Basar

I didn’t really understand this story until I read some other people’s bogs to close the gaps on the pieces I couldn’t understand. What I think the plot tells us is that The Erl-King is this man who lives out in the woods and he captures young girls and takes their virginity. They are then turned into birds and kept in a cage, singing, trying to get out and go back to life before the Erl-King. The narrator is a girl who is his next captive, however, she figures out this schemes. She ends up killing him, waiting for the young girls in the cage to come back to life for revenge on him.
The fiddle I think represents the Erl-King. When an instrument needs to be re-strung or tuned, it is because it is decaying from what it used to be. Same with the Erl-King. He is losing some of his suave that he used to use to seduce girls. Now it is apparent to the narrator of who the Erl-King is and who he used to be and it becomes the death of him.

As I watch I am just going to write my thoughts because I don’t know how formal this has to be…

The acting is so good! You can really tell that they all have a passion for drama, even is they don’t plan to pursue acting for a career. Erin was great!

The setting of Rome has transformed into the modern city. Maybe in an office…Not quite sure. Caesar is a wealthy business man, maybe a CEO.

Brutus is of second influence to Caesar, like in the original story. A WOMAN plays Playus ( or whatever her name is) who is dominate and forceful over Brutus. This is interesting because I notice this a lot in this play. Women have really influencial and powerful roles. In the day of Shakespere, women were rarely of importance.

As for the set up of the stage, it is very plain. There are no props…even the costumes are not very elaborate. The back drop is simply a blue wall with the word “Rome” written in red. I guess I expected a little more visual appeal, but perhaps Matt was trying to make the audience focus only on the acting and the hidden undertones of the script.

This is cool because Matt is taking a typical story and twisting it to provoke a new message and new thoughts. He is challenging typical gender roles. This is similar to what we are doing with our fairy tales.

Cashus is played as a girl and she plans to seduce Caesar in the plot to kill him. This is crazy to see how women are being portrayed as forceful and scheming instead of dainty and helpless.

One thing that is hard is that I can’t really understand what they are saying a lot. The acoustics of the room aren’t really that great so I don’t really know what’s going on. This is also because I can’t remember that much from when I read Caesar junior year.

Later Brutus takes more authority later in the play and starts to take charge of the ploys to kill Caesar…maybe because earlier he was empowered by Cashus, a women.

Erin also played Poshia who was Brutus’s wife. She is so bold and she doesn’t stand for being “just a wife,” being stepped over and taken advantage of. She stands up to Brutus, again, something I feel that would have been uncommon in the time the original was written.

It is really interesting the way this play was preformed and written. It wasn’t really what I was expecting. Its simple preformence and creative undertones challenged me to think outside of the norm of what I already knew of Caesar….not that I knew very much to begin with. I struggle to truly understand all the characters and their motives, but in general, I think I got a descent understanding of the plot. it would have been cool if in the program, each character had the actor’s picture and a bio of who the character is in the original Shakespere play. Maybe then I would have understood that better. Overall, it was cute, but it would have been more fun if I would have gone with a friend.

I really loved the Courtship of Mr. Lyon and I think that I want to do that for my paper. I think it would be cool to collaborate with a partner, but I’m afraid about getting the work done…I can barely get work done as it is by myself! I am just such a busy person and I am off campus about 40 hrs a week…BUT! I have some cool ideas, for instance, come up with a plot and story sequence and then we go back and forth writing pages until the paper is done…then we can go through together and change stuff. I think it could be fun, like piking up where the partner left off! Just an idea, let me know if its not legit

I don’t know what I would want to write about yet…maybe it could be a change of setting, like in a lion’s actually habitat. I like the idea of a transformation..or maybe even taking the point of view of an insignificant figure. I really have no good ideas, but I’m excited to bounce thoughts off of a partner tomorrow! But for blog grade sake, a new message could be being immersed in new surroundings or way of life, like this girl adapting to the jungle and the way for life there. maybe she could turn into a lion! It would be like how we have to adapt to new surroundings and eventually change who we are to be part of that place or to be more connected to someone…whether we originally wanted to immersed in this place or not. just a thought.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byaMd_PNyIY

I forget how to post videos, but I thought this was really cool because I love fairytales and i love disney movies, but its just crazy to think how gender and racial biased they are! Like a typical fairytale, the girl is looked to as helpless and beautiful, always in need of her dashing prince charming. The man is the hero. In almost any disney movie the “important” characters are white, and if they aren’t, like in Pocahontas, the “non-white” characters roles are full of styreotypes. It is sad that this is what kids are watching. I know that I grew up with a bookshelf of beloved disney movies, but it is crazy to see how much that affected my perception of gender roles, sexuality, and racial characteristics. Watch and see what I mean…

“By showing the risk involved in Lancelot’s search for Guinevere, In correlation with the surrounding stories and novel as a whole, we also see the risk complements the overall theme of The Powerbook: our continuous search for meaning and identity in life.”
That is my thesis (is it good? specific enough?) and this is the outline of my paper:

1.Intro and thesis

2. Placement of SEARCH and significance of virtual road before

3. SEARCH: how lancelot risks a lot for love (a couple paragraphs drawing from chunks of texts that show the risk and effort he took in pursuit of guenivere

4. Significance of great and ruinous lovers

5. How Ali relates to Lanelot in his desires and motives

6. conclusion

I just want to know if there are any other good things I could draw in to deepen the essay for make it better fit my thesis. Let me know if the line up is good or if i should take away/add a point. Thanks for your help!!!