Play Analysis

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Conflict

• The basic conflict is learning to heal from trauma.The opposing forces are Wallace versus his grief.
• Wallace is the main character involved in the conflict. Wallace is motivated by his desire to be loved and understood.
  • “I should dwell on the future. Dwelling on the past is hopeless” (pg 36)
  • “You came back” (pg 36)
  • “I mean my mother deserts me for whatever me for whatever reasons, but she almost made me lose the one girl I’ve ever really loved” (pg 38)
• Wallace doesn’t know how to but must deal with his mother’s suicide. He feels unloved by the woman how was suppose to love him the most and he spends the rest of the play looking for a replacement.
• The conflict begins in scene 2 when Wallace’s mother kills herself.
• Most important steps of conflict
  • Mother kills herself
  • Wallace kisses Victoria
  • Wallace kisses Sarah
  • Breakdown to Psychiatrist
  • Wallace sleeps with Lili
  • Wallace kisses Nina
  • Wallace cheats on Nina
  • Nina comes back
• The point of highest tension is when Nina comes back for Wallace after he says that he cheated on her.

Emotions:

• The overall emotional tone of the show is loss. It is Wallace being lost because he doesn’t know how to deal with his mother’s death. It is the the loss of love and Wallace looking for it in other women. It is the loss of sanity because Wallace isn’t properly dealing with his depression.
• Wallace’s primary emotion is sadness.
• Tracking Wallace’s emotions
  • Sadness and confusion
  • Hope with Victoria and then disappointment that she leaves
  • Sadness and anger
  • Hope with Sarah then into anger after she rejects him
  • Anger, sadness, confusion
  • Hope with Lili
  • Love with Nina
  • Scared with Wendy
  • Sadness with Nina
  • Hope and love when Nina comes back
• Primary emotions of other characters
  • Nina- hope
  • Grandmother- sadness

Entertainment:

• Aspects of Drama
  • Choice and arrangement of incidents or events
  • The kind of language that the characters use
  • Ideas or opinions that the play asserts
  • Attributes and peculiarities of the characters
  • Movements
  • Music or other sounds
• Use of Storytelling
  • Sentimentality
  • Humor
    • Sarcasm
  • Breaking of the fourth wall
  • Flashback
• The concept of trauma and how love can be a healing force is the most interesting to me. I think that other people will strongly relate to wanting to be known and loved by someone.

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• Play’s major dramatic question
  • How does one heal from trauma?
• Wallace’s goal is to find love in a woman that his mother was suppose to give him.
• The most important parts of the previous action are the mother’s struggle with depression that we as the audience does not have the chance to see.
• The mother’s death in a way is a foreshadow of how the women in Wallace’s life are temporary until he encounters Nina.
• The inciting incident is the mother’s death. It comes in scene 2 at the very beginning of the play after Wallace delivers an impassioned speech about how much he loves his mother. The mother causes it by deciding to kill herself. Wallace, Wallace’s father(who we never meet) and Wallace’s grandmother are the people directly affected by it.
• The following complications are everytime that Wallace has an encounter with a girl
  • Victoria rejecting him after his first kiss because he said “I love you”
  • Sarah rejecting him after he kisses her because he moved too fast
  • Sleeping with Lili and gaining confidence with women
  • Actually getting together with Nina and finding a girl he genuinely cares about
  • Sleeping with Wendy because he is scared of losing Nina
  • Wallace confrontation with his own trauma in the form of a flashback
  • Nina coming back to Wallace
• The most important complications would be the scenes with Victoria, Sarah, his mother and Nina.
• The climax of the play is when Wallace tells Nina that he cheated on her. It happens in the third to last scene. Wallace causes it be cheating on Nina and both of them are affected by it. Wallace thinks that she is going to leave him but she surprises him by coming back and forgiving him.
• The resolution is when Wallace is speaking to his grandmother and decides that he cannot let his mother’s suicide dictate his decisions anymore.
• Scene 10 divided into action units
  • Sarah reads Wallace’s essay
  • They talk about the essay
  • Wallace offers something to Sarah but she rejects it
  • Wallace goes and gets one himself
  • Sarah snoops around his room and is looking at his mother’s photo when he comes in
  • Wallace tries to set a romantic mood
  • Wallace kisses Sarah (climax)
  • She rejects him and they fight
  • Sarah leaves

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Individual Characteristics:

