tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6592732962507667027.post7031992674140647459..comments2023-01-15T20:31:09.956-05:00Comments on Daily Plays: Miracle Play - by Joyce Carol OatesKristen Palmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07614560879130581868noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6592732962507667027.post-37566914450087085262009-11-02T08:11:31.828-05:002009-11-02T08:11:31.828-05:00thanks for the thoughts. I should have explained ...thanks for the thoughts. I should have explained better I think. Oates builds up to the point of violence, sets up the horror to come and has the characters threatening, bargaining to spare themselves and making the choice to go ahead with it. But the violence itself does not happen on stage. We see and hear about the results of the violence afterwards, so these actions leave marks and are the cause of the subsequent actions of the play. But the act itself is not seen.<br /><br />In this case this is what Oates chose...but, for example, skillful productions of Martin McDonagh's work (and other plays) do put the violence right onstage in service of their productions. Adding to the sum total of the event.Kristen Palmerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07614560879130581868noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6592732962507667027.post-36633182806063510602009-11-01T14:12:20.764-05:002009-11-01T14:12:20.764-05:00First, let me say that I really respect what you a...First, let me say that I really respect what you are doing on this blog. Plays are literature, too, and deserve to be read, not just staged.<br /><br />I have always struggled with the presentation of physical violence on the stage, and your summary of Oates' play, particularly the burning of a character's face with boiling sugar water and the burning alive of two other characters, has reminded me of this personal sticking point. For example, when I first saw KIng Lear staged, I worried beforehand about how the gouging out of Gloucester's eyes would be done and if seeing it would be as powerful, palpable, disturbing as reading it. While violence on the stage is obviously nothing new ( (but ever present from the classical period to the present moment), I think because most all people living today have never known anything but a mediatized existence that it is more difficult to get them/us/viewers to suspend disbelief during scenes of staged violence/murder. Filmed violence seems more real than staged violence. People today don't just want real/realism: they want hyper real, the realest. The theatre can compete in some ways with the "realness" film achieves, but not, at least in my opinion, when it comes to violence. Unless stage actors were to 'really' injure themselves, or unless we were to talk in terms of performance artists who purposely inflict pain on themselves to make a particular point, blood and gore on stage seems interminably difficult to do well, unless its parody. <br /><br />How exactly does someone stage burning another person alive? or scalding someone's face? and do it effectively? I agree with you that this isn't really what theatre does (anymore).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com