Tulsa+Lovechild+Play+Response

__The Life and Times of Tulsa Lovechild: A Roadtrip__ is the story of a woman who is the daughter of a hippie. She finds out that her mother, who recently passed away, had one dying wish: for her ashes to be scattered by a hotel in Tulsa, Oklahoma: the same hotel where she gave birth to Tulsa Lovechild. Tulsa therefore goes out on a roadtrip, meeting all sorts of characters when she arrives in Oklahoma, including an ex-TV star, conjoined twins, and Miss Nebraska. Greg Owens, the playwright of __Tulsa Lovechild__, told his story fairly well, although there were definite moments of confusion throughout the play. The story line jumped between five different stories that all came together at the resolution of the play. The first and most prominent story concerns Tulsa and her trip to spread her mother’s ashes. Tulsa frequently interacts with her mother’s spirit, talking with her and even arguing with her at times. The second story is about Ed, “The Boy Detective.” Ed is a famous TV star who decides to quit his job on a silly show in order to pursue more challenging acting jobs. Ed meets up with Tulsa in Wyoming by chance and travels with her to Oklahoma. A third story is about Kelly Jo, the Miss Nebraska contestant in the Miss America pageant, and her interactions with Clyde, a simple country boy who is absolutely in love with her. The fourth story concerns Valerie and Rose, conjoined twins who plot to escape from a religious commune in order to get a surgery to become two separate people. The fifth story is about Woody, who is Tulsa’s birth father. He left Sylvia, Tulsa’s mother, before Tulsa was born, and his actions on stage convey his regret about leaving. When these stories are all separate, the transition between them can be abrupt at times, leaving the audience slightly confused as to what is going on. The audience is required to remember where each story left off before transitioning to another story, but at times it was very difficult to remember what had happened previously and it often took me a couple minutes to figure out what was going on. These rough transitions were the only hiccups in the very well-told story, however, and the plot of the story was clear to the audience most of the time. Also, Owens’ seeming anti-war view was apparent in small parts of the play. The subject matter of the play was fairly important to me. The play concerned a number of subjects, including mother-daughter relationships, moving on after the death of a loved one, and pursuing the things you love. Tulsa’s relationship with her mother does not seem strong. She talks about how she wasn’t there for her mother as she lay dying and how she didn’t keep in contact with her mother very often. Their relationship was not a strong one, and weakened as Tulsa got older and more independent. However, throughout the play, Tulsa’s interactions with her mother’s spirit seem to improve their relationship, and they work through a few of the problems that were prevalent before Sylvia’s death. These interactions bring mother and daughter together again and strengthen the relationship that they did not have in life. The subject of moving on in life after the death of a loved one is and important lesson to everyone, as most people will unfortunately experience the death of someone important in their lifetime. Tulsa learns at the very end of the play that it is okay to grieve her mother, but in spreading her ashes she is able to let go of her regrets, pay her final respects to her mother, and move on to bigger things in her life. Finally, the subject of pursuing the things you love is established in every character’s story. Kelly Jo is pursuing a life in the limelight, while Clyde avidly pursues her and his hope for her love. Ed pursues a more worthwhile acting career in more sophisticated roles, and Valerie and Rose pursue their desire for independence. Every character in the play goes after what they want, and most of them are well on their way to achieving their dreams at the end of the play. In my opinion, the actors were exceptional and were able to convey all emotions phenomenally. The intimacy of the small theater also helped, since the entire audience was close enough to see all the actors’ facial expressions and to see even their smallest actions. They all seemed to really accept their roles and get into them, making the role like their real life in the duration of the two-hour play. Also, the assistants of the play, painted blue with white cloud shapes on their costumes, were a tremendous help to the play. They moved the car around the stage to indicate motion, moved props, adopted other roles, such as policemen busting up a religious commune and waitresses at a small diner, and contributed to the humor of the play with their small actions. The setting of the stage and physical production also helped clarify the story often. The stage was essentially split into two halves. The right half would serve as a scene in one part, then the lights would switch to illuminate the left half of the scene, indicating a different sub-story with different characters. The physical production wasn’t very realistic, despite its assistance in clarifying the plot. For example, it included a giant telephone inside a telephone booth, and a car that was made from the stairs of a hotel bed. The imaginative quality of the setting contributed to the humor of the play, however, and was overall an excellent production. The night that I attended the production, the audience was responsive, but not very into the play. They laughed at the exceptionally funny remarks or actions of the performers, but the smaller humorous remarks slipped past most of the audience without a reaction. It was a little disappointing that most people weren’t completely immersed in the play because I have learned that a responsive audience usually makes watching a production more entertaining. I didn’t get to hear many people’s comments during intermission of the play, but from what I did hear everybody thought that Kelly Jo and Clyde’s story was very funny. They also thought that the assistants in blue in the play were entertaining, although sometimes creepy. Although many of my friends asked me how I liked the play, I wasn’t able to convince any of them to go and see it. However, I did convince them to come see future plays with me. I talked about the quality of the play and how interesting the setting of the cellar theater was so that quite a few of my friends want to come see future plays with me. I won’t always urge my friends to go see a play I have already seen, but I do rave about good plays after I see them and provide a number of positive comments. Also, even though I enjoyed the play, I probably won’t seek after any other works by Greg Owens. The play was a little too eccentric for my tastes, and I usually prefer to read more tame plays than this one. All in all, I enjoyed watching __The Life and Times of Tulsa Lovechild: a Roadtrip__, and I am very excited to view another play by the UGA theater department.