THE 1130 TU He and She 1910 Play Directorial Concept Sheet

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The 1130

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Mask #2 Director Completion of project (10) Thorough, insightful responses supported by script (30) Grammar, technical, etc.(10) Read Dramatic Interlude 6 "He and She " (p.425 2nd ed) (p. 438 3rd ed.) in your book. Now lets think about this play as though you are the director. Some of the answers are there in the script, but some of the questions will require you to use your imagination. Remember that you're trying to connect this story to the audience as it is given by the playwright. Fill out the entire sheet (don't skip any questions) and then submit it. He and She (1910) Setting: New York City, a comfortable middle-class house Major Characters: Tom Herford, a sculptor Ann Herford, Tom’s wife, also a sculptor Daisy Herford, Tom’s sister and secretary Millicent Herford, Tom and Ann’s daughter Dr. Remington, Ann’s father Keith McKenzie, Tom’s assistant Ruth Creel, Ann’s close friend, engaged to Keith Ellen, a maid The play begins in the studio shared by Tom and Ann, where their efforts at entering a major competition are considered. All the major ongoing issues faced by the women’s movement are handled in this play in a way that, considering its date of origin, is strikingly contemporary. Consider the way this couple discuss the relative talents of Tom and Ann: RUTH: I’ve heard you say she has genius—lots of times. KEITH: So she has—in a way. She has more imagination than the Governor, but great Peter!—When it comes to execution and the real thing, she isn’t in it with him. How could she be? She’s a woman. RUTH: Don’t be any more anti-diluvian or prehistoric than you can help, Keith. In his “prehistoric” way, Keith wants Ruth to give up her very successful publishing career to be a homemaker once they wed: KEITH: I can’t bear to see you so tired, dear. RUTH: I’ll be all right when I have some tea. KEITH: This time next year, you could be in your own home—away from those damnable office hours and this drudgery—if you only would. If you only would. RUTH: It never seems to occur to you that I might be a little less tired but bored to death without my job. Ruth even suggests what seems to her to be a reasonable solution if someone needs to stay at home: REMINGTON: When you’re married, are you going to stay at home and polish up while Ruth goes on running the magazine? KEITH: It looks as if that’s about the way it’ll have to be. RUTH: That’s a splendid idea. Keith thinks that somebody’s got to do it for a successful marriage—and I won’t so (pointing at KEITH) why not you dear? The argument for women seeking their own careers is summarized in capsule form by Ann, while Ruth argues for the importance of motherhood: ANN: There isn’t a single hard thing that can happen to a woman that isn’t made easier by being able to make her own living. And you know it. RUTH: I think being a mother is the most gigantic, difficult, important and thankless thing in the world. Ann is disappointed by the final version of a sculptural relief that Tom is submitting to a prestigious competition that offers a cash award of $100,000 for the winner. She decides, believing fully that her own ideas are probably too adventurous to be fully considered, to enter the competition herself: ANN: Since you’ve been working at this, an idea has come to me. At first I thought the idea was too big for me—that I never could carry it out—and then I said I won’t let myself be afraid—and it’s grown and grown night and day…. Then you know what I’m going to do? KEITH AND TOM: What? ANN: Make my models and send them in myself. REMINGTON: You don’t mean it, daughter. ANN: I do. I mean it with my whole soul. It becomes clear when Ruth is promoted to editor of a magazine and Keith wants her to give it up that their relationship is over. Keith slowly realizes that Daisy, with whom he has been working all this time, is someone more inclined to be the kind of wife that he desires: KEITH: I never saw tears in your eyes before. Women are funny things. DAISY: Yes, we’re funny. There’s only one thing on earth funnier. KEITH: What? DAISY: Men. Daisy and Ruth are in fundamental disagreement over what now constitutes and will in the future be the average woman: DAISY: You’ve got so used to your own ideas you forget that I am the average normal woman the world is full of. RUTH: Nonsense! You’re almost extinct. I’m the average normal woman the world is full of—and it’s going to be fuller and fuller. Ann ends up winning the competition, with Tom coming in second. He has always been supportive of her work and, although he experiences a brief lapse in enlightenment, ultimately wakes up and returns to being both enlightened and honoring her accomplishment. Their daughter, however, returns