KAVIETNAM

Khaled Alsafad Farley Richmond Thea2100H Oct 24 2010

__**Question 2's answer:**__

When Christopher Durang first thought up of his humorous production __The Vietnamization of New Jersey__, he must have thought out the many, if not all of the characteristics which would be displayed in a highly farce comedy for his students. From the beginning of the play we are drawn into this genre's multiple characteristics as the characters are introduced. We quickly realize the absurd-ful humor as Et, the youngest son is introduced as he grabs a box of cereal and pours them into his trousers to begin to eat from. Right afterwords Hazel, the family's house maid and most comical character comes in out of nowhere saying “that's one for mother!”. Right from the beginning both Et and Hazel provide the verbal humor such as when Et greets his parents with his first line stating “Gmorningmomndad” or as when Hazel loudly says “Lawdy Lawdy” after picking up Et's cereal from his trousers which kept clogging up the washer. Less than three lines after Hazel talks about the washing machine, physical humor is introduced as she abruptly disagrees with her masters tone and throws a cup onto the kitchen floor and madly rushes off into the other room. She later on calls Ozzie a “Bitch”, and also does the unlikely yet very humorous act of pulling of the breakfest table cloth with the items on it. The different levels of Intellect are shown in the way in which the characters were developed. The language use differs greatly from one character to another. This is most evident with Liat, who is introduced as David's “the oldest son comes home from the war at Vietnam with Liat” new wife. Both characters are introduced as becoming blind right after hazel's comment that the whole family was “cottage cheese”, while David was the only sufficient one. Liat is introduced as a Vietnamese woman who came to America with her new husband David and knows very little english. This is evident in her accent as she greets her new family saying “Allo amerrican mozer and fazer of davey”. Liat also serves as another characteristic of the farce comedy as the audience finds out that in reality she was an American girl who was in Vietnam on a vacation and was stuck there until Davey unknowing to all this brought her back as his Vietnamese wife. Christopher Durang's The vietnamization of New Jersey employs many of the major characteristics that describe any farce comedy. He took the risk of taking such a serious matter such as the Vietnamese war and laid it out in a comical way for an audience to fall in love with. Durang met many if not all the major points of a farce comedy. He taking the audience from 1967 to July 4th of 1976 and though this play focuses on that lifestyle and time period of the 60's and 70's, it will be a comical production that will be remembered for ages.