In this essay I will be discussing plays being transformed into a film. I chose the play Trifles. Trifles is a short stage play written by Susan Glaspell in 1916 and shortly after rewrote as a short story in 1917 entitled A Jury of Her Peers. The Short story and the play are loosely based upon the murder trial of John Hossack, which Glaspell covered while working as a journalist. This play has been a basis of discussion and study relative to the evolution of the woman’s movement over the past 100 years and is often referred to as a feminist drama. The storyline is very subjective to its viewpoint without confirming for the observer the outcome as absolute, but strongly implies a moral justice more importantly than a legal justice, while allowing the audience member to be the additional member in the jury of opinion. What would be assumed to be a play depicting a murder mystery and its solvable conclusion based upon found and not found evidences, it is really much more than that. It is an invitation to explore the power of morality and its values as embodied by the feminine and masculine genders. More directly, Trifles is a true example of dramatic devices as described in De …show more content…
It would be safe to assume that murder investigations isn’t his norm as he has done nothing to secure the crime scene, nor does he seem to have any insight into what would constitute an official investigation. Yet, he is involved heavily with the attorney in drawing conclusions. Glaspell treats him kindly in regards to his position and in respect of the male role in her day, but basically he is just acting along as a spectator. I would development his character along those lines, but give him less credibility and actually make him an annoyance to the Attorney conducting the investigation. A necessary local presence, but not up to the challenges of much more than parking meter
It is imperative to understand the significance of the profound effects these elements have on the audience’s response to the play. Without effective and accurate embodiments of the central themes, seeing a play becomes an aimless experience and the meaning of the message is lost. Forgiveness and redemption stand as the central themes of the message in The Spitfire Grill. Actors communicate character development through both nonverbal and verbal cues; their costumes serve as a visual representation of this development by reflecting the personal transformation of each character. In the case of The Spitfire Grill, set design is cut back to allow for the audience’s primary focus to be on the actors and their story. Different from set design, the use of sound and lights in The Spitfire Grill, establishes the mood for the play. In other words, every theatrical element in a play has a purpose; when befittingly manipulated, these elements become the director’s strongest means of expressing central themes, and therefore a means of achieving set objectives. Here again, The Spitfire Grill is no exception. With the support of these theatrical elements, the play’s themes of forgiveness and redemption shine as bright as the moon on
The play that we read for this unit is Too Much Punch For Judy, by Mark Wheeller. It is a form of Verbatim Theatre, meaning that it is based on the spoken words of real people. This play is about the story of a young woman who kills her sister in an alcohol related accident. When I first read the play I couldn’t empathize with the story as I haven’t experienced such a shocking event before. In this essay I will describe, analyse and evaluate both my work and the work of other actors in my group, focusing on the mediums, elements and explorative strategies of Drama.
The works of William Shakespeare have been one of the diligent hotspots for adaptation and appropriation. We see dramatic adaptation of Shakespearean playtexts began as early as Restoration period. Different fields like poetry, novels, advertisements, and movies have connected themselves with Shakespeare as well. The adaptation of Shakespeare makes him fit for new social settings and distinctive political philosophies.
Filmmaking and cinematography are art forms completely open to interpretation in a myriad ways: frame composition, lighting, casting, camera angles, shot length, etc. The truly talented filmmaker employs every tool available to make a film communicate to the viewer on different levels, including social and emotional. When a filmmaker chooses to undertake an adaptation of a literary classic, the choices become somewhat more limited. In order to be true to the integrity of the piece of literature, the artistic team making the adaptation must be careful to communicate what is believed was intended by the writer. When the literature being adapted is a play originally intended for the stage, the task is perhaps simplified. Playwrights, unlike novelists, include some stage direction and other instructions regarding the visual aspect of the story. In this sense, the filmmaker has a strong basis for adapting a play to the big screen.
In a play, the audience should be intrigued and ready for what is to come next. It is a play that works by understanding. It has the audience on their seat to make them be part of the play. Susan Glaspell wrote a play based on an actual murder. “In the process of completing research for a biography of Susan Glaspell, [she] discovered the historical source upon which Trifles ...Glaspell covered the case and the subsequent trial when she was a reporter for the Des Moines Daily News”(Ben-Zvi 143). In the early nineteen-hundreds women were seen as weak. They were females knew the understanding of every clue that was leading to the case and the reasoning behind it.
Of all Shakespeare’s thirty-seven plays, perhaps the best known and loved is Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Many people think that it is unforgettable because of its poetic language and style. But, while these are factors that mark the play as a classic, it remains timeless because it explores many of the issues that are still important to people today. These issues, including loyalty to family and country, protecting loved ones, and deception are still prevalent around the world, and are especially prominent in the United States government. Another play that addresses major issues that are still relevant to society, especially women, is Susan Glaspell’s Trifles. Because Glaspell’s play shows women that they are certainly just as capable as men of completing any task, it encourages women to take a stand against the supposed supremacy of their husbands. It also forces men to consider more seriously the opinions and concerns of women. While Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale in Trifles do this in a quiet manner, they still remain defiant against their husband’s beliefs that they are only competent enough to worry about “trifles” (Glaspell 1618). Therefore, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark and Trifles explore many issues that are still relevant to society today by questioning, supporting, and criticizing some of them, especially loyalty, gender roles, protecting loved ones, and deception.
