Stage Play / Angelus (Analysis)

To answer your questions, the characterization is good and the dialogue is existentially realistic. However, the theme is a bit unclear to me. I realize that there is some sort of role reversal going on (Abel beating up Cane instead of Cain killing Abel), but there seems to be as little rationale behind the attack as there was in the original murder. Perhaps that is the intended point.
One question: the stage directions that read “Abel falls to the floor, on his knees, upset”—should that be Cane?
Overall, this play was quite interesting. The thing about the ravens/doves was a nice allusion to the original story.

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October 05, 2009

by CiannaSkye

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It’s ok to be vague about the theme, but I would try to make it a bit clearer for those in the audience who would want to ponder its significance.

October 05, 2009

by CiannaSkye

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It’s ok to be vague about the theme, but I would try to make it a bit clearer for those in the audience who would want to ponder its significance.

October 04, 2009

by Apatheticwriter13

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21	M	Marrero, LA	November 14

I wasn’t too sure about a theme here. Maybe expressing my feelings on religion.

Thanks for your review, though.

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I’m seeing a sense of absurdism in your writing along with a style that is similar to “Waiting for Godot” and although I think you use it well, there are times where you spoil it by making their sentences too long. Something isn’t quite working, in my opinion.

I am not familiar with the story of Cane and Abel, all I know is that they were brothers and that one killed the other. I can’t remember why, did it have something to do with a woman?! If you are building up to that then  you need to raise the stakes a little. I understand it coming out of nowhere links into the nature of the absurdist movement…but Cane and Abel represent humanity and therefore you need to give them more human like reasons to want to hurt and kill each other.

I enjoyed the contemporary references you threw in, for example the mocha coffee and the computer, that contrasted well with the biblical theme and made me chuckle.

Overall, I did like it, but I think you’re trying to juggle/combine too many things. Either go with the absurd and really play around with the dialogue. You started with the purple elephant…get even more into it. OR pick the serious theme that you have with Cane and Abel and really work on fleshing out those characters and giving them a sense of power.

Good luck :)

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June 21, 2009

by Apatheticwriter13

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Yeah, I’m a big Beckett fan. I was worried this would actually come off as too derivative of his style.

I might considering editing out the funy parts and just focusing it on the overall seriousness of this piece.

Again, thanks for your review.

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“To save the fly race. If I kill him, the other flies will look on him as a savior. He sacrificed his life for their survival. I’m doing all them a favor.”

This play is quite fusile. It would be perfect if performed in a series of Theatre of the Absurd plays, with Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett coming to mind specifically.

For first time pulbishing, I wish you good luck – this type of play seems hard to publish because it requires two people to entertain an audience for a long period of time. However, it requires two people, has low prop requirements, setting requirements, and is, assumably, not too long.

It could be published, but if you want it as a feature going to have to create some sort of series of stories to go along with it – in the vein of The Canterbury Tales…you could do other Christian/Catholic religious artistry and put a couple of other Biblical pairings at work.

For Stage Play Overall I think it would be quite a fascinating show.
You have several quips that keep the audience expectant for the next words – it would require some fairly solid actors (i.e. one of the more famous performances of Waiting for Godot was with, I believe, Steve Martin and Robin Williams).

Anyways, good luck, and I enjoyed visualizing the play immensely.

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June 21, 2009

by Apatheticwriter13

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21	M	Marrero, LA	November 14

Thanks for the review, I actually wrote the play after reading Endgame by beckett, it influecned me so immensly.

One thing I was thinking about while writing the play was the isual aspect of it. And yeah it would be kind of hard to get something like this published.

Thanx for the review.

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I really liked this even though I didnt get the ending. I was sure Cane was going to kill/beat Abel. I just really like the dialog…it was funny. But I didnt get the over all message/moral…I was hoping a clearer and much simple ending. Gramma wise only a couple spacing issues. So besides the ending in my opinion everything worked.

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April 23, 2009

by Apatheticwriter13

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Thnaks for the review. I didn’t really have a moral/message in mind, just wanted to bring up afew themes on my mind, like the absence of religion and how paralyzed people are, etc.

I was really going for a bizarre theater of the abusrd thing here. After looking over it, I’m kinda iffy on the ending too. I’m thinking about changing it and making it a bit more declarative.

Again, thanks for the kind words.