suddenly home from boarding school with a crisis clearly needing her mother’s attention and created by the fact that her mother did not allow her to come home to visit on several vacations because she was so busy working. Ann decides to take her on a trip and gets Tom to agree to execute the winning design for her in their absence, a somewhat ironic compromise because most observers consider her the person with the most brilliant vision and him the one with superior execution. Ann expresses sadness at not being able to realize fully her design herself: ANN: I’ve imagined people saying—“A woman did that”—and my heart has almost burst with pride—not so much that I had done it—but for all women. While many of the lines quoted here could reflect debates going on in households today, we need to remember that this play is 100 years old. While the characters all have strong beliefs, they also express them respectfully and with considerable dignity. Even Keith, the least enlightened of them all, is never less than courteous and thoughtful, and he probably is the sole character to express the dominant values of the year 1910. Here is a scene from He and She: ANN: [throwing the other letters on the table] Come here just a minute, Tom, please. TOM: [coming to door] What is it? ANN: Shut the door. It’s come! [Showing the letter. TOM opens it and reads it. A look of sickening disappointment comes into his face.] No? Oh, Tom! TOM: I was their second choice! ANN: Oh, Tom, don’t take it like that. What difference does it make, after all? You know you did a big thing. It’s all luck—anyway. TOM: I’ll pull up in a minute. Well, it means taking hold of something else pretty quick. Going at it again. ANN: Yes, keeping at it—that’s it. What a terrible lot chance has to do with it. TOM: Oh no, that isn’t it. ANN: Yes, it is, too. TOM: No—I failed. I didn’t get it, that’s all. ANN: You’ll do something greater—next time—because of this. TOM: [taking her hand] You’re a brick! Now, see here, don’t you be cut up about this. It’s not the end of everything, you know. Stop that! You’re not crying, I hope? ANN: No, I’m not. Of course, I’m not! [With passionate tenderness] Oh, my boy. I never loved you so much—never believed in you as I do now. This is only a little hard place that will make you all the stronger. TOM: Dear old girl! What would I do without you? I’ll tell the others and get it over. [Rising, he stops, staring at one of the letters on the table.] Ann! ANN: Um? TOM: [taking up a letter] Ann—here’s one for you, too. ANN: What? [She tears open the letter.] Tom! They’ve given the commission to me! Look! Read it! Is that what it says? Is it? Now aren’t you glad you let me do it? You haven’t lost! We’ve got it! Say you’re glad. Say you’re proud of me, dear. That’s the best part of it all. TOM: Of course I am, dear; of course I am. ANN: Oh, Tom, I wanted you to get it more than I ever wanted anything in my life, but this is something to be thankful for. Doesn’t this almost make it right? TOM: Yes, dear, yes. Don’t think of me. That’s over—that part of it. Tell the others now. ANN: Wait! TOM: Aren’t you going to? ANN: I only want to be sure that you’re just as happy that I won, as I would have been if you had. TOM: Of course I am. You know that. [Kissing her] ANN: Tell the others, then, Tom—I can’t. Say you’re glad, dear. TOM: You know I am, dear. You know that. ANN: [with a sigh of relief ANN sits at left of fire] Think how I’ll have to work. I can’t even go to the country in the summer. TOM: [sitting opposite ANN at the fire] And what will you do with Millicent this summer? ANN: Oh, there are lots of nice things for her to do. The money! Think what it will mean to you! TOM: Let me tell you one thing, Ann, in the beginning. I’ll never touch a penny of the money. ANN: What? TOM: Not a cent of it. ANN: What are you talking about? TOM: That’s your money. Put it away for yourself. ANN: I never heard you say anything so absolutely unreasonable before in my life. TOM: If you think I’m unreasonable, all right. But that’s understood about the money. We won’t discuss it. ANN: Well, we will discuss it. Why shouldn’t you use my money as well as I use ours? TOM: That’s about as different as day and night. ANN: Why is it? TOM: Because I’m taking care of you. It’s all right if you never do another day’s work in your life. You’re doing it because you want to; I’m doing it because I’ve got to. If you were alone, it would be a different thing. But I’m here, and so long as I am, I’ll make what keeps us going. ANN: But I’ll help you. TOM: No, you won’t. ANN: I will. I’m going on just as far as I have ability to go, and if you refuse to take any money I may make—if you refuse to use it for our mutual good, you’re unjust and taking an unfair advan—Oh, Tom! What are we saying? We’re out of our senses—both of us. You didn’t