Butler, Judith. "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory." Theatre Journal 40.4 (1988): 519-31. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Web. 11 May 2011.
In the 19th Century, women had different roles and treated differently compared to today’s women in American society. In the past, men expected women to carry out the duties of a homemaker, which consisted of cleaning and cooking. In earlier years, men did not allow women to have opinions or carry on a job outside of the household. As today’s societies, women leave the house to carry on jobs that allow them to speak their minds and carry on roles that men carried out in earlier years. In the 19th Century, men stereotyped women to be insignificant, not think with their minds about issues outside of the kitchen or home. In the play Trifles, written by Susan Glaspell, the writer portrays how women in earlier years have no rights and men treat women like dirt. Trifles is based on real life events of a murder that Susan Glaspell covered during her work as a newspaper reporter in Des Moines and the play is based off of Susan Glaspell’s earlier writing, “A Jury of Her Peers”. The play is about a wife of a farmer that appears to be cold and filled with silence. After many years of the husband treating the wife terrible, the farmer’s wife snaps and murders her husband. In addition, the play portrays how men and women may stick together in same sex roles in certain situations. The men in the play are busy looking for evidence of proof to show Mrs. Wright murdered her husband. As for the women in the play, they stick together by hiding evidence to prove Mrs. Wright murdered her husband. Although men felt they were smarter than women in the earlier days, the play describes how women are expected of too much in their roles, which could cause a woman to emotionally snap, but leads to women banding together to prove that women can be...
Throughout the plays, the reader can visualize how men dismiss women as trivial and treat them like property, even though the lifestyles they are living in are very much in contrast. The playwrights, each in their own way, are addressing the issues that have negatively impacted the identity of women in society.
Susan Glaspell’s play, Trifles, shows the importance of staging, gestures, and props to create the proper atmosphere of a play. Without the development of the proper atmosphere through directions from the author, the whole point of the play may be missed. Words definitely do not tell the whole story in Trifles - the dialog only complements the unspoken.
Devising the perfect murder is a craft that has been manipulated and in practice dating back to the time of the biblical reference of Cain and Abel. In the play, “Trifles” exploration is focused on the empathy one has for a murderer who feels they have no alternative from their abuser. As a multifaceted approach, the author Glaspell gives her audience a moral conflict as to whether murder should be condemned based on the circumstances rather than the crime. Presenting Mrs. Wright as the true victim of the crime of domestic abuse rather than a murderer gives Glaspell a stage which shows her audience the power of empathy.
One striking characteristic of the 20th century was the women's movement, which brought women to the forefront in a variety of societal arenas. As women won the right to vote, achieved reproductive freedom through birth control and legalized abortion, and gained access to education and employment, Western culture began to examine its long-held views about women. However, before the women’s movement of the 20th century, women’s roles were primarily of a domestic nature. Trifles by Susan Glaspell indicates that a man’s perspective is entirely different from a woman’s. The one-act play, Trifles, is a murder mystery which examines the lives of rural, middle-aged, married, women characters through gender relationships, power between the sexes, and
In Susan Glaspell’s play Trifles Mr. Wright’s murder is never solved because the two women in the story unite against of the arrogance of men to hide evidence that would prove Mrs. Wright as the murderer. The play Trifles is about the death of farmer Mr. Wright and how the town sheriff and attorney try to find evidence that his wife Mrs. Wright killed him. As the play progresses the men’s wives who had come along were discovering important pieces of evidence that prove the men’s theory but chose to hide from them to illustrate the point that their ideas should have been valued and not something to be trifled. The very irony of the play comes from its title trifles and is defined as something that isn’t very important or has no relevance to the situation that it is presented to. In this play the irony of the title comes from the fact that the men find the women’s opinions on the case trifling even though the women solve the crime which ends up being the downfall of the men as they would have been able to prosecute Mrs. Wright if they had listened which made the women’s opinions not trifling. Glaspell was born in an age where women were still considered the property of men and they had no real value in society in the eyes of men except for procreation and motherhood. This attitude towards women was what inspired Glaspell to write the play Trifles and to illustrate the point that women’s attitudes should be just as valued as men’s and to let women have a sense of fulfillment in life and break the shackles that were holding them only as obedient housewives. Trifles was also inspired by a real murder trial that Glaspell had been covering when she was a reporter in the year 1900. Glaspell is a major symbol of the feminist movement of l...
In Susan Glaspell’s play Trifles a man has been murdered by his wife, but the men of the town who are in charge of investigating the crime are unable solve the murder mystery through logic and standard criminal procedures. Instead, two women (Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters) who visit the home are able to read a series of clues that the men cannot see because all of the clues are embedded in domestic items that are specific to women. The play at first it seems to be about mystery, but it abruptly grows into a feminist perspective. The play Trifles written by Susan Glaspell can be considered a revolutionary writing in it its advocacy of the feminist movement.
One notable difference between William Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Julie Taymor’s film version of the play is the altered scenes that made quite a difference between the play and the movie version. This difference has the effects of creating a different point of view by altering the scenes affected the movie and how Taymor felt was necessary by either by keeping or deleting certain parts from the play. I use “Altered Scene” in the way of how Julia Taymor recreates her own point of view for the movie and the direction she took in order to make the audience can relate to the modern day film. I am analyzing the way that the altered scenes changes to make a strong impression on the audiences different from the play. This paper will demonstrate