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well this certainly was a refreshing read. I like the dialogues, they seemed so absurd and that they left me thinking about them while i was reading on and that is certainly a good thing, as you have attracted my attention.
the only thing about the dialogues…you make abel and cane sound like robots and thats ok, i’m pretty sure that was the intention. however sometimes you almost unnaturally pull them away from their own world where sunday was yesterday with lines like ‘whatever’ or ‘shut up’ or ‘go for it’. it would be better to keep these lines after cane walks outside so you see the influence the outside world has already on the two.
but overall the conversations were something quite new and i liked it.
themes…i’m not sure what the themes will be to be honest, maybe lost love which needs to be handled carefully without melodrama or the rivalry between cane and abel seems very obvious, but watch out here too cos you already have them fighting in the very first scene, how will you hypen it up?
the story seems nice as well, it might be interesting to see what actually happened prior to this scene in the scale of things…but i’m sure all will be explained later on and that will play for your main premis of the play

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February 27, 2009

by Apatheticwriter13

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Thanks for the comments and review.

I had just read Beckett when I wrote this and so I really just tried to imitate his style.

But again, thanks for the kind words and advice. I’ll get right to it.

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   I enjoyed the dialogue and relationship between the characters, but the reason’s for them being there was not clear. I suggest that you give more expression and movement to Abel. It would be great to include a character breakdown prior to where your dialogue begins. i.e. Abel – strong, quiet type, etc. In playwrighting make sure you can answer the 5 W’s clearly – Who, What, Where, and Why.

   You have your Who: Brother, Cane and Abel Where: Church established clearly but the What (are they doing there) and Why, are not. As a drama director and stage manager for over 15 years, these are the first things I look for when I am considering a play for production, hence my suggestion.

   Lastly, just a note. Replace the word (Pause) with (Beat) when you want your characters to take a moment for their thought changes or if there is a change from one emotion to another. It serves as a simple stage direction and acting note when the line is being internalized by the actor.  

This piece kept me reading it.  I feel like there is some sort of hidden meaning that I almost get, but not quite.  It sort of reminded me of an acid trip occuring in a church, which isn’t an insult.  I got sort of a satirical vibe, of the meaninglessness of everything, that some people take so seriously.  I thought it was cool and kind of funny.  I don’t know how it would actually go over in front of an audience though.

nice absurdist work… however the notion of past and presnt coming together seems to be a throwaway one… if this play is to work there has to be a violent clashing of the themes… subtlety doesn’t work with the bible…

I really wanted to get into this because I love religious deconstruction and one of my favorite plays is R&G Are Dead, the existential qualities of which echo throughout your dialogue.  Your random inquiries however, were more incessant than interesting [to me] however and I’m hoping that perhaps there’s more to this Cain (the actual spelling) and Abel story than I am readily aware.  

The opening is confusing—clean it up by being as concise as possible.  Whatever it is you see, describe it exactly.  The window in the “back” is Far US correct? The pews line the wings, with an aisle down the center from U to D correct? What side is the altar? Is the audience looking from the view of the pulpit, or are they looking toward the pulpit (this will determine whether or not the window in question is a relevant description)?  What does “facing the front” mean?

Which Mary are they talking about? (this could be for my own ignorance, but indulge me anyway).  What is with the “fondness for elbows?”

This, however, is the single most interesting line in the entire play, and IMHO the only solid evidence of your mastery of the English language:  ”The nails were driven into his flesh. They dug through his body like earwigs desperate to reproduce. He hung on the cross, emaciated and weary. Everyone cheered.”  BRILLIANT.  Written in a deliberate manner and delivered in a robotic stagnation that would either imply unsympathetic characters or complete ignorance of formal emotion (either of which would be a sound description for these two).  PLEASE WRITE MORE LIKE THIS.  The rest of this sounds like a small-town community theatre vet trying to write an existential chamber-drama about the relevance of religion (which I would have truly loved to see), but sadly had failed due to obvious inexperience (not yours, the imagined “vet”).  

If you need more backstory (which, to me, it appears so) find a way to weave it into the quasi-intellectual jabs without spoon-feeding us.  If you need more relational development, play on the biblical text more, like perhaps play more on the statue of Jesus’ LACK of compassion towards Cain (which according to text is the reason Cain murdered his brother). Your ideas can be figurative and as such contemplative, but make them concrete and draw a connection—lead your audience to the conclusion you are making.  Please keep working on it and guide the dialogue in a specific direction (not necessarily an OBVIOUS one, but something conceptually solid).