Aristotle Vs. Rivera/Sobel

Edward Sobel's first note about good theater is, "good theatre raises more important questions than it answers, but it satisfies nonetheless." This stayed in my mind as I read "Shift." While reading aloud in class, most peoples' eyebrows were furrowed when Tracz showed us a corner that used to be there and now isn't and the empire state building that was closer to Dane and Kelly's window than it had ever been. What is he talking about?

But when I reread, after I figured out that the city was physically shifting, the questions that came up in my head didn't have to do with the moving corners and buildings. I thought, "Why did the city start to shift the exact day Dane moved in with Kelly?" and "Why hasn't anyone tried to map the shifts yet? Why was Kelly the first one? Does that mean that the city wasn't really shifting and the only thing shifting is her relationship with Dane?" And somehow, when the play ended, I was satisfied. 

I do think, however, that Aristotle wouldn't be. He put so much emphasis on magnitude, and I believe that he would think this play was too short. He wants plays that are long enough for bad fortune to turn good or good fortune to turn bad, and in "Shift," it's up to us as readers to figure out that Dane and Kelly's fortune was at one point more positive. Aristotle would think that "Shift" is missing a solid beginning--one where Dane and Kelly were happy, before the city started to move around. 

Aristotle would be proud of Zayd Dohrn's ability to determine the quality of the play by his two characters. But he also stresses that plot should be central and more important than the characters or anything else. Yes, "An Indiscretion" is about a stubborn politician facing some sort of scandal and in need of a lawyer. But the fact that it is a conversation between two people with such obvious personalities makes me appreciate the play for Man and Woman rather than the plot. We have to fish for the story by acting as flies on the wall in a room with a hostile woman who--talks with-- plenty-- of-- unsure dashes to her snarky 60-something-year-old husband who is desperate to hear her say she loves him.  

Aristotle would find the ending insufficient--like "Shift," "An Indiscretion" forces us to interpret the man's indiscretion that got him to the point of needing a lawyer in the first place. And there's no real closure in the end. I find that Rivera's point about displaying information in a play "like an IV drip" where you must dispense just enough to keep the body alive, but not too much too soon, describes this play very well and is very much like my Sobel example. Times are changing, and I think that Sobel and Rivera's opinions on good theater match "Shift" and "An Indiscretion" much better than Aristotle's--he's more of an old fashioned kind of guy who wants our new-age writers to be as clear as possible.