This is the official post for THE COTTON PLANTATION workshop production. If you came and saw the workshop and have thoughts, comments, responses, insults, etc. - feel free to post them here and if you have any questions, we will do our best to respond.
As we said at the workshop, we have high hopes for the future of this play and we are so blessed that you were able to attend and be a part of the groundwork.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Thursday, May 6, 2010
The look we wish to live under
I just finished reading Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being. I have to admit, throughout the entire novel, I debated whether I liked either of the main characters, Tomas or Tereza. To be honest, I debated back and forth how much respect I had for any of the characters as people. I'm not sure that this is grounds for disliking the novel. I don't dislike it. Actually, as I neared the end, a section of it stood out to me as Buran relevant. Perhaps relevant as we consider ourselves, our audience, and the characters we discover and develop. What do we think of his analysis?
Part 6: The Grand March, Chapter 23, pages 269-271
"We all need someone to look at us. We can be divided into four categories according to the kind of look we wish to live under.
The first category longs for the look of an infinite number of anonymous eyes, in other words, for the look of the public...
The second category is made up of people who have a vital need to be looked at by many known eyes. They are the tireless hosts of cocktail parties and dinners. They are happier than the people in the first category, who, when they lose their public, have the feeling that the lights have gone out in the room of their lives. This happens to nearly all of them sooner or later. People in the second category, on the other hand, can always come up with the eyes they need...
Then there is the third category, the category of people who need to be constantly before the eyes of the person they love. Their situation is as dangerous as the situation of people in the first category. One day the eyes of their beloved will close, and the room will go dark...
And finally there is the fourth category, the rarest, the category of people who live in the imaginary eyes of those who are not present. They are the dreamers...
Tomas's son belongs in the same category...The eyes he longed for were Tomas's. As a result of his embroilment in the petition campaign, he was expelled from the university. The girl he had been going out with was the niece of a village priest. He married her, became a tractor driver on a collective farm, a practicing Catholic, and a father. When he learned that Tomas, too, was living in the country, he was thrilled: fate had made their lives symmetrical! This encouraged him to write Tomas a letter. He did not ask him to write back. He only wanted him to focus his eyes on his life."
Part 6: The Grand March, Chapter 23, pages 269-271
"We all need someone to look at us. We can be divided into four categories according to the kind of look we wish to live under.
The first category longs for the look of an infinite number of anonymous eyes, in other words, for the look of the public...
The second category is made up of people who have a vital need to be looked at by many known eyes. They are the tireless hosts of cocktail parties and dinners. They are happier than the people in the first category, who, when they lose their public, have the feeling that the lights have gone out in the room of their lives. This happens to nearly all of them sooner or later. People in the second category, on the other hand, can always come up with the eyes they need...
Then there is the third category, the category of people who need to be constantly before the eyes of the person they love. Their situation is as dangerous as the situation of people in the first category. One day the eyes of their beloved will close, and the room will go dark...
And finally there is the fourth category, the rarest, the category of people who live in the imaginary eyes of those who are not present. They are the dreamers...
Tomas's son belongs in the same category...The eyes he longed for were Tomas's. As a result of his embroilment in the petition campaign, he was expelled from the university. The girl he had been going out with was the niece of a village priest. He married her, became a tractor driver on a collective farm, a practicing Catholic, and a father. When he learned that Tomas, too, was living in the country, he was thrilled: fate had made their lives symmetrical! This encouraged him to write Tomas a letter. He did not ask him to write back. He only wanted him to focus his eyes on his life."
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