Word: schlink
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...dealer named Scblink (Nicholas Kepros) has made the offer. Once Garga has been tantalized. Schliak follows up the offer by signing over his house, his business, and his money to the younger man in the hope that Garga will be ruined by power which he cannot control. Why does Schlink do it? According to our values, he seems to have no reason. Perhaps. Brecht suggests, he only seeks the satisfaction of pinning his opponent's shoulders...
Because the motives behind each action are unknown, each character appears to vacillate between polarities which we can define. This difficult technique has been mastered by the entire Charles Playhouse cast. After the innocent Garga-from the "flatlands"-is burdened and corrupted by Schlink's business world. Michael Moriarty continually shifts from one aspect of the character to the other, presenting kindness, then bitterness; love, then hate. Nicholas Kepros is amazingly inscrutable as the ruthless Schlink, but Kepros occasionally reveals the affectionate, yet lonely and helpless man who dwells beneath this harsh facade...
...play ends, we find that the magnetic bond of combat which has continually drawn Schlink and Garga together is a product of the loneliness which each human being feels in the midst of a faceless jungle like Chicago. They must fight because they cannot communicate as people on any other terms. Brecht is showing us that we have developed a social system which-like Chicagoseparates, rather than unites, every man. "Human skin grows thicker and thicker." Schlink says, because of this system. This skin keeps people from knowing each other. The only force that pierces this, outer layer...
...each member of the audience who is aware that he is surrounded by other men to whom he will not talk, this observation is electric. If Garga and Schlink cannot find a means of relating as individuals, can we do more? At this final moment, Brecht has brought together his audience and his play. Together we realize that we must define a new (??) of values; the old motivations no longer apply. Our lives must be crazy, irrational; we must find new ways of getting together within the jungle...
...change? Must we die, like Schlink? Brecht calls death "the coldest answer." Do we keep on wrestling, like Garga? He is going to New York, but will probably fail and return soon. Shall we make love, like Garga's sister, Maria? She will never find real love...