Beneath The Surface Review

Beneath the Surface Review

I think the key message that the play was trying to convey was that mistakes happen all the time. In this case, the purpose of the main character’s “dig” through Earth was to help him learn how to forgive himself and be able to move on with his life.

The opening act of the play started with the main character, Andy, digging his way from Hawaii to Botswana. Over the course of his journey, the audience is introduced to an array of characters that are responsible in helping Andy find his inner peace. Along the way, he comes across a River that echoes back to him, meets a centipede, a school of fish, a group of three ants, and a pet turtle from his childhood. These characters help contrast the main theme of Andy’s solo dig through the ends of the earth in order to find solitude. In addition to Act 1, there is a scene in which Andy is reminded of a haunting image of his past. As a result, the audience is alluded to Andy’s purpose for his solo dig—that he had raped a girl and cannot cope with the idea that he is not a moral person at heart. In Act II, there is a scene in which Andy talks with a pterodactyl about her estranged husband, the brontosaurus. It was an important part of the play because it gave Andy a better sense about the relationships between men and women and his interpretation that he was at fault. Furthermore, there were several flashbacks of Andy with a red-haired woman [who she claimed to have raped her] repeatedly asking him to kiss him and telling him that he was drunk. Her relevance to the plot was stressed when Andy and several characters eat some apples as an allusion to get to the “core” [of the matter, but in this case the earth]. Through his venture into the core, there is a flashback with the girl that leads the audience to believe, for the first time, that Andy could have been in the right. Upon further self reflection, the play concludes with Andy getting out of the core, as he realizes that he cannot blame himself for what had happened in order to be able to move on with his life.

The scene at the “center” of Andy’s journey was his venture into the core of the earth.