Days 1 and 2

Chandler:
I really enjoyed the suspension and ongoing interest I had in what was going to happen. Throughout the dialogue between Kate and Rebecca I was wondering where the play was going, where they were, etc. This play brought up many questions for me because I wanted to know so much about the play. Are these two girls close friends? If they are, why do they feel like they have to lie and be so secretive with one another? Where did they meet? How long have they been in the dungeon, being experimented on? Do their parents know about this? I think if this play were to be developed into a full length or even just a 30 page play, Chandler could develop the characters and their stories in such detail that would be incredible. Also, do the two students go to Cornell or was it just a coincidence that they were both wearing Cornell sweatshirts? That was just somethign I was thinking of. Also, like Kayle I really started feeling hot and uncomfortable when Chandler's character felt that way. The awkwardness of the placement of the audience only helped the catharsis (as Kayla said) of the piece.

Hannah:
A one woman show is really hard to pull off, and I think Hannah used her knowledge of the theater very well while doing this. The parts of the show that worked the most for me were the effectiveness of the lights, the use of different props to symbolize different characters, and the strong language. All the lines seemed like things that people would actually say, it was very effective. I was a little confused throughout the show, how everyone was related to each other. Who is the main character? Do we get to know anyone's names? It is helpful to me to know someone's name in a play. I still found it really effective though. The combination of Chandler's acting and the design of the show which was very different from anyone else's plays so far was powerful. The fun was an especially powerful prop. For me a gun on stage is always frightening because I hate loud noises and I didn't want it to go off but it definitely got my attention. I was confused about the different noises, also. Where are all these characters? This play certainly brought up a lot of questions.

Julie:
This play was really relevant to me because it very much had to do with certain things we were talking about in Vietnam earlier this year. The relationship that Julie created between these two characters was an interesting comparison with the anxiety from the bomb raids. Oliver's character's necessity to make Kayla love him was an interesting stake to put in the middle of this life or death situation. I did have some questions about their relationship though: Did they actually know each other before that? Did he just admire her from afar? Does she have feelings for someone else? Is there something about him that would make her not like him? Why are they alone? Why do they not question that as much as they should? Are they at school? I think this play's strong themes come out very well through the characters and could come out even further with a few less pauses in the dialogue maybe. The anxiety to me should be so heightened for the two of them that they need to be talking all the time to distract themselves.

Kayla:
I thought this concept was awesome! I never would have thought of making the doors Heaven and Hell, but I thought it was so cool. I also like that I didn't know what the conflict was going to be, and then it became clear. I also liked the way she found out that he knew her, by saying her name. I was wondering up until the end why he killed her? The character seemed to be very apologetic about it, so was it accidental? Did he think she was someone else? Is that why he killed himself afterwards? There was definitely a clear story throughout this play and I would love to see it developed even further. This was one of the plays that actually worked with people walking in and out. It felt like they were people moving from Heaven to Hell or the other way around. The whole Heaven and Hell thing was so interesting that I wanted to know why Claire couldn't seem to get into Heaven or Hell until the end? What was preventing her entering? Was whoever-was-in-charge not sure where each of them were going? All these questions intrigued me.

Oliver:
Oliver's play was definitely not what I was expecting to see at ten o'clock in the morning. It was original, funny, whitty, and definitely surprising. I'm sad that the aliens got lost because I think it would been much more powerful if the aliens had been slightly more lifelike. I was wondering from the beginning of the play, how did Julie's character get into the science field in the first place? Why is she an astronaut? How did they get to the moon so easily? I guess to me some of the rules of NASA seemed a little fuzzy throughout the play and I wanted them to be claryfied a little more. I think the moving audience was a really cool idea because I have done that before where it hadn't worked, and it actually did during this play. This play probably brought up the most questions for me because it was something that I never would have thought to write about in a million years. I wish I could write about something more abstract or unknown like the moon and aliens.