prompts: the play

So, Fairview was an exciting sprint for us in class—we had way more questions than answers about this complex work (including, at some point, the question of whether we needed a word other than “play” to categorize it!), and I’d encourage you to use your blog posts on the play to explore some of the lingering ones. A few suggestions:

1. What is up with the textuality of this particular text? We talked a lot in class about what the physical space of a theater—the audience and the actors and the stage all in a relatively small space together—makes possible. But we also noticed that there are things in this text that won’t make it to the production of this text as a play—from the very first line, in which Beverley is described with the word “negro,” to the poetic lineation of the stage directions and some of their content. What do you see happening in those parts of the play’s text (what patterns do you observe, what moments stick out, etc.) and what do you think they mean?
2. The question of what’s real and what’s not seems important to this play. We discussed the carrots as the only “gun” that might actually go off, for example, when the interlopers bring in cartoonish fake food to cover up the family’s food, which the play tells us very specifically is real (“carrots, real carrots”). There is also the “pretend mirror hung on the fourth wall,” which suggested to us that while the mirror is pretend, the fourth wall is very real. Where else do you see this theme emerging, and what do you see happening when it does? (Or what do you make of either or both of these specific moments?)
3. Our observation that the voices in the second act are unable to say that they don’t know felt really powerful to me. Did it to you too? Why or why not? What might that insight contribute to our understanding of the play or the dynamics it represents?
4. Do we (do you/do you think the audience is supposed to) like Suze more than the other interloping white characters? Why or why not? What do you think that tells us about the play’s point of view?
5. In class, we flagged the title of the play as relevant. What specifically do you think it suggest about what the play might be “saying” and/or how it works as a piece of theater?
6. Finally, a question about the play as a form or genre. As I mentioned in class, the reason I chose to assign this play instead of a more conventionally narrative one is that I think its formal focus makes visible some things about how plays work that more conventionally narrative plays rely on but tend to hide. What elements of the structure of the play as a form become visible in Fairview? Can we apply them to other plays, or even other kinds of forms? (How?) Put another way, next time you read or see a play, will you see it differently because of Fairview? Why or why not? In what ways, if so?