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Spencer talks about the high and low stakes in a play. He mentions that stakes are “what the character has to go gain or to lose”. When you think about stakes, you think about conflict. The high sand low stakes circle around the conflict of the play. He mentions that too much conflict in a play can be bad. I was a bit confused since conflict makes up a lot of the play. Spencer says that with too much conflict, the audience already knows how the play is going to end. The character at the end won’t get what she or he wants.
ReplyDeleteTriffles was pretty interesting. The play had a lot of stage directions. In some moments, I couldn’t really tell the characters apart. Every once in a while I would get them mixed up. I like how the 2 women figure out what happened to John just be talking about it. What makes this play interesting is the personal connections the women have with the Mrs. Wright. This is how high/low stakes affect a play. The play would sound different if the personal connections were not present. I liked how Mrs. Peters and Hale did not mention what they found to the sheriff and attorney.
-Juan Gloria
The play "Trifles" is a success because just as Spencer spoke about on pages 73-83 it had just enough character driven action and a clear conflict that could have been easily resolved. The play left me with wondering what was going to happen next to Mrs. Wright. It seemed that the strangling death was committed by her, but the interjection of loneliness, and her being a woman married to a controlling man gave me an image of Mrs. Wright experiencing temporary insanity after her canary was killed. Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale find the only possible evidence to link her with the probable cause needed to either indict or to be found not guilty due to the terrible way that she was treated at the hands of her husband. When Spencer talks about high stakes he is not speaking about emotions, and Trifles is a good example of this. Mrs. Wright's emotions are taken out of the equation although the highest stakes of life and death are clearly present. We believe that by hiding the canary Mrs. Peter's and Hale might have given Wright a chance for freedom, but when Mr. Hale finds out about the bird he reminds her that she must do what is right, because she is married to him, a lawman. So in a nutshell we see a clear conflict which was questionable until we saw the discovery of the dead bird. Stuart points out that when characters on stage care deeply for one another it causes the audience to care and to become engaged. The example in the play is when both Mrs. Hale and Peters start showing their concern for the plight of Mrs. Wright.
ReplyDeleteSpiro Zagouris
In Spencer’s reading, he talks about the high and low stakes. Stakes are what a character has to gain or lose. Low stakes seem almost meaningless when he talks about them. When it comes to high stakes that is when the audience gets more engaged and feel more. It is understandable because with high stakes we see how the characters care in different ways making the audience care for or about them as well. One of the main things to matter is “strong feelings”: “For it is strong feelings that matter most.” (77) This is how we get the characters to show how they matter to one another. He really dwells on the idea of hope and how if there is no hope it would make the story less appealing/audience would get bored. If there is hope then it makes the audience have hope as well. In ‘Triffles’ I really liked the flow of the play and how they really made me feel the conversation between the two women. I liked seeing them figure things out by talking about it and piecing things together about Mrs. Wright. I like how eerie it got about the caged bird to symbolize the Mrs. Wright being caged in her marriage with her husband. They also say how the bird looks strangled and that can be used to symbolize maybe how suffocating the husband was in their marriage giving her a possible motive to kill him.
ReplyDelete-Faith Ortiz
In Spencer he talks about stakes, high and low in which the character gain or lose. Spencer mention on page 74 that thinking about stakes is like thinking about conflict Spencer mention on page 74 that a high stake is when a character must think about overcoming an obstacle or they will die. In a low stake the character thinks if he doesn’t over an obstacle life will still go on. He also mentions on page 75 that a stake be a function of action. He also mentions on page 75 that high stakes equal much to gain or lose and low stakes equal little to gain or lose. Spencer also mentions on page 80, when a character has much to gain or lose, he will care deeply. If there is little to gain or lose then he will tend to be indifferent to the outcome. Spencer also mentions on page 81 that there can there is a such things as too much conflict that the audience can sense that the character will ever attain her objective. I really liked this chapter from spencer because he gives you a lot of great ways to layout your conflict without making the whole play based on it and giving the character hope as well. This play is interesting because the personal connections the women has with the Mrs. Wright. This is how the high and the low stakes are used in this play. I also liked how the end they did not mention anything to the sheriff and what it was that they had found.