• Description of Wallace in the play
  • “Alright, so I hate my body. I’m too skinny” (pg 32)
• Wallace is defined by
  • “If anyone can, Wallace, I’m sure it’ll be you” (pg 10)
  • “What’s wrong? You’re too fast for me Wallace. That’s what’s wrong” (pg 16)
  • “I didn’t smile all that much during most of my childhood. I’m taking lessons now, trying to learn again, but it takes time” (pg 18)
  • “I was going to bring a guitar and maybe serenade you, but I can’t sing. And I don’t play the guitar” (pg 24)
  • “Because my system didn’t work” (pg 25)
  • “I should dwell on the future. Dwelling on the past is hopeless” (pg 36)
  • “You came back” (pg 37)
• Wallace’s goal is to find the love he lost when his mother died.
• Wallace is a boy and this is important because the entire play revolved around his heterosexual relationships with women and his connections to the Oedipal complex.
• Wallace’s age changes throughout the show. We see him at age 6,13,16 and 18.
• Wallace is a skinny boy. He has never been particularly big and this is a big point of insecurity for him.
• No, but in my interpretation Wallace wears glasses.
• Wallace speaks with his hands a lot and is very expressive when he gets excited about things. His mannerisms change as he ages. He goes from a very noodley and floppy kid, to someone who is much more reserved and hunched over as an angry teen. As an eighteen year old, he is calmer so he stands up a little straighter but is still quiet.
• Wallace’s attitude changes. At first he is a happy go lucky smiling kid. After his mother’s suicide, he is much darker and angier. After he goes to therapy as a sixteen year old, he becomes much calmer and more content with himself although he is still working through issues.
• Wallace is a student for the entire play. He is not defined by his socioeconomic status and seems to be middle class.
• Wallace is Jewish, but he is not strongly affiliated with the religion.
• Wallace’s major emotions are sadness, anger, loss, and contentedness. Any failing of a romantic relationship leads Wallace to think of his mother’s death and makes him angry and sad. His grandmother and Nina are the only characters who make him feel loved and appreciated.
• Wallace learns his actions through each encounter with women. He was not a very action oriented person until he met Victoria who taught him that he needed to take action in order to get the girl. Sarah taught him the exact opposite lesson. Lili taught him that it is okay to take chances again. Nina taught him what love feels like and how to stay loyal.
• Wallace’s inability to deal with his trauma is because he feels that he has no one to talk to. His grief festers and grows because he does not know how to talk about it. We see this in his breaking of glass.
• Wallace is the main thread between all of the characters. His most important relationships are to Nina and his mother.

Character Functions:

• Wallace is the play’s protagonist.
• Wallace’s mother would be the play’s antagonist.
• Nina is his confidant towards the end.
• Wallace does not have a foil.
• The grandmother is the raisonneur. The grandmother stays by Wallace’s side and although he doesn’t entrust her with all of his feelings, she is always willing to listen. At the end of the show she reminds him that he must take responsibility for his actions and stop blaming everything on his mother.
• There are no utilitarian characters.

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[expand title=”Director’s Vision Pages 85-86 (1-13)”]

• The title immediately sets up what the play is going to be about. Wallace and his relationships with women.
• Every monologue that Wallace has gives an insight into how he view women. We see him move from love to hate to the resolution that women desert to an acceptance of them as a resource for love.
  • “That’s why I love Mommy.” (pg 7)
  • “…but then I see her. She’s laughing at me. She’s inside the glass, laughing at me.” (pg 11)
  • “There are no pictures of me inside my mother’s womb, but her turtleneck is close enough.” (pg 19)
  • “I can’t win. They desert. Women desert.” (pg 25)
  • “I should dwell on the future. Dwelling on the past is hopeless.” (pg 36)
• The play’s subject is love.
• The play’s theme is “love can help to heal trauma”
• The entire play is connected through how love helps to heal trauma. We see that as soon as Wallace let’s love into his life and the cycle of abandonment is stopped by Nina, trauma can begin to heal.
• The playwright hasn’t written anything else.
• The playwright wrote the play in order to deal with the trauma of his mother killing herself when he was young.
• Most researchers and critics are excited by seeing the play and are often touched by its heartfelt message of what love can do for a person when they are hurting.
• The time comments on how mental illness was viewed during the 70s and 80s. It also focuses on how big Freud’s theories were in the 70s and 80s with the use of psychoanalysis.
• Freud is the biggest influence on the play.
• Stephen Sondheim was a huge fan of the play when it first came out and was a huge proponent for a movie version to come out. Critics were big fans of the play considering that it was written by an eighteen year old student.
• The universality of the play is found in our desire to loved and known by another person. All we want is someone who will stay in our lives and provides us with stability.
• The study of play will lead me to direct the play in a realistic acting style and really appeal to the relatable quality of the piece.

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