Since Suzan-Lori Parks has come to campus, I’ve read three of her plays.
I was very taken with In the Blood and Fucking A. I think that these plays and my play have a similar thematic idea. They both focus on the power of women faced with extreme oppression, and they are trying to survive the situations and circumstances surrounding them. The main difference is that both Hesters are defeated by their circumstances in that they have no other choice, internally, but to kill the thing that is closest to them. The plays, of course, are a bit different. In In the Blood, I, personally, see little hope for Hester recovering after she murders Jabber. In Fucking A, however, I felt as though Hester would continue to work because that’s what she has to do. Thus, I would argue that the oppressiveness of each Hester’s condition is more triumphant in striking Hester down in In the Blood, but I would also argue that Hester is not necessarily triumphant over her oppressive conditions in Fucking A. In my play, I want to balance the oppressive conditions with the strength of the women, and show that they can triumph over their situations. (Of course, I think it is important to show that it does not mean that their struggles are completely over.)
Parks constructs some really powerful ways of speaking and being on stage that really intrigued me. The first is her notion of “spells”. She writes that a spell is “an elongated and heightened rest denoted by repetition of figures’ names with no dialogue”. In the Q&A session with her, someone asked what the spells’ relationships were to the pauses in Pinter’s work, and Parks replied that it was not necessarily a pause, but a musical element meant to not, as in Pinter’s work, alienate the characters from the situation, but instead to bring them closer. The spells are meant as an internal moment between characters to bring the audience into the scene, not to distance themselves from it.
Parks, also in the Q&A, said that she called them rests and not pauses because they were like rests in a piece of music. She said, “They are not pauses, they’re rests.” For some reason, something clicked for me then. I had never really thought about the usage of a particular phrase and how it might be played out if stage directions/script notes were different, but I understood the idea of a “rest” so much better than I had understood the idea of a “pause”, and that is definitely something I’ve taken a deep look at in my second draft. How do rests change the flow of each cycle? How does the cycle change depending on where I put the rests?
Thinking more about wording, I’ve also been quite taken by Parks’s use of artistic street talk. In my draft two, I’ve definitely strayed away from deliberate lacking ability to express oneself. In other words, this may not be the most realistic way for them to be speaking, but I think it fits in with the new direction of the play. To be telling and viscerally describing the way they felt at certain times in perhaps exaggerated, artistic form.
Something else I was taken with was the use of crowd scenes that bookmarked the beginning and end of In the Blood. Although I haven’t seen it, when I imagined what it would be like, it had an overwhelming affect. The words are written in capital letters, not differentiated between which character says what, at some points a spell occurs, at others they stop and spit. The image of all these characters saying these things about the central character in the play powerfully and visually/vocally creates extreme oppressiveness.
Another structural affect I was very intrigued by was the “confessions” in In the Blood. In my first draft, I often felt as though the monologues served as a kind of “confessional” space. In In the Blood, each confession served as an additional layer to the story, a reminder that the story is multidimensional, or letting the audience know another, hidden part of the story. It adds a layer of secrecy and distrust. It complements the crowd scenes at the beginning and end of the play to create a sense of distrust, that secretly everyone dislikes Hester, that secretly everyone has individual motives for their actions, and that you never really know who to believe.
Thinking about it now, I realize how much of an effect that style is having on draft two. I hope that by including multiple perspectives of the side characters in the main characters’ stories, that there will be a sense not only of interpretation that accompanies the idea of myriad stories in the room, but also of moral distrust and uncomfortability. Of course, not to the extent that it does in In the Blood, because I do want my characters to be more morally “right” in their decision making in order for the play to make its point, but just enough so that we don’t believe everything they’re saying and that we can understand an opposing viewpoint.
Of course, I do have a bone to pick with Parks in her choice about how she portrays an abortionist in Fucking A, but that’s another story…
