When many of you think of plays you think of the many books that are written by Shakespeare. When you think of plays you think of drama, or a comedy even. Those are the necessary subgenres that categorizes in a play. But in Fairview, it seems to be more than your average family drama, and more of a surprise.
The first thing they kept consistent was the suspense, the possible triggers that could potentially set off at any moment in the play. You see, this is normal in order to keep the audience interested, in this case there were many things in Fairview that looked obvious. From Act 1 there were the props, the fake carrot, the “nervous” glitchy radio, the fourth wall breaking through the pretend mirror, the characters suspicions/conspiracies. Not only did the play keep its suspense, but it also kept elements of what a play should have like foreshadowing, the goal of accomplishing a perfect family dinner which could go horribly wrong.
But then there was Act 2, where the scene changes to another play where the (white) people in Act 2 are watching the (black) people in Act 1, and there’s a lot of stereotyping going on. The play purposefully played with the audience interest and decided to make them feel understandably uncomfortable, as if they know their audience. That’s all it was until you go to Act 3, where none of the triggers from Act 1 set off, making you think “what was the point of ‘that’ then?” It was then you realize that the play was a setup from Act 1, the inability to see the real story, to tell the story to everyone and not just a specific audience. Bringing out the guilt of the racists, exposed in a fairview.
Regardless what subgenre this could be viewed to you, it’s a play nonetheless. And story writing like this can prove the great lengths a play can go. They got us in the first half, but it still made sense to why they did it. Because according to the article, “How can watching theater benefit the mind?”, it states that “Watching a play also allows the audience to access emotions they often don’t.” So it’s like how we watch shows for the sake of escaping reality. Taking that into consideration, we can say that Fairview did set us up to witness something we weren’t prepared for, only to make you cringe between the lines. In other words a play can be meant to bring realism, you just need to be ready for the backlash. All in all, Fairview did a good job giving a twist to plays.
ENG 222: Literary Genres 