The Woman In Black Play Analysis

Stephen Mallatratt’s adaption to play of “The Woman in Black” portrays the story of a man named Mister Kipps, who is a solicitor who has been sent to an abandoned home in the East of the country in order to collect the legal papers of a recently deceased woman. However, the audience learns that the woman living in Ell Marsh House was haunted by a spirit known as The Woman in Black. Being based in the turn of the previous century, the play tackles the themes of how the fear of the unknown can transform a man of science into a man fearful of the dark and every single creek; and how the concept of revenge can cause an embittered woman to seek vengeance and claim the thing she lost: Children. The play is set during the time where superstition was surpassed by science and where a rational explanation was being required for how everything occurs but how science can be destroyed by the unexplainable…

     The other view that Glaspell shows in this play is a sympathy that the reader grows for the women. How they are forced to follow the men. Like when they are asked to get close to the fire, they do it even though Mrs. Peters

n 1619 a Dutch ship brought 20 slaves to America and it took nearly 240 years for slavery to end in 1865. In the absence of rights or freedom, my ancestors were put to work growing anything from cotton to tobacco. For centuries, my people fought for equality. Although we are “free” the fight has still remain. As a black women raised in America, I was hit with some harsh realities at a very young age.

Richard Gremel’s original comedic play, The Mysterious Murder at Manchester Manor (TMMMM) premiered at the Vail Theater of the Arts. This show was directed by Richard Gremel himself, and the cast was Empire High School's Advanced Drama class. This play report will emphasize the performance of an individual actor, Emily Gates (portraying Nancy Waters), under a rubric of six traits: movement, believability, beats & intentions, subtext & inner monologue, physical score of action (PSA), and overall performance.

Black women’s bodies have always been seen as different. They are deemed as exotic and highly sexual because of the protruding nature and curvaceous shape of their hips, butts, and breast. An example of this exoticism and ridicule can be traced back to the early 1800s. Sarah Baartman, also known as the “Hottentot Venus” became an object of fascination, degradation, and humiliation. Her features were not foreign to Khoisan Women. However, the Europeans who kidnapped her and the people who went to view her body as an exhibit could not believe how big her butt, breast, and hips were. Sarah did not fit into the white standardized image of the body, so her body was seen was unnatural and even un-human. One online magazine writer asserts that, “what

Susan Glaspell’s one-act play, Trifles, weaves a tale of an intriguing murder investigation to determine who did it. Mrs. Wright is suspected of strangling her husband to death. During the investigation the sheriff and squad of detectives are clueless and unable to find any evidence or motive to directly tie Mrs. Wright to the murder. They are baffled as to how he was strangled by a rope while they were supposedly asleep side by side. Glaspell artfully explores gender differences between men and women and the roles they each fulfill in society by focusing on their physicality, their methods of communication and vital to the plot of the play, their powers of observation. In simple terms, the play suggests that men tend to be assertive,

Susan Glaspell’s one-act play covers issues regarding female oppression and patriarchal domination. The play still exists as a fascinating hybrid of murder mystery and social commentary on the oppression of women. When Margaret Hossack was charged with the murder of her sixty year old husband John, the man she had been married to for thirty three years. Killed by two blows to his head with an ax, John Hossack was thought to be a cold mannered and difficult man to be married to, but he didn’t deserve his

Our Town by Thornton Wilder is a play that a first glance appears to be dull and quite ordinary play but if analyzed is a complex tragedy with a deep meaning. It is set in a small town in New Hampshire called Grover’s Corners, in the early 1900s, with a population of about 2,000 people. It is enforced throughout the play that the town is not extraordinary and very routine. This foundation is what highlights the overall message that the play conveys; death is inevitable, life is short and always taken for granted. The play also includes many plain characters, one of which is a woman named Emily Webb. She is not a extravagant character, rather undeveloped, but has a significant role in being the tragic hero.

The performance space was in a cafetorium and the stage was on the smaller side. The back of the stage was set up as if it was an old abandon graveyard, with dead trees, old crumbly headstones, and a large black entry gate. Then when it was time for the scene set in and out of the house they had movable walls, and door set on wheels. This gave the illusion that we were now indoors or outside of the house depending on the scene. When we were inside they had furniture such as tables, chairs, and a couch. When we were outside they had trees, bushes, and dead plants. The lighting of the play was on the darker side to help create the Addams Family come to life. The loss of the scenery would have completely destroy the whole story.

