Our Country's Good : How Does Theatre Convey the Exploration of Identity ?

of the play. I will also explore the role the common man plays in the

Functionalist Erving Goffman studies the sociological approach of Dramaturgy in his book ‘The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life’ (Goffman, 1959), he built his theory based on earlier work completed by Kenneth Burke. However there are distinct differences in features of the theory between Burke and Goffman as Burke believed that life was in fact a literal

Wertenbaker’s play Our Country’s Good aimed to push the boundaries of theatre and deliver a political message as potent now as it was in the 80’s when the play was written. Thatcher was in power in the 1980’s and it was her attempt to abolish the arts that ironically inspired a huge swell in the writing of many political plays which drew attention to the dire situation Thatcher was leading Britain into. The main message Wertenbaker aimed to convey was the redemptive power of the arts, highlighting their ability to heal even the most broken society, like that of Botany Bay in 1789, or

With reference to the ways Russell presents the theme of social class in the extract and elsewhere in the novel in act one, show how far you agree that there is no escape from the effects of social class for the characters in the play.

In “Good Country People” by Flannery O’Connor, he has many various characters. This specific short story is quite known for its irony within the story. The character’s name explain in vague terms there personality or even what they are not. Many of these characters can be seen in different ways but also be compared to one another. O’Connor gives significance in the characters names is contributed to what they do within the story.

Although it is said that slavery ended on 1865, there is still racial inequity in the system that was designed to protect the people and that system is known as the criminal justice system. After the end of slavery, prison became the new path to provide cheap labor not only for big businesses, but also for plantations and the United States government. It is clear that our problems we face today are from a racial and prejudice perception. We must also look at the history of racism, which can be linked to crime, race, and location. When most think of incarceration, we believe it to be thought of as a positive form of punishment and negative form of punishment. In the play all of the male characters have encountered an experience with being incarcerated.

In Module/Week 8, you will write a 1500-words (about 5–7-pages) essay that addresses one of the plays from the Drama Unit.  A minimum of six citations, including the primary source and at least five secondary scholarly sources, is required for this assignment.  Before you begin writing the essay, carefully read the guidelines for developing your paper topic that are given below.  Review the research paper Grading Rubric to see how your submission will be graded. Gather all of your information, plan the direction of your essay, and organize your ideas by developing a one-page thesis statement, outline, draft, and bibliography for your research paper.  Format the thesis statement and the outline in a single

What is a main theme or idea this play brings up? What does it say about that theme? Use details from the play to provide evidence.

In Flannery O’Connor’s “Good Country People” the author depicts a narrative ironically illuminating the misconception of “good people” conceived through the use of blind clichés. The characters in this short story, specifically two, Mrs. Hopewell and her daughter Hulga, hold stereotypical views of people in their lives, blinding them to reality. When beholden to erroneous perceptions of “good country people,” Mrs. Hopewell and Hulga are duped by the very “people” they respectively consider themselves, unintentionally and intentionally superior to, ultimately resulting to each falling victim to “good country people[s]” true meaning, “simple.”

“Theatre makes us think about power and the way our society works and it does this with a clear purpose, to make a change.”

The looming ‘culture war’ phenomena is not a new one nor a particularly unique one in any history; this mythical ‘culture war’ can found, for example, in the in social history of the 1970’s with white evangelicals fighting more moderate and secular minded reformists, resulting in race riots and abortion clinic bombings. Consequently, because this trend is cyclical, we can see it’s reverberations in modern theater and can see, in many ways, that this current direction of America. It begins with the elimination of nuance. ‘Disagree with me, you’re a fascist’ types the antifa member, ‘I’ll punch you in the face you dirty commie,” retorts the MAGA-hat-clad alt-righter: this has become the height of our political discourse. In the-land-of-do-as-you-please,

On February 21st Friday at 8pm, I went to watch an amazing play called Our Country’s Good which was written by British Screenwriter Timberlake Wertenbaker and directed by Jack Young. It was performed at Jose Quintero Theatre inside of Cynthia Woods Building at University of Houston. The theme of the play was human ability to overcome hardships by uniting and feeling sense of self-worth and hopeful for the future through the power of theatre as it was greatly portrayed through the protagonist and antagonist motivation, performers’ acting, design and lastly but not least the reaction of the audience.

The beginning of my High school career started when I joined the Gresham High School’s Fall Musical “Brigadoon” lighting and sound department. When I joined my whole perspective on theatre changed drastically. I'd never even thought about how these designers and technicians managed to create such interesting concepts that would allow a production to have more than actors reciting lines, it created a mood. After the musical had ended I wanted to become a part of what really makes a production, the backstage crews.

The play creates this “illusion” to ensure that the audience does not lose the tragic implications of this rupture in the class system. This pause prevents Miss Julia and Jean from having enough time to impose their “feelings” on a scene and therefore the audience (11). It is clear that their positions as upper and lower class are no longer straightforward

In this essay, I will be explaining Erving Goffman’s social concept called dramaturgy, primarily focusing on the element of stage theory. I will also incorporate Peter Borger’s social construction of reality within the essay as it also relates to stage theory. I will be describing what these concepts mean it my own words, based off experiences in my own life, research that I have done, as well as using the information that we gathered in class. Then we will be looking at college students as a case study group, where we will go into greater detail to better explain the stage theory concept and how the behavior of college students is significantly dependent upon the stage and location they are in, as well as how they are impacted deeply by society. Some of the information that I will be gathering will come from a non-academic source, which gives a brief descriptive summary of college students and why they make a perfect fit for this stage theory example. Lastly will be an analysis process of the information that I gathered about the stage theory. This process also includes a summary of an academic source that applies a variation of stranger theory and social construction of reality to a similar case study.