Little Shop of Horrors is a comedy musical written by Howard Ashman and composed by Alan Menken. It follows the story of a failing floral shop, Mushnik's Skid Row Florists, in the midst of an extremely poor and under thriving Skid Row. In the middle of the owner and employees lamenting over their misfortunes of no costumers and the woes of living on Skid Row, the owner, Mr. Mushnik, decides to close down the shop. Upon hearing this, an employee, Seymour Krelborn, unveils a plant he has been working on that is supposedly exactly what the shop needs to resurface into business. The plant looks like a large venus fly trap and Seymour names it Audrey II after his fellow employee, Audrey, with whom he is secretly in love with. They place it in …show more content…
Seymour accepts and Orin adopts him. At this point, it is becoming difficult for Seymour to provide Audrey II with enough blood to keep him satisfied. He stops feeding it and then proceeds to find out that his plant can talk. It tells Seymour that if he keeps it fed, he will ensure that all of his dreams come true. Eventually, Seymour accepts because he wishes to save Audrey from the abuse of Orin, and the plant ends up eating Orin. Mushnik reveals that the police are investigating Orin’s death and he accuses Seymour. Seymour, in order to protect his innocence, deceives Mushnik and feeds him to Audrey II. Upon this second death, Seymour is feeling responsible and guilty but refuses to destroy the plant because he is convinced it is earning him Audrey’s love. At night, Audrey returns to the shop in order to check on her Seymour. In his absence, Audrey II begins asking her to feed him. He ends up trying to eat her. In an attempt to try to save Audrey, Seymour pulls her out of the plant’s mouth, but she is far too wounded so she asks Seymour to feed her to the plant when she dies. Seymour realizes that the plant came from an unknown planet to conquer earth. In an attempt to stop him, he tries killing the plant, but is unsuccessful. Eventually, he runs into the plant’s open mouth with a machete and is eaten. Due to the play’s urban qualities and the apparent drabness and poorness of Skid Row, and also due to the failing qualities of the
The situations and informal diction or vernacular in the play create an atmosphere of familiarity with the audience, and this familiarity helps the audience to realize that Troy, Rose, and Cory are just like them. Wilson’s technique of drawing the audience in is a method of breaking down social and racial barriers that existed during the time depicted in
Hansberry includes one of the most significant juxtapositions concerning blacks and whites towards the end of the play when Mr. Linder goes to the Younger household. The mere presence Lindner creates a sense of racial prejudice, for he is there to convince the Youngers not to move to Clybourne Park. When talking to the Younger family, Lindner struggles with being straightforward. He tells the Youngers that he is a part of a welcoming committee, and that he is at their home to talk about “what the association calls-(He looks elsewhere)-uh-special community problems” (Hansberry 155). Hansberry’s use of dashes in Lindner’s dialogue shows how he is uncomfortable, and the fact that Lindner is avoiding eye contact with the Younger further emphasizes his incompetence. In addition, Lindner’s use of the word “problem” to describe black presence in a white neighborhood creates a derogatory tone. It connects to the idea many whites had back then, which was the blacks being an inferior race. Hansberry, however, intentionally includes a character like Lindner to prove her point that blacks assimilating towards American culture will only diminish their status even further. When critics read the play, they often wonder about its universality because they
This play had revealed clear view about class tensions and also explaining about the conflicting issues for ethnics in between 1970-1990. Those issues were also the major responsible factors for this Brutal Riots in Los Angeles. “Well, the terrible thing right now, and I don’t know the statistics, but there’s a growing concern in some communities about how rapidly people are sent from school to jail, how quickly they 're put into the criminal justice system. And of course the rapidly growing number
Firstly let us consider conflict. In each act of the play, we see the overpowering desire to belong leading to a climax of conflict
The overall dramatic meaning of this play has been successfully shown by the elements of drama. The
7. What is the purpose of Miller’s comments and explanations throughout the play? If these were omitted, would your understanding of the play been affected? How?
The social climate in the play is very grim. No matter where you are in the play there are always characters who are suffering. This may be understood as the people in the play are representing the Indian Americans who lived on reservations all over America, and most of them went through suffering. Another social climate is the desire to escape there current situation. Eddie does not want to leave his sister alone, but he is tired of living on the reservation that he would rather be dead. Aunt Thelma tells Eddie how life could have been better if she could have escaped, and had a chance at an education. Mike dreams of leaving and being taken care of by his aunt. Even Katherine dreams of leaving the reservation to find a better place for her kids. There were many other social climates such as pain, depression, destructive habits, and lack of role models. There are no real role models in this play that the kids can look up to. Even Aunt Thelma has lost her child, so it is not the best example to live by.
“The themes of the play are Two Trains Running is a political play that makes extended reference to the black power movement and its impact on poor urban communities like the Hill District of Pittsburgh. The issue of continued white oppression of African Americans and the response of the black community during the 1960s is at the foreground of the characters ' experience. The community surrounding the restaurant is undergoing a major redevelopment, probably one which has been precipitated by the social initiatives that came in the wake of the civil rights movement. However, the legal rights and privileges that the African American community won during the 1950s and 1960s do not seem necessarily to extend to impoverished city-dwellers. An underlying sense of tragedy and hopelessness pervades even short-term victories such as the city awarding Memphis thirty-five thousand dollars, since Memphis remains estranged from his wife and has the foreboding..”
The Broadway play “Clybourne Park” is based off the movie and play “The Raisin in the Sun”. It is written by Bruce Norris and was honored with many awards including the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for drama and the Tony Award for best play. Bruce Norris wrote the play by having it pick up right where “The Raisin in the Sun” left off. By doing this, Bruce Norris picks up where the drama was and shows the racial tensions in the 1950’s and 1960’s up until present day. To create this, writer Bruce Norris created a play with only two acts. The first act is based in the late 1950’s and early 60’s right after the war. The second act is based in the same house fifty years apart in the year 2009. By doing this
that the characters' lines are practically the same as to the characters' lines in the play, this in fact is a
the play are ―rich symbol[s]‖ that convey the barriers of a ―racist society‖ (Kenny par. 18). The
shall firstly do a summery of the play and give a basic image of what
Theme – the reason behind why the playwright wrote the play. “Patterns of life”, a slice of reality.
life in the mid to late twentieth century and the strains of society on African Americans. Set in a small neighborhood of a big city, this play holds much conflict between a father, Troy Maxson, and his two sons, Lyons and Cory. By analyzing the sources of this conflict, one can better appreciate and understand the way the conflict contributes to the meaning of the work.
look at both of the aspects of the play. In my piece of writing I