mean what you said. Did you? It would—I simply couldn’t bear it, if you did. You didn’t—did you? TOM: I did—of course. ANN: Tom—after all these years of pulling together, now that I’ve done something, why do you suddenly balk? TOM: [rising] Good Heavens! Do you think I’m going to use your money? Don’t try to run my end of it. It’s the same old story—when you come down to it, a woman can’t mix up in a man’s business. [He moves away.] ANN: Mix up in it? Isn’t it a good thing for you that I got this commission? TOM: No. I don’t know that it’s a good thing from any standpoint to have it known that I failed, but my wife succeeded. ANN: I thought you said you were glad—proud of me. TOM: It’s too—distracting—too—it takes you away from more important things. ANN: What things? TOM: Millicent and me. ANN: Oh, Tom—don’t! You know that you and Millicent come before everything on earth to me. TOM: No. ANN: You do. TOM: We don’t—now. Your ambition comes first. ANN: [she rises, going to him] Tom, I worship you. You know that, don’t you? TOM: I’m beginning to hate this work and everything in connection with it. ANN: But you taught me—helped me—pushed me on. What’s changed you? TOM: I let you do it in the first place because I thought it was right. I wanted you to do the thing you wanted to do. ANN: Well? TOM: I was a fool. I didn’t see what it would lead to. It’s taking you away from everything else—and there’ll be no end to it. Your ambition will carry you away till the home and Millicent and I are nothing to you! ANN: Tom—look at me. Be honest. Are you sorry—sorry I got this commission? TOM: I’m sorry it’s the most important thing in the world to you. ANN: Oh! Why do you say that to me? How can you? TOM: Haven’t I just seen it? You’re getting rid of Millicent now because you don’t want her to interfere with your work. ANN: No! TOM: You’re pushing her out of your life. ANN: No! TOM: You said just now you were going to send her away alone in the summer. I don’t like that. She’s got to be with you—I want you to keep her with you. ANN: But that’s impossible. You know that. If I stop work now, I might as well give up the frieze entirely. TOM: Then give it up. ANN: What? TOM: Give up the whole thing—forever. Why shouldn’t you? ANN: Do you mean that? TOM: Yes. ANN: Tom—I love you. Don’t ask this sacrifice of me to prove my love. TOM: Could you make it? Could you? ANN: Don’t ask it! Don’t ask it, for your own sake. I want to keep on loving you. I want to believe you’re what I thought you were. Don’t make me think you’re just like every other man. TOM: I am a man—and you’re my wife. And Millicent’s our daughter. Unless you come back to the things a woman’s always had to do—and always will—we can’t go on. We can’t go on. ANN: [following him around the table] Tom—if you’re just a little hurt—just a little jealous because I won— TOM: Oh— ANN: That’s natural—I can understand that. TOM: Oh—don’t— ANN: But—Oh, Tom!—the other—to ask me to give it all up. I could never forgive that. Take it back, Tom—take it back. TOM: Good God, Ann, can’t you see? You’re a woman and I’m a man. You’re not free in the same way. If you won’t stop because I ask it—I say you must. ANN: You can’t say that to me. You can’t! TOM: I do say it. ANN: No! TOM: I say it because I know it’s right. ANN: It isn’t. TOM: I can’t make you see it. ANN: It isn’t. TOM: I don’t know how—but everything in me tells me it’s right. ANN: Tom—listen to me. TOM: If you won’t do it because I ask you—I demand it. I say you’ve got to. ANN: Tom—you can kill our love by just what you do now. TOM: Then this work is the biggest thing in the world to you? ANN: What is more important to us both—to our happiness than just that? Millicent’s unexpected return from school interrupts them, and they now must turn their attention to her. THE 1130 – MASK: DIRECTOR DIRECTORIAL CONCEPT SHEET Student Name: Dramatic Interlude/Play Title: INSPIRATION What thematic “buzz words” come to mind as you read and analyze this play? (These can be anything, from verbs to nouns…just a list of random words that come to you when you study the scene.) What words might you use to describe the mood, feel, or “vibe” of this play? CASTING If you could cast any actors in the history of the world to play the major characters in this play, who would you cast in each part? (These can be famous people you’ve never met…as long as they fit the part.) IDEAS State the major idea of the play (as you see it) in ONE complete sentence. Remember that theme is NOT the plot, but rather a larger universal vision of the play’s meaning. Summarize what the play is about in ONE word. PRODUCTION Think about producing and directing this play. Which technical element of production do you feel is the most important for this play – lighting, sound, scenery, or costumes?
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