Overtones

In the world of Overtones Gerstenberg writes the characters such that the prim and proper Harriet and Margaret never see their more crude counter parts, but the counter parts, Hetty and Maggie, can see their real life counter-parts. In the world of the play Hetty and Maggie also cannot interact with the real world. In the offering of cake Maggie is clawing at the cake in desire, but never actually touches it. In a way the alter-egos personify the true desire of the characters, which is much more base and selfish than eloquence permits. The counter-egos also act as a solitary shoulder-angel the keeps whispering, or yelling, suggestions of topic change, like a representation of the voice in the back of our head telling us what we really want out of a situation. There is a moment where Harriet hides Hetty with a veil at the beginning of the play, and that is the only significant interaction between the physical and supposed metaphysical personification of the characters.
     Throughout the entire play Hetty and Maggie show the desires and wants of the main characters in their societal act of conversation. The language of the passions (Hetty and Maggie) are a more base language and crude, which gave a sense of the fundamentality of our base emotions and desires, which are often contrary to our outward appearance portrayed by society around us. There is a lot of talk from the passions to the characters, but not much conversation back to the passions. For instance when asked if she wanted more tea, Maggie exclaimed "yes!" while Margaret declined politely. Despite the actions and desires of the passions, they have no power in the real world and are subject to the main characters.

Trifles

     I think the proposal of a minimalist play for Trifles could work, but would not due a play like Trifles justice. Yes, the play would bypass the distraction of set design and be forced to concentrate on the words and emotions of the play and the characters. However, much of the plot requires certain objects to be present, such as the birdcage. The characters also interacted a lot with the props on stage, so this aspect of the play would be lost and would force audience members to really concentrate on the movements of the actors which as a result have to become very precise. With a bunch of props an actor can easily look busy, but to look busy without any objects would require a concentration from the actor.
     It could be done, but the world of the play would be changed and that has an impact. The play would lose it's contextual significance as a story, and would indeed enter into a world of the abstract. Now that I think about it though, an entirely neutral version of Trifles would be very interesting to watch due to the lack of props that are normally there. As aforementioned there would be a higher concentration on the movement of the actors which is where the expression of emotion comes from, so it could be effective, but the play would not be itself anymore. 

'Night, Mother

     The obvious questions of 'Night, Mother would be "does Jesse Kill herself," "Will momma stop Jesse," or any other question pertaining to the suicide of Jesse. She makes it clear that her decision is to kill herself and the decision was not argued about too deeply after the fact was stated. Christmas was mentioned with an understanding ambiguous to the audience, and there was the initial shock to be expected from Momma. Other than that though, the suicide was not really addressed. I would like to ask the question though, "will Jesse and Momma find closure?" Throughout the entire play Jesse and Momma are trying to make connections with each other, Jesse is finishing up things before she has to go, repeatedly we see misconnections between the two. The ultimate example would be the image of the making of the hot chocolate on stage. Hot chocolate to a great majority of the rest of the world represents warmth and comfort and a delightful treat. I doubt anyone would belittle the greatness that is hot chocolate. But the characters don't even like the hot chocolate. This final pleasantry is literally wasted and it is such a sad image because it demonstrates the misconnections. They are trying to do things right, but it ends up in failure. At the very end Momma tries hard to stave off the inevitable, trying to get Jesse to do the manicure, but time was up by Jesse's decision. I don't think that Momma really connected to Jesse until it was too late. Despite everything she did and tried, she couldn't save her daughter, who arguably wasn't her daughter anymore, but that is a different perspective to be argued later. So do they connect at the end? Not entirely, and the unfortunate closure for Momma was the sound of a gunshot.

Judith

     Do the characters change as a result of their actions? Another way to ask this question would be do our actions change us? This question when paired with Judith works quite well as the major dramatic question rather than the obvious "will Holofernes be killed by Judith?" or "will Judith succeed?" In order to tell if a character changes though, that character has to be viewed in the light of characters that do not change in the play. The only character that actually changes throughout the play is Judith who goes through several stages of change. Holofernes could be argued to have changed, losing one's head is quite an alteration. However, his is a physical transformation and his character stayed intact until his demise. Judith however starts off as an individual with a mission, who is ready to do her duty. After some conversation though she wavers and questions herself. That is until the Servant changes Judith's perspective of the situation and Judith goes into a rage! Afterwards she wants to make things "right" again on human carnal level, as if it would make a difference. This brief stint of insanity brought Judith to her lowest point and shut her down completely. No longer did we have the focused woman at the beginning of the play. Then through the words of the Servant, Judith started regaining her strength, but is it the same Judith? I will argue not since this new Judith had taken on a cloak of cruelty, though strong and confident, she was not the Judith we once knew. Is this for better or for worse? The play does not answer that question, but she was definitely changed due to her actions.
     The language of the play helped to accentuate certain aspects of the play. The playwright has the characters speak in an elegant tongue riddled with expletives and bolded phrases that would match our dialect today. They gave a sense of the baseness of the situation. "I want to fuck." It does not get much more base and to the point than that. This setting is also of an ancient one long before our current civilization, so the mixed language also gives an idea of a different time, developed but not fully developed.

4000 Miles

     I would like to say there are several motifs, but the one I want to write about is the image of the funeral or graveyards. (Death may also be used synonymously with funeral and graveyards.) Of course we have to conclude the funeral is important since (Spoilers!) the end of the play ends with a funeral, or rather the creating of a eulogy for a funeral. The sole reason it is important may be because it is the last scene. Regardless, the play actually begins with the image of a funeral. The last bit in scene one Leo mentions not having been at Vera's house since the funeral, presumably for his grandfather Joe. In scene three Vera returns from a funeral she attended in honor of one of the last of her old colleagues. In scene five Vera mentions bringing a secret to her grave. (I also wanted to note something else in this scene. It becomes apparent that the characters consuming cannabis in some sort of celebration. Cannabis is also known to increase libido, which may give reason for why Vera and Leo talked about sex.)  In Scene six Amanda calls Vera an old lady ghost, which in my mind brings up a graveyard image. So Herzog has depicted three different funerals throughout the play; the funeral of Joe, Leo's grandfather, the funeral of Micah, and the funeral of Ginny. The first death mentioned was Joe who died as an old man. In contrast, the next funeral and death was that of a young man, Micah. It was terribly gruesome and untimely found in the description in scene seven. The last death was Ginny's, who died of old age. She was found by Leo in the netherspace between scene nine and ten. I think it proper to mention this was also why Ginny and Vera called each other every night, in case something like this ever happened. The last death and the first death mirror each other in that they both deal with old people. They differ in gender, but both had a relationship with Vera. The first two deaths were deaths of men if that is worth mentioning at all, otherwise Micah's death has less commonality to either of the others.