Middletown Play Analysis

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Middletown, an ordinary enough sounding name for a town yet it coincides with a not so ordinary play. Right away the play starts off with a public speaker trying to include everyone she could ever think of into her welcoming remarks, which doesn’t seem to be all that strange but when it’s coupled with slightly ridiculous body movements, such as rolling on the floor, it does indeed make for a strange sight. After that, the play continues with a slightly off kilter type of humour where seemingly ordinary citizens say or do rather unusual. Despite the array of unusual things that happen throughout the production there is quite a bit of depth to this script and I think that both the director and the actors handled this balance of humor and depth …show more content…

One actor that I thought was particularly strong was Thomas Toles who played John Dodge. Toles was able to convey great emotion in many different scenes that fit with his character and the way that Dodge was depressed but also still trying to find some kind of meaning in the various tasks that he picked up. Another aspect of Toles’ performance that I really enjoyed was his subtlety. He was able to convey different emotions without making them stand out right at first. For instance, near the beginning of the play when Dodge and Swanson are first getting to know each other, Toles adds in this element to his acting that makes you wonder if he’s interested in her romantically. At first I almost missed the romantic and flirty feelings that were going on between Dodge and Swanson. It wasn’t until they became more obvious, such as the scene at the sink where Swanson has her hand on Dodge’s, that I realized when I looked back I could see that Toles had been showing slight hints that he was indeed interested in her all throughout their scenes …show more content…

She played quite a few different characters including the Public Speaker and the Female Tourist. MacDonell had the difficult task of starting the show with the monologue from the Public Speaker and I thought that she did a great job in giving the correct feeling of the play to the audience and letting us know what exactly we were getting into. She had wonderful physical actions and gestures, such as when she was first walking on stage in a very slow and dramatic walk with music playing in the background and then had perfect timing for giving the signal to cut the music off. MacDonell was constantly moving around the stage during that monologue but it wasn’t distracting at all, in fact I think it added quite a bit to the monologue. For example when she was rolling around on the floor or when she jumped up onto the bench, it added an aspect of physical comedy to the already ridiculous monologue that seems to just go on, and on with no end in sight. Also at the end when she abruptly stands up straight after being bent over the podium and then proceeds to quickly say the last line and make her way off stage swiftly was in complete contradiction with how the rest of the monologue went and in turn added a whole new element to it that was hilarious and

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