ReplyDelete-Valeria Garcia
Spencer mentions that a way to make the characters and problems they face intriguing, is to include stakes for them. He says that we can add high or low stakes to our writing, which also help in making the conflict of the play become established. Another aspect Spencer touches on is, that having your characters have a string relationship between each other, like lovers, family, or close friends, it could lead to the audience caring for what happens between them. What he says in this reading is something that I really want to work on in my play, because it has to deal with two people who care for each other, but are dealing with a conflict. Spencer helped me think about the conflict my characters are facing, from another perspective. I didn’t really think about what is at stake between my two characters, I just focused showing the conflict and it leading to a huge argument. The play trifles was very interesting in how throughout the writing we are able to put things together along with the characters. The hints of the bird and its cage representing the problem of feeling trapped and linking with the murder was really interesting. I also liked how the two women cover up the evidence of the bird in order to not be seen as suspects.
ReplyDelete-Ruben Quintero
In reading this chapter I really liked how in page 74 spencer says "high stakes are not high emotions. High stakes are not created by injecting false drama into a situation by making the charecters life's more miserable" because for if any of my stories needed or lacked in conflict the first thing I'd probably do is purposely add a situation that would make life hard for my character. I also liked the information about having the charecters have some sort of connection or strong feelings towards one another (good or bad) because it make's the conflict and drama between them mean so much more. I also liked how spencer makes note of there being such a thing as too much conflict (conflict being that which prevents a character from getting what he she wants). Because I would've assumed that the bigger the obstacle the better and more engaging it would be. But apparently too big of an impossible obstacle will make the audience lose interest. Now I don’t think spencer is saying don’t have impossible obstacles but in-turn don’t let the audience think its impossible. Give the character hope which will give the audience hope.
ReplyDelete- Eduardo Guerra
After reading through TRIFLES and spencer pg 73-83, I can now see the conflict in TRIFLES. I could not understand TRIFLES at first. All I got from it was some horror theme going for it. With the birds neck and whatnot. But after rereading it again I had a better understanding of it. Spencer talks about stakes in these pages and the inly stake I saw in the play was the stake of getting caught messing with the crime scene. After rereading it, the way it sets up these moments of getting caught make it seem much more climatic. Almost as if a big plot twist was coming. As spencer talks about high stakes and low stakes, there really wasn’t any high stakes here. But we as the audience don’t know this so when these moments happen in the play we feel as of the stakes are high, even if its for a few seconds. This actually made me think of moments in TV, movies, books ect.. in which a character that I believe to be unimportant, dies. But looking back, I see why others look at these characters death made the audience feel for them. Because the had high stakes and high hopes going for them.
ReplyDelete-Abel Arredondo
I absolutely adored the play “Trifles”. I found it interesting how the playwright incorporated so many small details that led the two women in discovering the motivation Mrs. Wright had. It was also pretty amusing to see the men in the play go around searching for evidence. They never even thought to look into the small details that the women had in front of them on the table. They just passed it, overlooking the clues that gave the motivation needed for Mrs. Wright to kill John. To them, those small trifles were insignificant, but for Mrs. Hale and Peters, it was all the motivation needed to understand why Mrs. Wright strangled John. The dead bird that they found was also killed in a similar fashion as well, hinting that the bird was the reason she murdered him, and even showing why she chose the method of strangulation instead of just shooting him. I think “Trifles” does a good job in hitting the balance of just enough risk to keep the audience at the edge of their seats, but not overly complicate it with too much conflict. The conflict was easy to resolve, which is necessary in a play when there is an issue presented, and Mrs. Hale and Peters had good driven action in their characters. I enjoyed seeing their reasoning for not turning in the clues that would condemn Mrs. Wright. In the end, their experiences with the “stillness” was what led them to covering up for her. The relationship between these women being important in the play was just what was needed to hit that right balance.
ReplyDelete-Kimberly Villanueva
I guess I understand that stakes are important, but I still like stories about real people meeting. I think the bias against “park bench” plays is kind of messed up. I like those stories even if they are tried. I like people with no connection developing one. It’s like making something out of nothing. I do agree though that stakes are important. Even in tragedy, I did sort of feel hope. I saw Antigone in the University theater and it’s weird, but I did feel that there was some way that she might make it. There is a sense of hope needed even if it seems impossible. This was why I liked the recent Spiderman movies more than the Andrew Garfield ones.
ReplyDeleteI did like “Trifles” since I thought that it was a good example (like it usually is). As the crime scene is explained, the stakes are higher and higher as the Lawyer is basically saying that they need the dead bird to convict. The two wives have to decide whether or not they are going to expose a fellow member of their sex. It was about more than that since I felt that Hale also felt guilty about not being there. The whole past connection part of the chapter set up the play really good. I was concerned about what would happen to the murdering wife. I liked how they didn’t really explain how she killed him. They made it sound elaborate.
-Ricardo Martinez Jr