One of the most important aspects that Sharon Sullivan highlights in her article about the play is how its surrealism allows for the focus to be on the women, and not the killings. “Clements decentres the act of murder by focusing on the experiences and actions of the women before and after death, emphasizing their individuality and the possibility of redemption.” (Sullivan, 68) The film, however, nullifies any attempt by the play to humanize these women, for it cuts out the witty dialogues between the women, portraying them only as they are represented in the media, as alcoholics, prostitutes, and victims. The movie places the murder and Rebecca, Aunt Shadie’s Daughter, at the center of the plot line and completely erases the side stories of the murdered aboriginal women. While the screenplay is also written by Marie Clements, it dehumanizes the women by stripping them of their identity and turning their stories back into a classic Hollywood horror

In history, women have always struggled to gain equality, respect, and the same rights as men. Women had had to endure years of sexism and struggle to get to where we are today. The struggle was even more difficult for women of color because not only were they dealing with issues of sexism, but also racism. Many movements have helped black women during the past centuries to overcome sexism, racism, and adversities that were set against them. History tells us that movements such as the Feminist Movement helped empower all women, but this fact is not totally true. In this paper, I will discuss feminism, the movements, and its "minimal" affects on black women.

The movie, The Woman in Black, directed by James Watkins and the novel, The Woman in Black, written by Susan Hill both portray the elements of gothic literature; although the movie uses gothic literature better than Hill’s novel. There are many elements of gothic literature like castles, the supernatural, wild nature, sublime, metonymy, emotional intensity, confinement, the past, woman in distress, etc... The movie, The Woman in Black, by Susan Hill portrays a more happy ending. In the ending of the movie Arthur and his son, Joseph, end up being with his mother and Arthur’s ex-wife. The very last scene of the movie (scene 16) the woman in black, Jennet Humfrye, show her face.

Our Town is a rather unorthodox production. Most playwrights want to go for realism and detail, with huge scene sets or intricate scene changes. Not this one. In Our Town the author (Thornton Wilder) strives to create a play which does not need to rely on scenery and detail, but visualization and the investment of the audience. In this way there is nothing to distract from the core message or plot of the play. What this play does take to it’s advantage are sound effect; with the lack of props or scenery the sound effects give us the perfect amount of imagery to go on. Now within this script there are several directors in which have taken the play and made it their own. Out of three of the plays being: NBC's 1977 representation, PBS’s 1989 representation, and PBS’s 2003 representation. From these three representations one of theme most suitably gets a grasp of what Wilder was going for; simplicity, relatability, and imagery. PBS’s 2003 representation best defines what wilder's vision of his great play was.

One of the most vital parts of putting on a play is a director who will provide an understandable, and watchable performance. This play was a much easier play to put on as it is based on a classic novel by Harper Lee. From the audiences point of view, the director clearly understood the novel. He gave a very well adapted stage version of the book, however he didn't rely on the audience having read the book, he also created a whole new story through different techniques and fresh ways of telling a story. As a person who has read the book and was a fan of it, and Harper Lee I personally thought that he did it justice and filled some large boots. The director employed very subtle and yet effective staging techniques during certain scenes that required a different atmosphere. Some examples of these techniques were during the scene between Scout and Atticus near the beginning of the play. Here the staging was very central, this provided a sense of a close relationship between the characters. Also, a small inclusion of a chair, or a light immediately makes the scene seem more like a home, and the audience immediately have a different expectation of the scene, for example if an armchair is introduced to the stage then the audience expect a scene at home, however if a desk and computer is introduced then the audience expects a scene at work or in a study and therefore the scene will have a completely different atmosphere.

The setting of the play which takes place in the early twentieth century has established the theme that women have been looking down by men. ‘Trifles’ that is used as the title of the play has further foreshadowed the theme of the play in which discrimination of women will happen in the play. During the investigation of Mr Wright’s death, the men that involved in finding out the murderer have despised