Writing About Plays

Being someone who comes from a theater background, this chapter was very interesting to me. Chapter 7 takes me back to an experience my sophomore year of highschool where my theater director told us we would be writing our own one-act play for competition. (Insert my freak out here)

The elements, "plot, character, and theme" (page 111), were what we first started with. We had to pick an idea, just as the Gardner book says you have to do when writing about a play.
On page 113, it is said that "drama is a livin art," I completely agree and I believe the best way to read about a play is to play it out in your head as you go along. Give some life to the words.

STAGE DIRECTIONS. A huge thing in theater and according to page 114, a huge thing in play analysis. "What kind of physical movement, blocking, or choreography would you see on stage?"

Overall, this is one of my favorite chapters and makes it clear that I'm writing my research paper on the right topic.

Cinderella and True Stories (but really just Cinderella)

I chose to write on Cinderella, it was the one that stuck out to me most and it wasn't a poem I enjoyed, regardless of the extra detailed misfortunes.

• Within the first couple stanzas, this seems to be a poem speaking of all types of Cinderella stories; "from toilets to riches (line4)," "from diapers to Dior (line 10), "from homogenized to martinis at lunch (line 16), "from mops to Bonwit Teller (Line 20)." I've heard about other forms of the story Cinderella and many other fairy tales that were originally nothing like the glamorous Disney versions. I guess I just didn't expect such drastic details such as the step sisters cutting off parts of their feet to fit the shoe (Lines 81-83 & 88) or the dove pecking their eyes out (Lines 97-99)