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On Thursday April 11, 2002 the play, The Effects of Gamma Rays was performed in the Macfarlene auditorium at Utica College. The play was performed from April 11, 2002 through April 15, 2002. This play was written by Paul Zindel and was directed by Marijean Levering, a theatre teacher at Utica College. The play is another spin on the typical dysfunctional family. You have Beatrice, the unhappy mother whose hatred for life and its disappointments has led her to randomly torture her two daughters, Ruth, the crazy, starving for attention 16 year old who suffers from convulsions due to an unexplained breakdown, and Tillie the plain, brainy one who seems to tolerate any amount of nastiness and rejection without batting an eyelid. They are a very low income family due to Beatrice bringing in relatively close to $ 100 a week.
The mothers problems and disappointments are really the catalyst that sparks controversy between the family members. The part of Ruth was played by Jessie Dawes. She plays as a pretty, self centered, boy crazy teenager. She craves attention all the time. She does anything in her power to get people to pay attention to her.
If they do not she tends to throw a fit. She is in high school and has obviously not been married. Since she does not have a job she is not looked at as being high in economic status. However, her social status seemed to be relatively high.
She seemed like she had a lot of friends and was a likeable character. The character of Ruth wants many things. What she wants most however, is to be the focus of everyone around her at all times. She wants this as mush as possible. She attempts to gain this by wearing a lot of makeup and dressing in tight, form fitting clothes. She uses body language and a loud distracting voice in combination wit the other factors.
An example of this is when she comes home from school and immediately starts yelling around the house about her day and throws her body around in order to grab anyones attention that is around. Ruth never really allows Tillie to tell their mother about her science fair project because he jumps right in and tells the whole story. These are just a few examples of how she tries to get attention. Ruth wants attention from everyone wherever and whenever she pleases. She deliberately flaunts her stuff so that everyone will pay attention to her. Throughout the play, Tillie becomes the person who can help her get what she wants.
When Tillie becomes the center of attention for the slightest moment she gets all jealous and decides to use it to her advantage. Since her mother is agreeing to go to the science fair that means that Ruth will be missing out on attention for a couple hours. We can not have that can we? ? Of course not. So Ruth decides to tell her mother about the teachers waiting for her to show up to make fun of her. Beatrice is too upset to go now so Ruth goes with Tillie instead.
Her mother is the obstacle in this case. She was trying to prevent Ruth from going. But Ruth felt that if her mother showed up at school then she would be the laughing stock of the school and no one would talk to her. So she felt like her mother was in the way of her popularity. Ruths deepest fear is being ignored and having to take the back seat to someone else. Ruths tactics throughout the play seemed to always work in her favor.
The way she flaunted herself is an example of this. She dressed in ways to catch the attention of everyone. She wore bright lipstick which she colorfully labeled devils kiss. This always seemed to be pulled out when she was conversing with someone. Another tactic she used quite effectively was how she constantly kept her mouth running. She would talk nonstop in order to keep anyone else from talking.
She did this a lot when Tillie appeared to be in the spotlight. While she was helping Tillie get ready for the fair she kept talking about Mrs. Hanley and how much money she makes and just kept rambling. The tone in which she used to talk to people was also effective. The loud and annoying voice was hard to ignore by the other characters and the audience. It even brought the audiences attention away from the other characters to focus on her solely.
Ruth is a very effective character. She uses her tactics very well. She uses them to threaten all the other characters. She can threaten them by deliberately making rude comments to them and telling them what other people think of them. Ruth feels like she has nothing to lose. She does not really care who she hurts just as long as she has her way.
Tillie and her mother are far less sure of themselves as compared to Ruth. Ruth knows this and uses this power to get what she wants. She induces Tillie by telling her that she would tell mama about everyone waiting for her to show up so they can laugh at her if Tillie did not give her the rabbit. This just shows her selfishness. Ruth does not really care about the rabbit all that much but she uses it as leverage against Tillie so she can get what she wants. Ruth expects to get what she wants because she is used to it.
The way she has acted has gotten her way for so long that she just feels she deserves it now. She has a lot of friends to give her attention and everyone at home has no choice but to do the same. She has really grown accustomed to this type of response to her acting and dressing the way she does. The idea of being the center of attention excites her because she loves it when people focus on her and nobody else. When people do focus on her and she does get her way she will feel like she is on top of the world and this is obvious when this happens because of the facial expressions she shows as a result of getting what she wants. All of the actors techniques proved to be very effective.
Ruth used excessive body language, makeup, and tone to get what she wanted. The actor who played Nanny was quite effective. The way Tara moved across the stage made it believable that they were old. Also, the way she held her coffee or stared off into space at times resembled symptoms generally found in people her age.
The way the stage was set up was very useful in portraying the poorness of the family. The lighting was extremely effective. At some points it would be darker to show a more dismal tone to the scene. The way the lighting was set up during the lightning storm really made it believable. The most effective was when the lights were completely out and there were just flashes of lightning and the actors were only lit up by a flashlight.
This added an extra dimension to the play. Some fallacies in the play were commonly found in the person who played mama. At times she spoke a little too soft. Others she spoke so dismally it lulled the audience to sleep. She really did not put much emphasis into the phone conversations. I think that at times however the use of the dismal tone really showed how she was upset about her life.
One scene that could have been done differently was the science fair scene. The actors were cramped on the tiny side of the stage and a single spotlight was on the presenter. It could have taken place in the middle of the stage with more lighting to represent a more stage like appearance. Overall, the play The Effect of Gamma Rays was a decent play. The acting was good but the overall plot was hard to follow at times. Despite the plot being rather confusing all the other elements were very effective in conveying what the author of the play intended the audience to get out of this play.
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Research essay sample on Critique Of The Play Effects Gamma Rays
