be a representation to the theme of the play. The theme of universality placing Grover’s Corners in view with the rest of the world. Wilder makes a point to the audience that people have a big impact and influence over the next person, whether they were important or insignificant to that individual’s life. Therefore, the Stage Manager emphasizes on this very viewpoint that the lives of certain people are overlooked so are their influences. The Stage Manager himself is a physical embodiment of Wilders own views and opinions of humans and life itself. Throughout the play, the Stage Manager plays various of roles in order to force the realization to the audience into understanding the importance human life and the influence of others.

A term coined in the 1950s, McCarthyism is the general act of making accusations of treason or subversion without proper regard for evidence. Both Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and George Clooney’s Good Night, and Good Luck explore the theme of McCarthyism through numerous ways using conventions of their text types: respectively a play and a film. Each through characterisation and symbolism, as well as individually through the plays title and narrative style, and the films editing, camera techniques and sound track, the texts delve into the subject constructively through their own unique methods.

Into the Woods is a musical that was written by songwriter, Stephen Sondheim and director, James Lapine. In this musical, several Disney stories are humorously re-told by creatively combining their stories into one interrelated adventure. This show opened on November 5, 1989 and ran 764 performances before this film of the musical was released in 1990. Into the Woods was one of Sondheim’s most popular works in over 25 years. He is known to be the “giant” of musical theatre during his time for such a creative style. Sondheim combines several fairytales to explain what happens in an adult mind after “happily ever after.” Lapine and Sondheim harmonize their theatrical talents of an adult fairy-tale through portrayal of adventure, comedy, tragedy, and reality. Like all Broadway performances and morality, Into the Woods forms pure quality and very little suffering through establishment.

Ibsen wrote this play in 1879. It is a three-act play with prose dialogue. The play takes place in the 19th century in Europe. It is a play about a woman, who struggles to find her own identity. The main point is women need treated as humans and not dolls. Women need to know their place and that they have rights. They also have duties as a wife and mother. As a wife, they need to be trustworthy and as a mother, they need to be role models. As do husbands need to respect their wife and know that, they have their own opinions and titled to them. Women cannot be good wives and role models to their children, if they do not know who they are and what their roles are in life. Ibsen uses the symbolism in his setting to show various

In Our Town, by Thornton Wilder, he invites his readers to consider the positive and negative qualities of life. He is able to convey his views and opinions on the human condition through his use of love and marriage. Wilder’s examination of self-conflict in the decision to marry suggests a pessimistic view on the human experience. Through the self-conflict of Emily and George, Wilder is able to confirm how marriage can be frightening and troubling.

Since a poem is often less than a standard page in length, it is useful to consider similar poems to each other in order to locate a textual echo. The poems “My Little Son” and “To my Beloved”by Morris Rosenfeld both echo themes of struggling familial structure due to the stress and time devoted to working. In all three of these poems the protagonist is conflicted between the amount of work he has to do in order to support his family, and the lack of time he is actually getting to spend with his family.

The plot of this play centered around the family of Alice Sycamore. The Sycamore family includes Alice Sycamore, her parents Penny and Paul Sycamore, her sister and her sister’s husband, Essie and Ed Carmichael, and Grandpa Martin Vanderhof. The family is extremely eccentric to say the least. They are a crazy bunch by many people’s standards. They do things like eat watermelon and cornflakes for dinner, make fireworks in the basement, own a pet snake, and constantly have the house packed with interesting characters. Some of the other characters in the play are Donald and Rheba who work for the Sycamores, the Russian dance teacher of Essie named Mr. Kolenkhov, and the confidant of Paul Sycamore, Mr. De Pinna. Each character is developed with many unique traits, each having their quirks and nontraditional hobbies. Essie has a passion for ballet despite the fact that she is awful after 8 years of

Next character tries to find a way out of her own empty world is Amanda, in the play; she is the mother of two specific children. She has high hopes to marry a wealthy man, but she never finds out who like her need. She lives with a bitter of obsession and paranoia so she has high need for her children, Tom and Laura; she

He has lived in the same house for the last twenty-five years with his wife, Lina Loman. This play shows how fast perceptions of ourselves and others can bring about the ruin of a person. If someone’s life is based on a lie, then eventually the truth will come out and it’ll be too much to endure. I haven’t enjoyed a play so much in a very long time. After I finished watching this play, I was already planning on when I’ll be able to watch this play again in the near future.

Our Town, by Thornton Wilder (first staged in 1938), has proven to be one of the most popular and enduring American plays ever performed (VORK, 2017). For the first time in 1938, the play was performed for a live audience in Princeton, New Jersey (Weinbloom, 2006). The audience did not agree with Thornton Wilders vision for the play. He along with his play was criticized. Many individuals back then thought the play was a complete waste of talent for Mr. Wilder. Miraculously, when the play was performed in New York, the audience were very delighted with the performances in the play.

In the play A Doll House, by Henrik Ibsen, the convention of marriage is examined and questioned for its lack of honesty. The play is set in the late 1800s, which provides the backdrop for the debate about roles of people in society. Ibsen uses the minor character, Dr. Rank, to help develop the theme of conflicts within society. This, in turn, creates connections with the plot. Dr. Rank's function in the play is to foreshadow, symbolize, and reflect upon the truth of life and society and to break down the barrier between appearance and reality.

Sociology teaches that society has naturally produces standards, that people are preferred to follow. Gender, arguably is basis from which all following norms branch from. Pierre Bourdieu writes in his boot “Masculine Domination”, “The social world constructs the body as a sexually defined reality and is the depository of sexual defining principles of vision and division” (Pierre 11). These divisions produce gender roles that are based on the patriarchy. Traditionally, gender roles states that men are the leaders in society and the family, while women play submissive role in raising children and caring for the immediate needs for the family. However, William Shakespeare’s Olivia, in the Twelfth Night, and Oscar Wilde’s Gwendolen, in the comedy, The Importance of Being Earnest narrative seemingly contradict orthodox gender norms. Olivia and Gwendolen both live in a social construct based on male dominance. Yet both of them upends this norm and play dominant role in both of their relationships.

There are two other major themes in this play, femininity and masculinity. Nora has often been given the title of one of modern drama’s first feminist heroines. She breaks away from a dominating and opressive marriage. Ibsen, denied that he had intentionally written a feminist play and preferred to think of it as humanist. This said though, the traditional roles of women and the price of them breaking tradition is a constant thread throughout the play. The men of this play, in many ways, are just as trapped by gender roles as the women. An example of this is the job that Torvald Helmer holds at the bank, chief. The men must be providers and alone must support the entire household. At the end of this play these traditional ideas are put to the test, when Nora leaves and Torvald must care for the children and be their provider.