I enjoyed reading “Intimate Apparel” by Lynn Nottage. It was definitely different from reading a story with a narrator. Usually, a novel has a narrator or character telling a story what is going on in the story, as well as how certain characters are feeling. With reading a play, I can visualize what is going on as if I’m actually there. I’m no longer a reader, but I’m a spectator of the events taking place. I am reading the events as they are happening, but allows me to know everything that’s going on because I am present for all the conversations and significant situations that take place between different characters. Usually novels would have a omnipresent narrator or someone who knows more then majority of the characters. In reading this play, the roles are switched where I, being the reader, may know more than the characters. This gives me the position of being omnipresent. I am able to know things that aren’t the emotions of the characters that aren’t spelled out, but can be conveyed by what they say and the actions that the stage directions give the characters.
The way the play is written affects my way of reading because I have to read it line by line instead of sentence by sentence. Reading doesn’t flow as well as it does if I were reading a story. There are also a lot of stops in the script for giving stage directions to the characters, telling the person who were to be the character what to physically to display an emotion. This was something that I had to get used to because I had to tell myself that the direction weren’t something the character said, but did. It’s like I had to take a break in reading to read a side note about the characters action.
I completely agree with your response Zenia. I felt the same way while reading the play. I’ve always loved reading plays because it gives me the opportunity to be different characters at any given moment I felt like it. This play also allowed me to visually picture what was going on, almost like watching a movie that have subscripts. I placed myself in Esthers shoes every time she wanted to write back to George but didn’t know what to say or even how to write. I felt like I was the one going through the struggles that Esther went through. Like you stated, reading this play also gave me the opportunity to explore the characters internal conflicts as well as their external conflicts.
I agree with you. Reading a play is a lot different from reading a short story. There was a time when I wanted to ask someone to jump in as Mrs. Van Buren to help my understanding along. Reading a play is almost like a mystery at times. Reading a Novel or a story allows you certain information, that you may not have the liberty of knowing by reading a play. We look for certain emotion in grammar that Is not present when you are reading a play. It does however help that the plays have excerpts that kind of explain minor detail . I guess those details, that tell you what type of face the character is making, or how their eyebrow may have raised when a certain statement was made, would be considered the narration? Sometimes I even get lost between the ” narration” and the next line. Reading the play was a little different, but nonetheless interesting.
I completely agree with everyone. I feel like reading a play is a bit different from reading a story. It completely depends on the play, but sometimes in a play you know everything that’s going on with every character. You know whats in their minds. I find this interesting because usually in a story the main character is the only character that we completely know everything about. I feel like knowing more about what peoples intentions are and what people are thinking is a lot more interesting than having to guess. This way you want to know whats going to happen next because you want certain characters to find out certain things about other characters.