Word: plot
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Oppenheimer develops two plot levels that converge on the idea that we have been "robbed of our subconscious" and as a result our lives consist of "empty, vague, and performative" emotions. The immediate plot describes how the barbaric loner Frank (Robert Feldstein) forces himself on the civilized society of the idealic couple, Ernest (David Shafer) and Jane (Wynne D. Love). With incessant, nonsensical conversation on topics ranging from urban renewal projects to his illustrious career as a toll both operator, Frank intrudes upon Ernest and Jane's weekly picnic at the beach...
...This plot is secondary to a larger point about the falseness of theater. The play begins outside of the plot, with scripted shouts from ushers and an argument between the supposed director of the show and the actor playing Frank, who's reluctant to "do the show." At the end of the play, this actor finally revolts against the theater, striking the set, shouting at the audience to leave, and explaining "my moment of terror is my moment of theatrical orgasm is my anethesia" while the rest of the crew feigns horror and surprise. Of course, this revolt is scripted...
While most audience members understood the immediate plot, people seemed more bewildered with the play's violent end. When the "actor playing Frank" sprang out of the script and told the audience to leave, some actually got up and left. While Oppenheimer's script is really not subtle enough to break down completely the boundary between reality and artifice, the lively production nonetheless elicits a response from the audience as frank as, well, Frank...
...beyond hectic into overload. The tension and excitement, rather than growing gradually between them, has built too fast and too early. The long-deterred climax is simply anti-climactic. Tighter direction and a gradual build-up of tension might have served to accentuate the dream like quality that the plot requires...
Like most Gilbert and Sullivan plots, that of The Gondoliers is fantastic in the extreme. Shortly after the dual marriage it turns out that one of the brothers (needless to say, no one knows which) is really the King of Barataria, who was stolen away as a baby. Both men are rushed off to the palace by the Machiavellian Grand Inquisitor, who has been hurried into action by the arrival of the Duke and Duchess of Plaza-Toro. It seems that their daughter Casilda was married in infancy to the young King and they now want her to take...